THE TSIMSHIAN HOMELAND: AN ANCIENT CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
By
KEN DOWNS
Integrated Studies Project
submitted to Dr. Leslie Main Johnson
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts – Integrated Studies
Athabasca, Alberta
February, 2006 The Tsimshian Homeland: An Ancient Cultural Landscape
Questioning the “Pristine Myth” in Northwestern British Columbia
What are the needs of all these plants? This is the critical question for us. Rest, protection, appreciation and respect are a few of the values we need to give these generous fellow passengers through time. K”ii7lljuus (Barbara Wilson 2004:216)
Ksan (Skeena River) downstream from Kitsumkalum looking toward Terrace
Master of Integrated Studies Final Project – Athabasca University Submitted to Dr. Leslie Main Johnson – February 25, 2006 – Ken Downs Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………….... … 4
Tsimshian Landscape ………………………………………………… 6
Tsimshian Archaeology………………………………...... 12
Tsimshian: “Complex Hunter-Gatherers”? ...... 15
Investigations of Tsimshian Agriculture – Field Research …………….. 17
Results of Fieldwork (2003-2005) ……………………………………… 19
Kalum Canyon Sites …………………………………………………….. 36
Adawx: Oral Histories of the Canyon …………………………………… 45
Canyon Tsimshian Plant Resources and Management ………………….. 48
Significant Plants at Kalum Canyon …………………………………….. 50
Kalum Canyon Agro-Ecosystems ………………………………………… 66
Conclusions ……………………………………………………………….. 69
Further Research …………………………………………………………… 74
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………… 77
References Cited ……………………………………………………………. 80
Appendix 1 – Adaawgm Kitsumkalum ……………………………………… 88
Appendix 2 – Story of Part Summer & The Chief Who Married the Sawbill Duck 91
Appendix 3 – The Origins of Black Huckleberries ……………………………… 93
Appendix 4 – Aerial Photo of Kalum Canyon …………………………………… 94 List of Photos
1 Allastair Lake – Gitnadoix Provincial Park ……………….. 10
2 Melville/Dundas Islands area………………………………. 10
3 Campsite and bench Moffat Islands ……………………….. 20
4 Riceroot (Fritillaria camschatcensis) ……………………… 21
5 Chocolate lily (Fritillaria lanceolata) ……………………… 21
6 Village site location Melville Island ……………………….. 22
7 Brian and BC Parks jetboat – Gitnadoix Prov. Park ……….. 25
8 Kitselas Canyon …………………………………………….. 27
9 Chief Guam House Post …………………………………….. 31
10 Katsumkalum site ………………………………………….. 34
11 Cooley’s hedge nettle (Stachys coolyae) ………………….. 34
12 Kalum Canyon forest ……………………………………… 36
13 Dr. Leslie Main Johnson – Kalum Canyon Crabapple Orchard ……. 39
14 Mouth of Kalum Canyon at Robin Town …………………………… 39
15 Crabapple/Hazelnut complex in Robin Town ……………………….. 40
16 Ancient trail along Kalum Canyon…………………………………… 41
17 & 18 Culturally Modified Red Cedar Trees – Meadow Site …………. 42
19 Dr. James McDonald & Brenda Guernsey – Meadow Site …………… 44
20 Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca)……………………………………….. 51
21 Hazelnuts ……………………………………………………………… 56
22 Riceroot …………………………………………………………………. 60 Introduction
Increasing documentation of the Traditional Environmental Knowledge of First
Peoples in British Columbia (Compton 1993; Deur 2002, 2005; Deur & Turner 2005;
Gottesfeld 1994, 1995; McDonald 2003, 2005; Peacock & Turner 2000; Trusler 1995;
Turner, Ignace & Ignace 2000; Turner 2004, 2005; Turner & Peacock 2005) is breaking
down stereotypical perceptions of First Peoples as “hunter-gatherers” who were fortunate
to occupy environments in which food resources were plentiful. This perception has
recently begun to be questioned, notably by William Denevan (1992) who termed the
mis-perception - “the pristine myth.”
Ethnobotanists, ethnographers, and archaeobotanists are documenting the
complexities of plant resource utilization and management strategies that are also adding
knowledge as to the complexities Northwest Coast societies. Pre-contact societies on the
northwest coast of North America are often considered anomalous to standard definitions
of “hunter-gatherers” due to their highly developed social and economic organizations,
highly developed art forms, and sedentary nature. Recent anthropologists have begun to
re- consider and reflect these anomalies by redefining these cultures as “complex hunter-
gatherers” (Ames 1994, 2005; Arnold 1995). It will be argued here, given the
presentation of additional evidence as to the complexity of First Nations plant resource
stewardship, specifically among the Tsimshian, that this new label, continuing
Darwinian traditions, does not do justice to nor provide any additional reason to consider,
Traditional Knowledge in the a new egalitarian light suggested by the highly regarded
Eugene Hunn. Hunn (1999: 25) writes in a chapter titled The Value of Subsistence for the
Future of the World; “No longer can we take refuge behind the myth of the superiority of Western Civilization as the source of all science.” He goes on to describe the importance of documenting and learning from the Traditional Knowledge of indigenous peoples the world over, knowledge that enabled them to adapt to diverse local environments. Hunn muses that this maybe the key to the future sustained subsistence of the human species.
The writer has come to similar conclusions about Tsimshian plant resource stewardship as those expressed by Kat Anderson regarding her own studies of the
“indigenous resource management” of diverse California First Peoples (2005:xvii);
These parallels indicated to me that our human forebears everywhere did not just passively gather food and basketry materials but actively tended the plant and animal kingdoms on which they relied. There was no clear-cut distinction between hunter-gatherers – the category into which most California Indians had been tossed – and the more “advanced” agricultural peoples of the ancient world. Moreover, California Indians had likely completed the initial steps in the long process of domesticating wild species, something that ancient peoples in other lands had always been given sole credit for.
It is hoped that this work will add to an increasing respect for the Traditional Knowledge of indigenous peoples, specifically Tsimshian people, knowledge that is the result of living in close relationship with the land for millennia. Once again, similar to Anderson’s work (2005:2), it is hoped this paper will change assumptions about Tsimshian people and; “…recast them as active agents of environmental change and stewardship, shattering the hunter-gatherer stereotype long perpetuated in the anthropological and historical literature ….” This paper utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach, provides evidence that
Tsimshian people, particularly the Kitsumkalum tribe, one of two tribes known as
“interior” Tsimshian or “Canyon” Tsimshian, managed plant resources and altered the composition and structure of plant communities within and adjacent to their village sites and upon the landscape at a more general scale (i.e. burning to enhance berry resources).
This work draws on archaeological, ethnographic, and anthropological research. The author’s background in forest ecology, geography, and current interest in ethnobotany is also utilized to illuminate the complexities of pre-contact Tsimshian society, in particular the generally ignored or passed-by Kalum Canyon village site occupied by the
Kitsumkalum people for thousands of years.
Hunn in defining Traditional Environmental Knowledge (1999:24) writes;
“Knowledge common to one community is specific to its environment.” This paper provides context for the study of plant utilization by giving consideration to the broad diversity of landscapes within Tsimshian territories. It examines and speculates as to how the different Tsimshian tribes may have adapted to those environments and the differing plant resources available.
