Forestgarden
Summary
Turtle Island
As across almost all of the so-called United States the original settlers viewed the land as a wild untouched landscape absent of human intervention or cultivation. As time has gone on the western scientific communities are now realizing vast amounts of land across Turtle Island were managed and tended to including many plants considered "wild."[1]
Fist Nations in the North West
Many Nations in the North West of Turtle Island, such as the Tsm'syen and Coast Salish First Nations, have cultivated forest gardens for thousands of years.[2]The two nations listed above would clear spots next to native coniferous forests and plant perennial species and shrubs including: Crabapple, Wild Cherry, Plum, Soapberry, Wild ginger, Rice Roots, and medicinal herbs. The Nations would collect and transplant the plants while utilizing many techniques to keep the forest garden healthy such as pruning, fertilizing, coppicing, and controlled burns.[3]
Colorado Plateau
Hazelnut in Motion
There is a fleeting ethnographic record of hazelnut in so-called British Columbia, however shell fragments can be found archaeologically throughout the province. Linguistic evidence also supports the hypothesis that long distance transplanting of hazelnut, from the Salish region to the Ts'msyen, Gitxsan and Wet'suwet’en regions resulted in ecologically disjunct populations (e.g., in Hazelton BC, hence the name). Hazelnut was traditionally managed by fire and has numerous uses for people including for food (nut), for fuel (oily shells), it was an important medicine, the root produced an intense blue dye, and young switches were used for weaving and construction. ...[4]
Beaked hazelnut and the closely related American hazelnut (C. americana Walt.) are valued as food and medicinal plants for Indigenous peoples across North America and were used by Algonquin, Cree, Mi’kmaq, and Maliseet peoples, and by many groups of British Columbia, including Straits Salish, Halq’eméylem, Squamish, and Nuu-chah-nulth on the Coast, and Nlaka’pamux, Stl’atl’imx (Lillooet), Syilx (Okanagan-Colville), Secwepemc (Shuswap), Ktunaxa (Kootenay) in the BC Interior, and the Nisga’a and Gitxsan in the north, as well as by virtually all Indigenous peoples of Western Washington.[1]
Residential schools and ongoing colonialism have disrupted and in some cases erased deep place-based agriculture practices and for hazelnut the same is true.[1]
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Armstrong, C. G., Dixon, W. M., & Turner, N. J. (2018). Management and Traditional Production of Beaked Hazelnut (k’áp’xw-az’, Corylus cornuta; Betulaceae) in British Columbia. Human Ecology. doi:10.1007/s10745-018-0015-x
- ↑ Leopold EB, Boyd R. 1999. An Ecological History of Old Prairie Areas in Southwestern Washington. Pages 139–163 in Boyd R eds. Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon State University Press
- ↑ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/indigenous-forest-gardens-remain-productive-and-diverse-for-over-a-century/
- ↑ https://www.chelseygeralda.com/traditional-hazelnut-management