This week I went for a walk at Swan Lake. “Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary is a charitable, non-profit organization that cares for 170 acres of wetlands and Garry oak meadow.” (Swan Lake christmas hill nature sanctuary). The nature sanctuary has a garden that features many local native plants. They have lots of resources available in the nature house and on their website. Additionally, they offer native plant workshops and native plant sales.
This photo, taken from the Swan Lake nature sanctuary website, shows the nature house where the workshops are available. The image is a hyperlink to take you to their page on native plant workshops. They teach you native plant identification and their ecological benefits among other things. Around the garden they have posted wooden signs with QR codes that tell you the name of the native plant in multiple languages including SENĆOŦEN and lək̓ʷəŋiʔnəŋ.
The specific plant that I will be focusing on for this blog post is the native strawberry plant! While they are not in season yet there were still some growing in the native plant garden at swan lake. There are lots of uses for these plants both medicinally and culinarily. I have a set of Pacific Northwest Plant Knowledge Cards (which I will link down below) that highlight edible and medicinal plants.
The strawberry plant card or t̕íl̕əqʷ(SENĆOŦEN), features some of its traditional uses. Indigenous people used the leaves to brew a tea that soothes sore throats. The leaves can be chewed up and put on an open sore to heal the wound. In terms of culinary usage, strawberries can be eaten off the vine or made into a jam. When confronted with wild strawberries it is important to remember the guidelines of the Honourable Harvest (Kimmerer, 2013).
This video is from the novel Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer (2013).
References: Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions. Swan Lake christmas hill nature sanctuary. Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary. (n.d.). https://www.swanlake.bc.ca/
The image is a hyperlink to the strong nations site to purchase the cards.