The paper provides context for the discussion by first describing Tsimshian traditional territories. Following that description a summary of the archaeological literature will be presented to give potential time frames to Tsimshian peoples’ living on the lands in northwestern British Columbia. Archaeologists’ current thinking about changes or adaptations of the people/land will be presented and critiqued in a following section discussing Western perspectives of cultural development and the classification of
First Nations of northwestern British Columbia as “hunter-gatherers.”
The main body of the paper will present the results of three years of field research investigating and providing evidence for Tsimshian agriculture. Persisting unusual and unexpected plant communities, made up of culturally important plants, in the vicinity of village sites, individual house sites, and resource use sites throughout Tsimshian territory, but particularly at the sites of the Canyon Tsimshian are documented. The cultural importance of plants is examined through comparative ethnobotanical literature of neighboring First Nations and comparing documented oral traditions, particularly those of the Kitsumkalum people being compiled and documented by Dr. James McDonald
(2005, 2003, 2000, n.d.).
A final argument is made that mis-perceptions as to the complexities of pre- contact Tsimshian society continue to persist, with current thinking labeling Tsimshian society as one of “complex hunter-gather.” Drawing from increasing evidence of agricultural activities of First Nations peoples along the west and northwestern coasts of
North America the paper hopefully adds to calls for a re-consideration of any kind of labeling and assumptions of cultural development of First Nations people. Once these mis-perceptions are cast aside it is suggested researchers and other non-Aboriginal peoples might be able to appreciate the complexities of First Nations culture, Traditional
Knowledge and indeed the very perspective of the human-nature relationship. It is beginning to understand the difference in this perspective that promises to have so much value for the future.
The Tsimshian Landscape
All First Nations wisdom-keepers stress the importance of, and a reverence for
“the land “ in their cultures. Kat Anderson states this well (2005:39); “‘In the old ways, the flora and fauna and landforms are part of the culture,’ says Gary Snyder in Practices of the Wild. There is no compartmentalization of nature from humans.” This idea specifically in reference to plants is again illustrated by Anderson (2005:41) quoting
Clara Jones Sargosa as a Chapter 2 heading; “I’ve always wondered why people call
plants ‘wild’. We don’t think of them that way. They just come up wherever they are,
and like us, they are home in that place.” This is perhaps the most difficult re-
conceptualization that is necessary for non-Native people to begin to understand when learning about First Nations adaptations to (or working as part of) the environments in which they call home. Understanding this non-separation of humans and other living and non-living beings is an important lesson that Traditional Knowledge brings to the future of the world. As illustration, Anderson (1993:154) working with California Native
Americans similarly suggests; “The distinction between nature without humans
(wilderness) and nature with humans (home) is not made” by aboriginal peoples. Richard
Ford (1999:71-88) highlights this relationship, and the need for re-conceptualizing that relationship, in writing his chapter Ethnoecology Serving the Community by using Zuni to refer to both to the people and their lands. Ford (2000:210) refers to his work with the
Zuni as a study of “prehistoric cultural topography.” The writer has adopted this geographical thought process to provide a contextual foundation for this paper – however the author has not adopted the literary style and Tsimshian will refer to the people, while their traditional lands will be referred to as Tsimshian homeland or Tsimshian territory.
Attempting to make the land/people link in a fashion similar to Ford continues to be a subject for cultural geographers. These geographers, in the tradition of Carl Sauer, are terming similar descriptions as ‘cultural landscapes’ which are defined as “…the natural landscape as transformed through human agency, where ways of living and thinking are expressed on the land” (Rundstrom et.al. 2000).
Tsimshian, the people, will refer in this work, not to the Tsimshian and their neighbors (Gitxsan and Nisga’a) who are considered to share the same language family, but to the Tsimshian First Nations and their traditional territories. Susan Marsden
(2002:102) documents 13 tribes as traditionally making up the Tsimshian First Nations, she states in footnote 4; “Among the Tsimshian these tribes (villages) are the Gitando, Gitzaxlaal, Gitsiis, Gitwilgyoots, Gitlaan, Gilutsaaw, Gitnadoiks, Gitnaxangiik, and the
Gispaxlo’ots (the northern Tsimshian); the Gitkxaala and Gitk’a’ata (the southern
Tsimshian), and the Gits’ilaasu and Gitsmgeelm (the interior Tsimshian). In a later publication Marsden and Martindale (2003:20) add Kitasoo as a southern Tsimshian tribe and make mention of the Gitwilkseba tribe being a northern Tsimshian tribe that “became extinct.” The Kitsumkalum village website identifies the currently existing tribes
(villages);
Kitsumkalum is one of fourteen Tsimshian Tribes that has occupied traditional territories in northwest British Columbia for thousands of years. In modern times, the Tsimshian Nation now consists of seven tribes: Gidestsu (Kitasoo or Klemtu), Gitk'a'ata (Hartley Bay), GitkxaaLa (Kitkatla), Gits'ilaasu (Kitselas), Gitsmgeelm (Kitsumkalum), Lax Kw'Alaams (Port Simpson) and Metlakatla. Kitsumkalum has traditional territory in the Kitsumkalum Valley with property rights along the Skeena River, and along the northwest coast of British Columbia.
Tsimshian territory is at once diverse, spectacular, and dynamic. Tsimshian lands
are mountainous except where major river valleys occupy large troughs (photo 1) carved
by the erosional forces of glacial ice “at the climax of the Fraser Glaciation about 15,000
years ago..” (Gottesfeld 1985:36).1 Tsimshian territory occupies the lower Skeena River drainage basin in the east to the mainland British Columbia coast and coastal islands
(photo 2) from Princess Royal Island north to the mouth of Portland Inlet, Dundas Islands and the Alaska-British Columbia border.
1 For additional pertinent local discussion of land formation and longevity of glacial ice in Tsimshian see Gottesfeld (1985) and Clague (1984)
1 Allastair Lake – Gitnadoix Provincial Park 2 Melville/Dundas Islands
Tsimshian landscapes are characterized by broad mountain slopes, forested almost continuously to timberline with coniferous trees, with avalanche slopes and creek gullies eroding the slopes with varying intensity depending on slope gradient and proximity to the increasing amounts of precipitation nearer coastal areas.
All of Tsimshian territory is ecologically characteristic of the Coastal Western
Hemlock “zone” (Banner et. al. 1993). Within this broad ecological zone are described several “subzones” comprised of significantly different vegetation growing in response to more subtle differences in climate, landscape, and edaphic (soil) characteristics. These ecological zones and subzones have likely persisted with small changes, for example increases in the abundance of western red cedar since 5,000 ybp [years before present]
(Hebda & Mathewes 1984) since glacial ice retreated from Tsimshian homelands beginning around 10.000 ybp. It is these more local subzones and their further distinguished microenvironments or “site series” (wet sites, dry sites) within those subzones that Tsimshian people adapted to in complex and differing ways. Forests in
Tsimshian territory consist generally (at the zonal level) of western hemlock, amabilis fir,
Sitka spruce and Roche spruce hybrids, red cedar, with pine and yellow cedar increasing in abundance as one nears the coast. As mentioned above, glaciation in Tsimshian territory caused the erosion of broad river valleys and their extensions at sea-level into fiords. At the eastern boundary of
Tsimshian lands two canyons, at which important habitation sites developed, occur on the
Skeena and Kalum Rivers. It is also important to note that the ancient homeland of many
Tsimshian people, Temlaham, occupied the large canyon complex at the Skeena and
Bulkley river confluence at Hazelton.
