the littlest birds

SUNDAY June 8
3 hour Ocean's Day and Ethnobotanist/Ornithologist/Historian hosted tour of the estuary.

Began at the wharf checking out the bones: the orca jaw, the seal and otter skull, the shark jaw and some crustacean eating fish jaws. Otter pelts and baby salmonids sent up from the Vancouver Aquarium. I love how enthralled the kids are. I'm so glad that when I check in, I am still feeling just as awed by it all. I look at the live touch-tank, but almost everything in it is dead, which is fucking depressing and very uncoolly irresponsible. Different from the cool kind of irresponsible. I listen for a bit anyways about the crabs, the starfish, the sole, the sea cucumber, the anenemes, and the urchins, all of which are dead in the kiddie-pool tank, most likely from some inner rage fuming out, rampaging, unsupervised child. The seasquirt or ascidiacea, which I'd never seen before and learned are sessile, meaning firmly attached to rocks, and sac-like but firm to touch, were crazy. And touch I did, until some little hellian smashed it on the cement like a psycho.

Took a break after that, losing hope in humanity for a few minutes, heading back to my truck and singing Old Number Seven until I felt right in the head again.
Came home and ate before heading out into the pouring rain to walk with the group touring the estuary. They had started down the trail already, but I caught up to the pack of six or so people as she began talking about reeds, grasses, and sedges, and maybe how the different kind of swamp grasses were used. Sedges have edges, reeds have seeds, grasses have nodes from their tips to their feet. Her poem reminder. There are the snakeskin lilies growing wild here among the horsetail and wintergreen! 

Sweet Gale, or Monkey bush has something to do with the one of the three kind of sasquatches. The one that lives here in the estaury area is small, hairy, and male, not as scary, and called the Boke. The bushes have a male plant and a female plant, the male will often end up in the middle of a bush of females. Nuxalk people boiled the branches to create a diuretic. Branches, bark and leaves have been used to make“ gale beer. The plant also has been boiled to create a potion that acts as an insecticide and to kill vermin.
 

Frittalaria affinis, or chocolate lily, have rice grains at the root in autumn, and stink as all flowers do that are pollinated by flies.
Bugbane are the palmate looking plants that shoot up one or two leaves per stalk. They can be mashed and are very acidic. When there was alot of trade here in this port town, there were a lot of cases of staph, with boils. It was used as a paste on the boil to burst it since it makes the skin blister. People use it sometimes with the MRSA that they get. Twisted clutching root used as labour inducer after too long a labour. It is strongly advised to not try this at home, but all but two of the group are over 60, so that was a funny warning.
 

Wild roses are ubiquitous here, you can smell them as you ride into harbour on the ferry. The fruit can be used dry in tea or soup, and raw in syrup, or purees. The ripe fruit is best after a frost as it sweetens, but watch for the fine hairs below the seeds that irritate the mouth and digestive tract. High in vitamin C, A, and E, flavanoids, bio-active compounds and essential fatty acids. Investigated as a food that may prevent, reverse, or slow cancers. Tea can also be made from the leaves. Young shoots are peeled and eaten in spring. Flower petals are used in water or cakes, but first remove the bitter white base.  A decoction of the roots is a cough remedy. The plant is high in tannin, and astringent. Infusion of the roots is a wash for sore eyes. An infusion of the leaves for smowblindness. A decoction of the stems and branches can be used as a blood tonic and for stomach complaints, colds and fevers. A poultice of the chewed leaves can alleviate bee stings.

Crow berries- or moss berries- blackcurrant-ish looking things, were used as a hair dye, to keep away greys! Mountain Ash berries were rubbed on the scalp to treat lice, and a branch bark and root infusion used for rheumatism and stomach pain, or an infusion of branches to stop excessive urination, such as for bed wetting.
The Nuxalk woman told of an elder who spoke of ridding headaches by pulling a thread that had been pulled through the stem of a hellebore, though the skin of her temple. The hellebores and devils club and dog something all look too similar to fuck with. All from the carrot family, they have that white flowering, flat top. The sap of devils club are nerve damaging, the hellebores are the same as what killed Socrates, wild hemlock, but the dog something was hugely useful. Its just that they all look so close to one another that you wouldn't want to use it, period, unless very well versed.

