July 10, 2010: After a trip to Tillicum Village with my mom, I started thinking more about native people and native foods, especially in the context of wild food and ethnobotany, which I'd also started being interested in the prior year. So when I saw the Cedar River Watershed Education was offering a class on native herbs, I signed up.
The Cedar River Watershed Education Center is located on the shore of Rattlesnake Lake and it is a gorgeous spot. The Center "is a gateway to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed, which provides drinking water for 70% of 1.4 million people living in the greater Seattle area." It offers walking tours, adult and family classes, and school programs. Various spots around the site have scopes for watching wildlife; I heard several Swainson's Thrushes and Spotted Towhees as I waited for the class. The courtyard has a rain drum display running throughout the day.
Spotted Towhee is the rattle, Swainson's is the whistle, rain drum percussion.
The class was taught by Mary Preus. She is the author of two books on Northwest herbs – TheNorthwest Herb Lover's Handbook and Growing Herbs: for the Maritine Northwest Gardener. She's also a senior gardener for Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Mary explained that plants are considered herbs if they are "useful" to humans, meaning they are edible and/or medicinal or serve some kind of mechanical purpose. Here are some of the highlights of the talk, with one major caveat: unless you know what you are doing or are out with a knowledgeable person, please don't pick and eat anything out in the wild without being absolutely sure it is what you think it is. This year in Washington state, Poison Hemlock has sickened several people, and even killed one woman. So please be careful!
An example of a plant used extensively in a mechanical purpose is the Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata). This tree was central to the aboriginal people of the region. They used it to make shelter, transportation, and tool. The relatively soft and pliable bark was also used to make baskets and even clothing. Usually the plant material was harvested – even planks for building – without actually felling the tree. Mary also let us know that the wood "contains a natural fungicide that preserves the wood up to 100 years."
Mary showed us some coiled cedar strips and some baskets she'd made from cedar. She also gave us an overview the basket-making process. If you're curious about basket-making, the Duwamish Longhouse in West Seattle sometimes offers classes.
Another useful tree is the Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). In addition to the expected uses of the wood, the pitch from the cones is used as a medicinal salve. Mary showed us how to identify cones from the Douglas Fir - they have "tails" called "mice."
We got to see and taste the native edible Oregon Grape (low is Berberis or Mahonia nervosa, and tall is Berberis or Mahonia aquifolium). While edible, the berry of the Oregon Grape is quite tart. They were often mixed with salal or another sweeter fruit. One of the students in the class, Tom, suggested that a good way to eat the berries raw is to have two Oregon Grape berries to one Service Berry or Saskatoon. The Service Berry is sweet, but bland, and so the combo of the two, was, in fact, a nice mix.
You can also make a preserve out of the Oregon Grape. I don't yet have Mary's recipe for it, but Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast recommends making a jelly "using two cups of Oregon-grape juice, two cups of salal juice, five cups of sugar and one box of pectin."
Speaking of the Serviceberry or Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia), here's a little more about that plant. As mentioned, they have a sweet but bland berry, which native people dried into a cake for storage. Per the Pojar plant guide, the wood was used for arrows, digging sticks, and drying racks.
Dried serviceberry
Salmonberry
Here are some books Mary brought for the class to check out:
Growing Herbs by Mary Preus
Northwest Herb Lover's Handbook by Mary Preus
Plants of the Pacific Northwest by Jim Pojar
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West by Gregory Tilford
Plant Technology of the First People by Nancy J. Turner
Food Plants of the Interior First Peoples by Nancy J. Turner
Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples by Nancy J. Turner