The Tsimshian homeland is large in area and diverse in landscapes and natural resources as it occupies lands from the wet maritime coast to the drier and colder interior.
This natural diversity is reflected in the number of described Tsimshan tribes (villages).
It is also interesting to consider differences amongst Tsimshian tribes as to their complex adaptations over and through time to these varying environments and the migrations of and inter-mixing of neighboring peoples over time.
Anthropologists often describe the “seasonal round” of the people with whom they are working or studying. These descriptions explain the seasonal nature of the way in which the people utilize the natural resources of their lands. Different environments are normally reflected in different adaptations of the people in those environments which may be reflected in differences in the peoples’ seasonal round. An example is the contrast between the seasonal round of the Wet’suwet’en people, people occupying the
Bulkley river drainage east of Hazelton and ecosystems which are considered to be of an interior nature (cold and drier than maritime) with the seasonal round of the coastal
Tsimshian people.
The Wet’suwet’en people gathered in villages in the summer to harvest salmon, hold feast and cultural events and dispersed in the winter to trap and utilize seasonally available (and not centrally concentrated) resources. Johnson Gottesfeld (1994:187) suggests that; “This contrasts with the pattern seen in coastal peoples, who dispersed to fish in the summer and came together in winter villages for feast seasons.”
The coast Tsimshian tribes followed the pattern described above for coastal peoples dispersing to their territories along the lower Skeena river in the summer to utilize and store fish and plant resources prior to their return to winter villages in the
Metalakatla passage area of Prince Rupert Harbour. The southern Tsimshian and the interior or Canyon Tsimshian appear to have occupied their villages throughout the season and did not engage in any type of seasonal migration. This pattern of seasonal migration appears to be somewhat unique among First Nations of northwestern British
Columbia but patterns of seasonal rounds are quite diverse and perhaps yet to be completely understood.2 However the more sedentary nature of the Canyon Tsimshian, as opposed to their neighboring tribes, may have had an important part to play in what appears to be more highly developed horticultural activities at Canyon Tsimshian habitation sites as documented in this paper.
Tsimshian Archaeology
Tsimshian archaeological research is useful in providing context for a study of pre-contact resource utilization and to provide a starting point for the identification of important pre-contact Tsimshian village and resource use sites. The Tsimshian have been the subject of fairly extensive study by archaeologists particularly in the Prince Rupert
Harbour area (Coupland et al 1993; MacDonald & Inglis 1976; MacDonald & Cybulski
2001) and at Kitselas Canyon (Allaire 1979; Inglis & MacDonald 1979).
2 Note an excellent depiction of Tsimshian tribes and their seasonal migrations in Historical Atlas of Canada produced by MacDonald et. al. (1987:Plate 13). In addition to the above noted research archaeological studies (MacDonald 1969;
MacDonald & Inglis 1981; Martindale 1999: Martindale & Marsden 2003; Ames 1979;
Archer 1987; Fladmark 1986, 2001; Fladmark et. al. 1990; Coupland 1988) have documented an array of archaeological data uncovered from field excavations and discussed for nearly half a century the development or evolution of Tsimshian culture from 5000 ybp to the historic period. Archaeologists, like other western scientists, seem to work from the contextual assumption that culture develops in a Darwinian-like evolution, in most cases further assuming that cultures develop from primitive to advanced in a linear progression over time. Aboriginal scholars would have trouble with these notions, just as they do with the idea/theory of the settling of the Americas having taken place through Beringia and the land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, an idea/theory that is increasingly being questioned as to its universal truth.
Fladmark’s (1986:18; ) assessment that sea-level changes on the mainland coast stabilized around 10,000 ybp is generally accepted and evidenced by the work of John
Clague (1984). Using that date as a starting point, MacDonald (1979) suggests 3 periods of significant changes or differences in Tsimshian culture based on changes in artifact assemblages, evidence of food types, and site characteristics such as house and cache pit sizes. MacDonald suggests a Period III (5000-3500BP) as a time during which no indications of permanent dwellings or villages were found. Resource use was limited and the people are interpreted to have been nomadic; Period II (3500-1500 BP) is described as a time during which permanent dwelling sites begin, resource utilization intensifies along with increasing population, and beginning around 2500 BP evidence accumulates as to the development of social stratification; Period I (1500BP-Russian contact 1741AD).3 Tsimshian culture is characterized by the highly developed Arts, social stratification, and complex and diverse resource utilization techniques, or “intensification of food resources” (Ames 2005:67). It was these cultural complexities that were witnessed and experienced by non-native peoples at contact and into the early historic period prior to the mass disruptions caused by disease epidemics and social exclusion in the 1800’s. Allaire (1979) documents a similar cultural evolution at Kitselas Canyon. He identifies 5 phases of cultural development in that location. His Bornite (5000-4300BP),
Gitaus (4300-3600 BP), and Skeena (3600-3200BP) Phases are three periods of seasonal occupations (no permanent dwellings). Phases 4 and 5 are notably defined by the occupancy of two apparently different peoples/cultures, the earliest of coastal manifestation and the later (Skeena) occupied by people adapted to “riverine and forest efficiency (Allaire 1979:47). Given the archaeological evidence, Allaire suggests that these latter occupants of the canyon area (Skeena phase) appear to have come to the canyon from interior or upriver. Martindale & Marsden (2003:22) suggest that Allaire’s suppositions as to the interior origins of the people occupying Kitselas Canyon during the
Skeena phase may be supported by oral traditions and stories about Temlaham the large village in the Hazelton area which due to some catastrophic physical event was abandoned leaving people to migrate down the Skeena River to settle in new homes.4
Kenneth Ames’ (1979) archaeological work at the site further confirms the abandonment of Temlaham at a time prior to the Skeena phase. In the earliest three phases described
3 Martindale (1999:77) notes date of first Tsimshian-Russian contact. 4 Many Tsimshian peoples cite Temlaham as their ancestral home. Interestingly in one of the first instances of western scientists respecting and investigating the validity of oral history a debris flow of large proportions that would have affected the ancient site of Temlaham was dated at approximately 3500 ybp (Gottesfeld, Mathews & Gottesfeld 1991). by Allaire at Kitselas Canyon no permanent dwellings were found and resource use was limited, in the latter two phases there appeared an emphasis on land mammal utilization.
Allaire’s Paul Mason phase (3200-2500 BP) identifies the first permanent dwellings at
Kitselas Canyon. The Paul Mason site contained 10 houses (still visible as rectangular pits in the forest floor) of equal size all facing the canyon edge. These house sites are still visible as rectangular depressions in the forest floor currently situated approximately
20m above the Skeena River as it flows through the canyon. Artifact data indicates increasing utilization of salmon and the appearance of cache pits surrounding the settlement during the latter stages of occupation. The Kleanza phase (2500 – 1500BP) supports MacDonald’s interpretation of the increasing appearance of evidence of social stratification and intensification of resource use noted at Prince Rupert Harbour.
In summary the approximate dates for archaeological identification of sedentism
(year around and/ or seasonal village habitation) for the Tsimshian people is 3500 BP.
Following this time populations are suggested to have increased, leading to increased utiliziation of a variety of available resources, increased social stratification or “social inequality” (Ames 2001:2), and increased “sophisticated technologies” (Arnold 1995), that led by 1500BP to the societies existing from then until contact with Europeans.5
The Tsimshian: “Complex Hunter-Gatherers”?