We ended up coming back around to a sitka spruce forest. They like the marshy places.
Sitka spruce sap can be used as a sterile antiseptic poultice on wounds, and I was told they often see people come into the hospital with it on. Young shoots are eaten raw. Young male catkins are eaten raw or cooked, and used as a flavouring. Immature female cones can be cooked. The central portion, when roasted, is sweet and syrupy. Inner bark is nutritious raw or cooked. It can be dried, ground into a powder and then used as a thickener in soups etc or added to cereals when making bread. The inner bark was usually harvested in the spring, though it was also sometimes taken in the summer. An emergency food, it is only used when all else fails. Seeds are eaten raw. The seed is about 2 - 4mm. It is rich in fats and has a pleasant slightly resinous flavour but is too small and fiddly to be worthwhile unless you are desperate. A refreshing tea, rich in vitamin C, can be made from the young shoot tips. A gum obtained from the bark is hardened in cold water and then used for chewing. It should be aged for 3 days or more before using it. The best gum is obtained from the southern side of the tree.
Medicinal Uses: Analgesic;  Antirheumatic;  Antiseptic;  Diuretic;  Laxative;  Ophthalmic;  Pectoral;  Poultice;  Salve;  Stomachic;  TB.
Sitka spruce was widely employed medicinally for its antiseptic and pectoral qualities in the treatment of lung complaints, wounds, sores etc. The inner bark is laxative. It has been chewed in the treatment of throat problems, coughs and colds. A decoction of the branch tips and the bark has been used in the treatment of rheumatism, stomach pains, constipation and gonorrhoea. A decoction of the cones has been taken in the treatment of pain. The cones have also been used in steam baths to treat rheumatism. A decoction of the bark has been used as a steam bath in the treatment of back aches. The resin is antiseptic and diuretic. A decoction has been used in the treatment of gonorrhoea. A poultice of the resin has been used as a rub on rheumatic joints. Combined with Indian Hellebore roots (Veratrum viride), it has been used as a poultice on rheumatic joints. The resin has also been used as a dressing or poultice on cuts, broken skin, boils, wounds, infections and suppurating sores. The resin has been chewed as a breath freshener and as a treatment for TB. The gum from new shoots and small branches has been placed in the eyes as a treatment for snow blindness. A decoction of the roots has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea.
Other Uses
Adhesive;  Basketry;  Fuel;  Gum;  Pitch;  String;  Varnish;  Waterproofing. The tough and flexible root is used in basket making and as a string. They grow horizontally over the ground, out from the tree, so there is easy access to them. The roots were burnt over an open fire to remove the bark, then they were dried and split to make hats, ropes etc. The roots were also used to make tightly woven baskets that would hold water.  These were cut into lengths 75 - 90cm long and 12 - 25mm in diameter. Whilst still full of sap and soft, these were split into broad flat bands and these in turn were sub-divided by knife and teeth until the desired size was obtained - a little larger than coarse thread, about like small twine. The vertical rods were made of hazel (Corylus spp) and the overlay was bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax). The limbs and roots can be pounded, shredded and used to make ropes. A pitch is obtained from the tree and is used for caulking boats, waterproofing boxes etc. The rendered pitch has been used as a glue. The pitch can be melted then used as a protective varnish-like coat on wood. The wood is a good fuel, knotted bits of wood would keep the fire burning all night. 


Talked about the skunk cabbage, and its bulb of yellow that holds and amplifies the sun, creating heat that allows it to bloom so early. It blooms in time for the bears to eat the roots, and after hibernation it works as a laxative or cathartic, to get their guts moving again. The plant was used by indigenous people as medicine for burns and injuries. Although the plant was not typically part of the diet under normal conditions, its large, waxy leaves were important to food preparation and storage. They were commonly used to line berry baskets, to wrap around whole salmon and other foods when baked under a fire, or line the cedar boxes in which food was cooked, with rose shoots and horsetails and oolichan grease. It is also used to cure sores and swelling.

What was notable was the birdsongs that went with the times of year the plants became useable. The Nuxalk have particular word names for these times of year; the birdsongs or plant beginnings as markers for harvesting times or growing seasons. The Nuxalk woman told us that her sister was named after the flowering of the roses which was accompanied by the Golden Kinglet's song.