Here’s a reminder of what life was like on our coast before Europeans arrived: Cooking in a Bentwood Box. Prior to the trade of steel cookware on the Pacific Northwest, the Native Americans prepared many foods in wooden cooking boxes. Instead of putting the box on a heat source, red hot rocks were placed inside [...]
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If you’re interested in native plants, First Nations’ traditional diets, and health, this article is for you. From Indigenous Reporting: Uprooting diabetes: Riceroot grows again. Leigh Joseph squats down in the marshy estuary toward a grey, lifeless stem poking out of the grass. In the distance, the cliff-face of the Stawamus Chief, an iconic granite [...]
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Skunk cabbages (swamp lanterns) are in bloom all over Gabriola right now. Have you ever thought of eating them for dinner? I’ve mentioned that they’re edible, if you prepare them properly so that they don’t hurt your mouth. Here’s an account from a Washington State blogger who harvested and ate skunk cabbage: I have been [...]
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Feel like going into Nanaimo on Tuesday April 3rd? Here’s what will be happening that evening: 6:30 p.m. Snuneymuxw Chief Doug White will be discussing the Douglas Treaty of 1854 at the Nanaimo Harbourfront Library, 90 Commercial St. Prior to his discussion the Snuneymuxw dancers will perform in Diana Krall Square and then dance up [...]
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Every once in a while, Iain Lawrence’s blog comes to life again. I always notice; Iain’s writing is worth noticing. Tonight you should go look at his most recent blog post, The Fallen.
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From the Daily News: Snuneymuxw chief worried about effect of Enbridge Gateway pipeline. Snuneymuxw First Nation chief Doug White fears for the First Nations and other people along B.C.’s coast if the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline proceeds.(…) White said the possibility of a dramatic increase of an activity in the area that could have devastating [...]
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Did you know that there’s an official manual published by the BC government, explaining how to identify and describe culturally modified trees? (If you’re not sure what those are, see Gabriolan’s past post on the subject, Gabriola’s culturally modified trees.) You can download the guide (as a honking big pdf of more than 38 megs, [...]
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The University of York has published an article about the dog hair the Coast Salish used in weaving: Researchers from the University of York have produced the first clear evidence that textiles made by the indigenous population of the Pacific coast of North America contained dog hair. In recent years, scientists have hotly debated whether [...]
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It would be hard to ignore the presence of herring on Gabriola beaches, especially when the herring spawn. Now here’s an article on that important little fish from The Tyee: Behold! The Mighty Herring! It’s all about the herring, an anthropological researcher named Iain McKechnie said to me at a dinner party about a year [...]
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A while ago I came across the term diseases of civilization: those diseases that were not present in aboriginal populations before the arrival of European settlers and the introduction of European foods like flour and sugar. That got me thinking about the traditional diet of BC’s coastal First Nations — a diet that included fish [...]
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Gabriola Island is part of the Snuneymuxw First Nation‘s traditional territory; so is Nanaimo. And in Nanaimo, the Snuneymuxw news today is what some geocachers found. A group of geocachers found more than they were searching for on the weekend. Nanaimo RCMP confirmed Monday that a group of people on an afternoon geocaching foray discovered [...]
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Remember when you bought your Gabriola property, and your realtor or lawyer insisted on an archaeological record search? (Oh, what is the correct term for it?) The idea is that, before you buy land, you check to make sure that there’s no archaeological site on that land. Because if there is such a site on [...]
Here’s archeological news from a site not too far from Gabriola. From the Comox Valley Echo: Fish traps ‘almost 1400 years old’. Some of the ancient fish traps in the Courtenay Estuary are way older than first imagined. Radiocarbon dating of the remains of wooden stakes pounded in to the mud has revealed some date [...]
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Following on from some earlier conversations on this blog about disappearing languages (not just native ones), I recommend this article to those interested in learning more about the subject. About BC’s native languages, the article says:
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Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning is in the news again. That reminded me of this story from October 1888. It’s from the Gabriola Edition of the Nanaimo Free Press: Charlie Peters, a Penelecut Indian, sworn, deposed: "Last Friday, I and my klootchman, Tsameston, and another Indian eat a kettleful of mussels. When we had done so our [...]
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The Songhees Nation isn’t far from Gabriola, so many of their traditions were probably ones practiced on Gabriola, too. On their website you can read about the Lekwungen summer of many years ago: This is a time when the bountiful crops of the year (including the sweet camas bulbs and clams) have been gathered from [...]
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Sidney Spit isn’t too far from Gabriola, and has a Coast Salish heritage similar to ours. So perhaps you’d like to read about archaeology students sifting for Coast Salish relics at Sidney Spit. From the Times Colonist: Along a spit of sand on Sidney Island, archeologists are racing rising tides and the wear of the [...]
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A year ago I blogged about clam gardens, and asked Were there clam gardens on Gabriola beaches? Now we have the answer: yes. From the Daily News: Ancient clam gardens a window on the past. The Snuneymuxw First Nation hopes to conduct aerial surveys that could provide more insight on ancient clam gardens that have [...]
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