Ames and Maschener (1999:1) state; “The societies of the Northwest Coast are the world’s best-known ethnographic examples of ‘complex hunter-gatherers’.” Other terms have been used to label and attempt to explain the anthropological anomalies
(sedentism, social stratification, arts, etc.) that Northwest Coast societies present to
5 For a comparative recent discussion of cultural evolution in the B.C. interior at Keithly Creek, one that might lead to questions about Allaire and MacDonalds’ interpretations of Tsimshian cultural evolution see Hayden (1997), Hayden & Schulting (1996), Hayden et. al. (1996), and Lepofsky et.al.(1996). scientific categorizations of social and cultural evolution and development. Binford
(1980) used the term “logistical mobility” as a potential strategy for utilizing dispersed resources. Coupland (1988b:215) applies this in a categorical definition: “Logistical
hunter-gatherers make a limited number of settlement moves annually but make frequent
task-group forays from residential bases to procure specific resources.” Current
investigations into Tsimshian plant resource support Coupland’s suggestion when applied
to Coast Tsimshian tribes. It is not as applicable however to the more sedentary Southern
and Canyon Tsimshian. Wollstonecroft (2002:61) uses the term “hunter-gatherer-fisher”
which echoes the long held generalization of Northwest Coast societies as hunter-gathers
who were beneficiaries of a rich and productive environment. Ames and Maschner
(1999:113-117) provide an excellent discussion of this misconception, a misconception
that denies evidence of social and cultural complexities and diversities in adapting to a
wide range of environments and ecosystems. Ames and Maschner (1999:113) term this
preconception as one of Northwest Coast peoples being labeled “affluent foragers.” The
authors continue in the chapter titled “Northwest Coast Subsistence” (113-146) to provide
evidence to the contrary including the fact (still true today) in the northwest that local
abundance is subject to variation and in fact times of scarcity. The authors also suggest
that the concentration on and over-emphasis on salmon abundance, or “salmonopia,”6 caused early ethnographers and anthropologist to ignore a myriad of other resource utilization practices. Anyone living in northwestern British Columbia can conceive that late winters, in spite of storage technologies and regardless of the variability of salmon abundance, must have been a difficult time for the First Peoples.
6 For a recent discussion on this controversial (“salmonopia”) debate on the importance of salmon in the hunter-gatherer discussion see Ames (2005:68-85) and Coupland et. al. (2001:238). Just as categorizations of nature, including identification of species and Darwin’s evolutionary theory, are not complete and do not always address incongruencies provided by observations of natural diversity, evolutionary categorizations of societies, civilizations and cultures (Ames 1994, 2005; Arnold 1995; Martindale 1999) leaves something to be desired. Western Science in its need to fulfill the documentation of truth and the defining of realities sometimes, particularly in the past, overlooks knowledge systems, oral histories, and differing realities (particularly relationships with the environment) that might hold some value for rethinking popular hypotheses and theses.
The writer suggests that subjects of anthropological study, in many cases have no need for and gain no benefit from labels that attempt to categorize their long, continued, and sustained habitation of their lands. They do however have interest in having the freedom of maintaining their traditional ways of life and languages. The writer leaves this discussion for now with the intent stated earlier that this work adds to the challenging of any labels which suggest Tsimshian society as being anything but a highly developed, uniquely adapted and changing (not evolving) culture over time. Tsimshian culture, as other Indigenous cultures, responds to a regionally diverse environment, one that for millennia was able to sustain itself in close relationship with nature.
Investigations of Tsimshian Agriculture or Agroecosystems – Field Research
Over a number of years traveling (hiking, ocean kayaking, canoeing) through, and working as a forest technician on Tsimshian lands, and the neighboring
Haisla/Hennakisila Haida, and Gitxsan cultural landscapes the writer has observed plants growing in unexpected and unusual ecological circumstances. Recent academic studies culminating in this paper have enabled research of these plants in more detail and in more numerous locations. The methodology used over the past three years has focused on locating unusual plant communities on Tsimshian territories that might prove to be
“ecological indicators of past human practices” (Storm 2002:496), “cultural resource indicators” (Ibid:503), “anthropogenic plant communities” (Turner & Peacock 2005:147;
Hammet 2000), “agroecological landscapes” (Doolittle 1992:386), and/or
“agroecosystems” (Deur 2002:11). The first step has been to identify known Tsimshian habitation and resource use sites from both the ethnographical and archaeological literature. Field research at these sites reveals an almost predictable occurrence of a number of plant species, all having significant food and/or technological value, growing in patches adjacent to sites and/or growing individually directly next to visible remains
(house depressions, and in one case at Gitlzsdwur in Kitselas Canyon a remaining house post) of houses.
Sites surveyed for vegetation on Tsimshian territories around the canyons of the
Skeena and Kalum Rivers near Terrace included; 3 village sites at Kitselas Canyon
(Gitaus, Paul Mason, and Gitlaxur), several resource use sites on the Kalum River above the Kalum Canyon area, Katsumkalum a village site just downstream of the present day village of Kitsumkalum, and a village site at the confluence of the Exchamsiks and
Skeena Rivers. The best examples of antropogenic plant communities, and the focus of most of the fieldwork for this project, was at a number of sites at Kalum River Canyon
Research funding enabled expanded explorations of the Tsimshian homelands to the Gitnadoix River (where Andrew Martindale has recently completed archaeological work) and to the Dundas Islands group northwest of the Prince Rupert Harbour area.
Village sites in the Metlakala Pass area were not visited on foot but were noted in passing to the Dundas Island group to be identifiable by differences in vegetation (red alder, grass benches at beach edge, and crabapple).
Results of Fieldwork (2003-2005)
Dundas Islands
The Dundas Islands are a group of islands northwest of Prince Rupert and west of the Tsimshian community of Lax Kw’alaams (Port Simpson). In late May the writer began a three-day kayak trip and explored the area, the trip’s focus being a visit to a large village site located on the northwest side of Melville Island where a colleague at
Northwest Community College, David Archer, has been conducting archaeological fieldwork for a number of years. This ancient village site was quite large and I intended to visit and survey the area for vegetation hoping to find similar plant communities as to what I had been finding in the interior Tsimshian lands on the Kalum and Skeena Rivers.
A charter fishing boat was contracted to take myself and a friend to the area with our double kayak and return 3 days later to pick us up. I had intended to put in at Edith
Harbour on the northwest of the island group and by proceeding from there south to explore a number of village and habitation sites in the area on the western coasts of the
islands and then arriving at Melville Island on the final day.
The weather did not allow this and our trip was confined to
the sheltered waters along the eastern side of the islands.
The first site investigated turned out also to be the
first campsite of the trip. Island #41 (GPS location: 386672E
6037643N) in the Moffat Islands group (Chart 3959
3 Hudson Bay Passage) was approached for its alluring white sand beaches and a flat bench located just above the high tide line that would provide an excellent campsite. As frequently noticed when traveling in non-motorized fashion through northwestern land/culturescapes, it was obvious that we were not likely to have been the first people to have used this site. Once again the vegetation was the first indicator. The flat and largely non-forested terrace (approximately 8 x 25m) on which we set our tents (photo 3) was composed of an array of culturally significant plants including; riceroot (Fritillaria camschatcensis) (photo 4), chocolate lily (Fritillaria lanceolata) (photo 5), Pacific hemlock-parsley (Conioselinum pacificum), cow-parsnip (Hercleum lanatum), and one large and vigorous bush of black twin-berry
(Lonicera involucrata). The ground where the small bench approached a forested hill was covered with false-lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum dilatatum), noted on a number of occasions to propagate on the forest floor of house depressions. There were no obvious house depressions noted in this case. A curious non-forested patch was noted on a tombollo just northwest of the beach. Upon investigation at low tide this intriguing opening (not appearing to be the result of windthrow) was found to be occupied by the ubiquitous Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca) discussed in more detail below.
4 5 Traveling south and west through the narrow island-filled passage separating
Melville and Dunira Islands revealed mostly rocky shorelines with the exception of
Island #48 where a small beach and another non-forested open area were investigated.
Several culturally-modified trees (CMT’s)7 were noted as well as a large disturbed opening being re-colonized by red alder trees. It appears that some logging of individual trees may have taken place here in the last 20 years.
Melville Island Village Site – GcTq-18
David Archer (personal communication January 2005) reports that the village9 site on Melville Island was unknown to community members and also appears not to be mentioned in recorded oral traditions from the area. The site is located on a broad northeasterly facing beach on Island #35, a large low-lying island just west of Melville
Island (photo6).
7 A culturally-modified tree is defined (Archaeology Branch, B.C. Ministry of Small Business and Tourism 2001:1) is defined as “a tree that has been altered by aboriginal people as part of their traditional use of the forest.” Culturally-modified trees persist in a variety of forms in northwestern forests. Many have been bark-stripped for clothing, rope-making, basketry, some bored to assess suitability for canoe-making, some trees have been utilized for making planks, and others as in the case at Kalum Canyon could have been modified for boundary marking or some type of spiritual purpose. Most culturally-modified trees are western red cedar and good examples of how these trees look in the field and why can be found in Hillary Stewart (1984), Stryd and Feddema (1998), and Nancy Turner (1998, 2004a), among others. 8 Borden Numbers refer to Archaeological Site Reports compiled and available from Archaeological Information Services, Archaeology and Registry Services Branch, Land Information Services Division – See McMurdo reference. 9 This site would soon be occupied by Northwest Community College students participating in an archaeological field course under the tutelage of David Archer who, along with Andrew Martindale, has received a research grant to conduct an extensive archaeological survey of the village. 6
The village site is well-protected from the prevailing southerly gales, which can be very
strong here. The village was quite large and approximately 20 large house pits were backed by a large midden ridge approximately 3-3.5 m in height. The village was occupied from 600 BC and abandoned around AD 200 based on radiocarbon dates”
(David Archer, personal communication October 21, 2005). It was noted that the village site was surrounded by extensive clam beds which could be accessed at low tide, particularly in the channels to the east and west of the village site. These easily accessed and large clam beds were the likely source of many of the shell remains constituting the midden ridge though there is a wide diversity of mollusk species in the area.
Survey of the area did not discover any significant plants or plant communities.
Leaving the village site, having found no evidence of unusual or unexpected culturally significant plants, the writer paddled northwest to Island #42 the site of what appeared to be a white-shelled beach for which the outer Dundas Islands are locally famous. This beach is the site of a currently-in-use camp site, presumably by Tsimshian peoples from
Lax Kw’alaams, but perhaps also used by recreational boaters. At this it was interesting to note that riceroot growing on the exposed edges between the forest and the high tide line. This appears to be the plant’s natural habitat (Pojar & MacKinnon 1994:110) described as; “Moist open places; meadows, streambanks, often at edges of salt marches or along shorelines…” The writer also observed in early June 2005 riceroot blooming and in great abundance in the large estuary at Stewart, a small community north of
Terrace. It appears in this case that rice-root growing on the coastal islands is tolerant to winds, saltwater, and it can grow in almost pure sand as a soil medium.
It was noted that the forest canopy on the island was quite open compared to more protected areas in the eastern part of the islands groups. This open canopy is likely due to windthrow as evidenced by downed trees, broken trees (tops and limbs) and extensive pitting of the forest floor. This open canopy and the wet environment have created a welcoming environment for the growth of large and vigorous specimens of several naturally occurring, and culturally important species including; red huckleberry
(Vaccinium parvifolium), salal (Gaultheria shallon), and red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa).
This brief visit to the Dundas Islands group gives rise to some thoughts about the comparative utilization of plants, and plant and ecosystem diversity, between Coast
Tsimshian and Interior Tsimshian. While expecting to find similarities, the field research supports the potential for significant differences in Tsimshian peoples’ use of plant resources. These likely reflect differences in available food resources, their abundance and seasonal availability resulting from the diversity of local environments. The marine environment surrounding the Melville Island village as described above, similar to many village sites in coastal areas, contained enormous shellfish resources as evidenced by the large midden ridge at the rear of the village site. Coastal peoples also exploited fish, fruits (berries, crabapples) and roots and shoots (rice-root, chocolate lily, cow-parsnip, etc.). However the coastal environment also makes available a diversity of seaweeds, a highly nutritious food, for use as food resources. It was also notable that no physical evidence of storage pits were recognized at the village site, unlike the numerous storage pits of varying sizes found in the inland canyon areas. David Archer (personal communication January 2005) indicates that he has never seen evidence of ground storage pits in his work in coastal areas in the northwest.10
The first visited site on Island #42 in the Moffat Island group was and might continue to be a campsite, and though there was a sense that the small bench area might at one time have been cultivated as a rice-root and chocolate lily garden. This is difficult to prove. Further research at the site, particularly in investigations as to the soil profile throughout the bench, might reveal evidence of plant cultivation. Additional research in the area could include aerial photo identification of forest cover anomalies, visits to numerous traditional habitation and use sites on the islands, and investigations into the oral traditions of the people of the Gitzaxlaal tribe.
Gitnadoix River
Andrew Martindale (1999) documents archaeological fieldwork he engaged in on
the Gitnadoix and Exchamsiks Rivers, tributaries of the Skeena River approximately 50
kilometres downstream from the community of Terrace. The entire drainage area of the
Gitnadoix River is now designated as the Gitnadoix River Provincial Park. This area is
the traditional territory of, and the river and the park derive their names from, the
10 See Testart (1982) for an in depth discussion of storage techniques among Northwest Coast societies as yet another example of these societies not deserving of the “hunter-gather” label. Gitnadoix tribe, one of the 8 Coast Tsimshian tribes occupying summer camps and villages along the lower Skeena River then traveling to winter village sites at Metlakatla
Passage. Of the 20 archeological sites that Martindale identifies in the provincial park area the writer identified three sites to survey for unusual plant communities. These sites were chosen as they were the largest identified village sites and provided the greatest potential to find anthropogenic plant communities. B.C.Parks staff kindly offered to take me to the three sites via jet boat [photo 7], the only way to reach the sites other than by chartering a float plane to land on Allastair Lake and offloading a canoe to float/paddle down the Gitnadoix River.
7
A day was spent attempting to locate the sites none of which can conclusively said to be found. The site of Psacelay [GbTh-4] identified by Martindale (1999:161) was likely located but the area, like many along this very active river, has been subjected to repeated flooding, likely during early summer runoff or heavy fall rain events.
Vegetation in these areas was consistent with floodplain ecosystems and recent deposits of sediments were observed on the forest floor and on the lower boles of trees surviving the flood event(s). The large estuary-like flats (freshwater) at the north end of the lake, the outlet of the Gitnadoix River (see photo 7 surrounding boat), were not surveyed but could likely have contained riceroot. No evidence of crabapple was found either at the sites visited or as we traveled up and down the river. Given the failure to identify sites or observe any unusual vegetation communities there was little to add to the research other than to note the potential of the lake flats to have been a perfect site to have managed culturally important plants that require nutrient rich sites.
Exchamsiks River
Ginakangeek, GbTh-2, (Martindale 1999:164), a former village site of the
Gitnaxangiik tribe, is located at the confluence of the Exchansiks and Skeena Rivers.
Some archaeological excavation work (Martindale 1999) has been completed here with the recently excavated trenches visible and cross- secting at least two of the visible house depressions. The site has been disturbed both by the building of the Canadian National
Railway in the early 1920’s and by the building of some structures at the site reportedly associated with a local mining venture.
Vegetation at this site was noted to contain crabapple, Douglas maple (Acer douglasii), and large amounts of cow-parsnip (see Kunlein & Turner 1986 for the importance of cow-parsnip as food). Due to site disturbance in the past by the CN railine and prospecting activity, conclusions as to persisting anthropogenic plants are problematic.
Kitselas Canyon
8 Four village sites were surveyed for culturally important plants at Kitselas
Canyon the site of major archaeological work. The Kitselas Canyon sites along with sites in the Prince Rupert Harbour have provided evidence for much of the literature reconstructing pre-contact Tsimshian ways of living over time. Sites surveyed in the canyon area included Paul Mason (GdTc-16), Gitaus (GdTc-2), Gitsaex, and
Gitlaxdzawk. Gitlaxdzawk, also known as the fortress, is located on the west bank of the canyon across the river from the three other village sites.
Paul Mason Site
The Paul Mason site is identified as one of the earliest occupied village sites in
Tsimshian territory. The 10 identified house depressions were occupied from 3200-2500
(Allaire 1979). This ancient village site is surrounded by two patches of unusual vegetation occurring in a matrix of coniferous forest that dominates the canyon
vegetation.11 A patch of approximately .04 ha is found just south of the housepits and is composed of hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), highbush cranberry (Viburnum edule), and rosy twistedstalk (Streptopus roseus). The other slightly larger patch (.06 ha.) is located north of the village site and contains a similar plant community to the smaller patch with the additions of crapapple, lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina), devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus), and subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa). The latter patch is clearly associated with seepage as indicated by the occurrence of devil’s club (Klinka et. al 1989:173). It is notable that seepage areas are noted to occur in both Kitselas and Kalum canyon areas,
11 Landscape and forest ecologists use the term patch in describing the diversity of vegetation communities over the landscape. A patch is characterized as being a small area of similar vegetation that is in the minority of the most common vegetation community occupying the landscape (matrix). Patch identification is commonly done through aerial photo analysis and delineated on “forest cover” maps. Patches are usually presumed to either be the product of landscape factors (swamps are a good example) or some type of disturbance to the forested matrix. Identifying anthropogenic plant communities is directly related to the patch-matrix concept. A number of local field researchers (Pojars, Gottesfeld, Johnson, etc.) have suggested unusual plant communities as identifiers of disturbance, including human use sites. frequently in conjunction with documented anthropogenic plant communities, and horticultural activities in these areas is presumed in latter discussion.
At the Paul Mason site given the time frame involved it is difficult to state with any certainty that the two documented patches are in fact remnants of, or persisting, anthropogenic plant communities. However the occurrence of hazelnut and crabapple existing outside of their presumed ecological ranges and “off-site” of their preferred habitats is evidence for horticultural activities which will be discussed in more detail below.
Gitaus
The Gitaus site, now referred to as “whitetown” (Wilfred Bennett personal
communication April 2005), was a village site occupied from 2000BC to the historic
period (Allaire 1979:46). In the historic period the town of Kitselas was built on this site
which greatly disturbed the site. A brief survey of current vegetation at the site revealed
the presence of crabapple, hazelnut, and Douglas maple in large patches. This open (non-
forested) area, visible in aerial photographs, is approximately 3 hectares in area
occupying a river terrace or bench approximately 15 metres above the river. The site
must have provided an excellent site for a village, and probable agricultural activities,
given the south-facing aspect and the rich accumulation of alluvial soils at the terminus of
a small creek where it fans out onto the site. Given the severity of the disturbance of the
building of what was one of the larger towns in the early post-contact period in the
Skeena valley suggestions of pre-contact agricultural activities at this site can only be
conjecture. Once again, however, the occurrence of crabapple and hazelnut is of interest. Gitsaex – GdTc -2
Gitsaex was the site of major archaeological work in 1979, work which included
the removal of all vegetation from the site. This disturbance, given the rich nature of the
alluvial deposits underlying the site, has given rise to the regeneration of a complex of rich-site indicating (Klinka et. al. 1989) plants such as stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), red
elderberry (Sambucus racemosa), red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), and cow-parsnip.
Perhaps, even more so than the Gitaus site, the more recent disturbance at the site allows
for very little if any conjecture as to human-plant interaction. It is interesting to consider
the origins of the vigorous and abundant stinging nettle, red elderberry, and cow-parsnip,
all culturally significant plants. These plants may have been originally introduced to the
site though neither could be considered either unexpected or off-site in this locality. The
occurrence of stinging nettle is particularly interesting and is noted later occurring at a
low-bench at Katsumkalum. The occurrence of large patches of stinging nettle adjacent to
rivers is suggested to indicate the location of fish processing sites (Johnson 2004 personal
communication). In addition to the Skeena River sites the writer has observed a large
stinging nettle/cow-parsnip field adjacent to the ancient and still-active fishery site at the
village of Gitanyow a Gitxsan community north of Terrace located on the Kitwanga
River. Stinging nettle is a very important cultural botanical given it was the source of
fibre for the construction of fish nets, documented in the story “Origin of the Nettle
Fibre” (Barbeau & Beynon 1987).12 Stinging nettle also requires rich nutrients for its growth and thus is an indicator (Klinka et. al. 1989) of the availability of these rich nutrients. Given the ecological requirements for plant growth combined with the
12 See also the wonderful book Paddling to Where I Stand: Agnes Alfred, Qwiqwasutinuxw Noblewoman (Reid 2004:87) occurrence of patches of the plant in close proximity to fishing sites the presence of a human-plant relationship seems valid, and stinging nettle may be considered, given these conditions, an anthropogenic plant, one that would qualify as a “cultural keystone species” (Garibaldi & Turner 2004).
Gitlaxdzawk
Gitlaxdzawk is a village site on the west bank of the Skeena River at the head of
Kitselas Canyon. The site was excavated in 1971 (Allaire 1979; MacDonald and Inglis
1979). Despite occupying a rocky outcrop, the present-day plant community offered
some surprises, as did the observation of house post holes, a remaining house beam, and
one totem pole lying on the ground that Canadian Museum staff attempted to preserve by
building a roof structure to cover it.
The village was occupied during the historic period (Berthiaume 1999:13) It was
noted here and confirmed by Martindale (1999:86) that houses were constructed on level
parts of the land and no depressions or central pits were in evidence as there were at the
Paul Mason site. Diverse house construction (pits and no pits, small and large sizes)
were observed at the Kalum Canyon sites.13
At the north end of the promontory that the village site occupied there is a large
patch (approximately .05 hectare) that is comprised predominantly of crapapple trees.
These trees form the tree-layer with an under-story layer comprised of thimbleberry
(Rubus parviflorus), red-elderberry, and large-leaved avens (Geum macrophyllum). The
13 Martindale (1999), Archer (2001) and Hayden (1997) provide excellent discussions relating house size and diversity of house sizes within a village to social complexities and cultural development, Martindale and Archer for the Tsimshian and Hayden for the Stl’atl’imx or Lillooet peoples of the interior plateau along the Fraser River. southeast corner of the patch coincides with the northwestern corner post of Chief
Guam’s house [photo 9] as mapped by Allaire (1979:69).
9
Between Chief Guam’s house and the house location immediately south of it is a smaller patch of crabapple and some heavily browsed Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia). The remaining areas of the village site contain a vigorous and difficult to walk through community of Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana), hazelnut, highbush cranberry, black currant
(Ribes bracteosum), and cow-parsnip. The vigor of this vegetation seems unusual given the nature of the landform but may be due to disturbance from the archaeological work.
Once again the occurrence of crabapple and hazelnut is interesting, particularly the orchard-like nature of the patch just north of and directly adjacent to Chief Guam’s house.
Katsumkalum – GdTe -2
Katsumkalum is a village site of the Kitsumkalum people or perhaps in the past an
extension of the present day village of Kitsumkalum, 1.5 kilometres upstream along a side channel of the Skeena River at the confluence of the Kalum and Skeena Rivers.
Katsumkalum would have been in a much better position to monitor traffic on the
mainstem Skeena River, as it occupies a rocky promontory providing excellent and long
views both up and down river [photo 10]. Martindale (1999:64-65) suggests that for the Tsimshian people, the advent of river steam boats and the “European trade economy” in the late 1800’s provided the opportunity to build “Summer villages at key points on the river that gave households the ability to exercise their traditional rights to tariff trade goods passing through their land…” McDonald (2003:19) cites George Dawson an early geological explorer as stating; “ In 1866, the steamboat Mumford, pushing the limits of
British transportation technology and trying to gain an advantage over the indigenous
Tsimshian river boats, eventually succeeded in reaching as far up the Skeena as
Kitsumkalum before being forced to turn back by the waters just two miles above the village.” The waters referred to are the whirlpools and waves produced at what is locally called “Little Canyon” which is now bridged by “the old bridge” one of two bridges providing road access to the town of Terrace.
Martindale’s archaeological map of Katsumkalum (1999:165) indicates 12 house locations, two or three of which are visible as house depressions. These house locations occupy three small river terraces just downstream of the rocky promontory which influences the terrace formation. The visible house depressions are those occupying the most northerly house sites and these lie under a canopy of coniferous trees. These house depressions are covered with a layer of false-lily of the valley and sasparilla (Aralia nudicaulis). Douglas maple, occurring in two or three large clumps is also noted adjacent to these house sites. The remaining house locations are difficult to observe as depressions because of the vigorous shrub-layer growth consisting of Nootka rose (Rosa sitchensis), thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), and red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) covering most of the locations on the upper terraces. There is little tree cover here except for isolated individual crabapple and, interestingly Sitka mountain ash (Sorbus sitchensis) which appear to grow in the spaces between the house locations. The house locations are more “felt” or “sensed” than observed, they feel very flat, compact, and appear occupied by vegetation less vigorous than the plants occupying areas in between the house locations.
The site also includes a lower and active floodplain terrace. It is difficult to sense or observe house locations here and Martindale’s map only hints at house locations by outlining them with dotted rather than solid outlines. This low site, given its back-eddy location, was likely where boats were beached and may have been a fish processing area suggested by the occurrence of stinging nettle (mentioned previously). The lower terrace vegetation consists of a vigorous assemblage of cow parsnip, stinging nettle, red elderberry, large-leaved avens (Geum macrophyllum), and an interesting population of
Cooley’s hedge nettle (Stachys coolyae) [photo 11]. This lower bench site provides additional evidence to the possibility that stinging nettle, a culturally important and perhaps “keystone” species (Garibaldi & Turner 2004), was introduced and actively managed at fish processing sites.
10 11
Glacier Creek Site – GdTe 8
The Glacier Creek site is located on the Kalum River approximately 20 kilometres upstream from Kitsumkalum village and 10 kilometres upstream from the Kalum Canyon sites. The site occupies a double river terrace formation (benches approximately 1 &
2metres above the river) at the foot of a steep slope eroded through the Pine Lakes sandur, a large glacial moraine deposited in what was once the sea at an elevation of 210 metres.14 Archer (1987:40) surveying the site counted “69 circular cultural depressions” at the site, all of similar size, 2 metres in diameter and 1 metre in depth. Archer speculates in his GdTe 8 description that these “pits” are “enigmatic” and that they might be house sites of some interior peoples. The size of these pits certainly bear resemblance to those recorded at Keithley Creek (Hayden et al 1996; Hayden 1997). However Archer now believes (personal communication June 5, 2004) that the site was likely a major fishing/campsite, the pits presumably being used for storage of salmon.
The terrace containing the 69 pits is covered by a forest of western hemlock and amabilis fir trees with scattered black cottonwood and red cedar. The forest appears to be
80-100 years old (interpreted from the remnant black cottonwood trees which tend to live to a maximum of that age). There is one interesting culturally modified red cedar tree
(likely this tree is much older than the forest matrix on site) at the north end of the site on the rivers edge of the terrace.
This unusually modified red cedar tree is similar to the two trees described below at the Kalum Canyon “meadow” site. This tree seems to mark the drop to a lower active floodplain terrace where the vegetation change is both significant and familiar.
14 See Clague (1984) for discussions of the surficial geology of Tsimshian Crabapple, hazelnut, high bush cranberry and black currant make up the major plant species of this plant community, a community which is very vigorous. Similar to
Katsumkalum, this site occupies a back-eddy location adjacent to the major activity site containing what are presumably storage pits.
Kalum Canyon Sites [See Aerial Photo – Appendix 4]
Introduction to Kalum Canyon Sites
Initial observations at Robin Town, initiated by Jim McDonald’s work in
Kitsumkalum (2000, 2003, 2005, nd), were reveling and stimulated the research and study culminating in this project. Numerous visits over the past three years to the Kalum
Canyon sites with Jim McDonald, Leslie Main Johnson, Kitsumkalum community members (two of whom, John Christiansen and Theresa Turner, assisted in earlier research), and students enrolled in Northwest Community College and University of Northern British Columbia anthropology courses, have led in each instance to new observations and considerations. Seeing Kitsumkalum (cultural landscape) each time with more widening eyes, particularly with the addition of the wealth of knowledge in Kitsumkalum ethnography being documented by Jim MacDonald, continues to increase wonder at what must have been at once a prosperous and technically advanced society. 12
Following the description of the fieldwork at Kalum Canyon the Kalum Canyon
sites will be considered in more detail. Relevant details in Kitsumkalum oral traditions referring to the sites, are discussed to reconstruct or consider pre-contact society at the
Canyon and beyond in the greater Tsimshian territory.
The physical landscape at Kalum Canyon elicits in many non-native visitors the concept of park [photo 12]. Kitsumkalum at the Kalum Canyon is one of continuous western hemlock – pine forests with a continuous carpet of feather mosses
(predominantly Rytidiadephus triquetrus, Hylocomium splendens, and Rhytidiadelphus loreus). The current forest gives one the feeling of old-growth but oral history and increment borer analysis suggest the forest is generally 80-100 years old with some patches of older trees having survived what was described as a large fire occurring around 1920 (McDonald 2003:30). This area of Kitsumkalum was protected from the surrounding matrix of logged-over lands by its designation as Indian Reserve # 2. In spite of that designation the entire western third of the IR appears to have been logged in the 1950-60’s. The IR occupies a wonderful assemblage of river terraces that have been eroded during various post-glacial water levels. These terraces (2 at the head of the canyon increasing to 4 at the mouth of the canyon) step down to the river, which can be heard rushing through the canyon. The Kalum Canyon is 1.5 kilometres of rapids navigable only by white-water kayak and perhaps an adventurous jet boat.
The physical Canyon area with its forest and moss carpet, occupying a sequence of terraces leading down to the roaring blue waters of the bedrock canyon, can only be described with superlatives. Dr. James McDonald remarked during one trip to the canyon that he had found similar superlative descriptions of the landscape in the oral traditions he is currently documenting with Kitsumkalum elders and from ethnographical accounts (McDonald nd). Adding and learning about the oral traditions related to the canyon area accentuates the perception that this place was one of great importance and a place deserved of more attention and research, should the Kitsumkalum people desire.
Robin Town – Dalk Gyilakyaw – GdTd -7
Robin Town is located at the mouth of the Kalum Canyon on the Kalum River approximately 10 kilometres upstream from its confluence with the Skeena River at the present community of Kitsumkalum just west of the town of Terrace. Robin Town and the “meadow site” (GdTd-6, description of which follows) provide the most astonishing and strongest evidence for the occurrence and persistence of anthropogenic plant communities (Hammet 2000), protoagricultural activities (Anderson & Moratto 1996) or what the writer would term “agro-ecosystems” (Deur 2002a) for the most part recognized by patches in the forest canopy.
Approaching Robin Town from a trail leading north and east from what is known locally as the “west Kalum road”, a logging road heading north from Highway 16 at
Kitsumkalum, one begins to walk down the river terraces of the canyon area. Walking along the top terrace which forms the Robin Town’s northerly boundary an abrupt change in forest cover is encountered. The park-like forest of western hemlock and lodgepole pine which forms the forest matrix of Indian Reserve #2 (except for the approximately 24 hectares logged in the 1970’s) opens into what can only be described as a crabapple orchard. This opening, or patch in the forest matrix, is approximately .3 hectares in size and is occupied predominately by crapabble with individual subalpine fir (Abies lasciocarpa), the ubiquitous hazelnut, and a most interesting growth of black huckleberry
(Vaccinium membranaceum). The latter was noted by the practiced eye of Dr. Leslie
Main Johnson [photo 13] who visited the site in early August 2005.
13
Notable along the 100 m of trail through this orchard are two rows of rocks bisecting the orchard. The formation of rows of rocks in what is essentially a glacio-fluvial terrace (a landform normally composed of sorted gravels, sands and silts) is obviously anthropogenic in nature and likely some kind of territory marking similar to those noted by Deur (2002b:147; 2005:298) Turner (2005:67). At the eastern end of the orchard the trail re-enters, very abruptly, the coniferous forest and descends along the eastern edge of the site of Robin Town to the mouth of the Kalum Canyon [photo 14].
14 At this point one can look up to the site of what was once Robin Town and note the lack of coniferous forest. The site appears much like that of a logged-off area, but is conspicuous because little or no coniferous tree species are regenerating on the site. A survey of the site yielded surprises in vegetation communities which have invaded and/or regenerated the site following the fire disturbance as documented in Kitsumkalum oral history (McDonald 2003:30). The village site is described as being: “…burned over by a forest fire that swept through the valley in the early 20th century….”
Upon entering the village site, which comprises an area of almost 4 hectares, a vigorous and difficult to walk through growth of hazelnut and crabapple is encountered [photo 15].
15
Nootka rose, highbush cranberry, clumps
of Douglas maple, and bracken fern
(Pteridium aquilinum) also occur sporadically. Domination by crabapple and hazelnut varies throughout the 3 terraces underlying the village site. Similar to the Katsumkalum site, no house depressions are observable and in this case none are “felt” or “sensed”. In fact the site has more of a feel of terraces being well compacted and almost street-like which makes the occurrence of crabapple and hazelnut persisting in such a vigorous condition even more unexpected.
The eastern edge of the village contains an interesting seepage area that includes some large rocks that seem out of place. This seepage, beginning at the top most terrace, saturates the lower terraces of the village site creating an abundance of organic materials leading to a rich and unique-to-the-Canyon -area assemblage of plants, including riceroot.
It seems likely that this seepage area was managed as a terraced garden, gardens that given the rich nutrients and available moisture, would have provided a beneficial habitat for riceroot and other valuable plants requiring a similar habitat.
The “meadow site” – GdTd-6
The meadow site is a village site, much smaller than Robin Town, located at the
upstream entrance to the Kalum Canyon. The site is 350 metres north northwest of
Robin Town or 1.2 kilometres upstream along a well-worn and ancient trail [photo 16]
following the west bank of the canyon.
16
The village site is comprised of 8 observable house depressions (there are more indicated
but not clearly defined) surrounding an opening in the forest canopy. Four of the house
depressions clearly face the opening or “meadow.” The meadow, clearly visible on recent aerial photographs of the canyon area [see
Appendix 7], is approximately .3 hectares in size. This non-forested opening was found to be surrounded on its perimeter by crabapple trees and hazelnut bush/trees occurring in close proximity to house depression corners. The meadow is also bounded on both the west and east (canyon edge) ends by two large and unusual culturally-modified red cedar trees [photos 17 & 18]. The meadow is peculiar in that there is, much like in Robin
Town, no forest regeneration within the opening.
17 18
The retardation or suppression of forest succession in the meadow is similar to the
situation in Robin Town, yet here it is even more unusual given the abundance of
coniferous trees, providing plenty of seeds for regeneration, in close proximity to the
opening. Western hemlock trees can cast there seeds as far as 100metres therefore seed is
regularly cast into the meadow. Seeds likely do not germinate there because of the robust
herbaceous and shrub layers established in the meadow. Vegetation in the opening is currently dominated by a community comprised of bracken fern (Pteridium aquillinum), snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) and grasses. However, visits to the site in late spring revealed the presence of riceroot which greens up and flowers at the same time at which the fern is still in fiddlehead stage and prior to maximum leaf out of the snowberry shrub layer. Riceroot becomes very difficult to identify in the summer as the other plants overtop the riceroot making competition for light problematic. If this were a garden and riceroot was the desired plant (see discussion following) a great amount of weeding would be required. One wonders how much longer the riceroot will survive given the vigorous and invasive nature of bracken fern (which is also alelopathic) and snowberry.
The meadow is a bowl-like depression in the terrace surface and at the western end (near the culturally modified tree and 3 of the house depressions) gives the appearance of having a channel leading into the meadow. Both the bowl-like nature of the meadow and the channel that appears to be leading into it give the impression of earth works as does the discovery of a trench above Robin Town (Dr. James McDonald
December 2005, personal communication). Douglas Deur (2002a, and 2005) has documented evidence of earth workings as well as boundary markings similar to those observed in the Robin Town orchard. The soils in the opening, though not explored in detail, appeared to have charcoal in the matted humus layer.
House depressions at the site are visually similar in size and depth to those observed at the Paul Mason site in Kitselas Canyon. The three house depressions at the western end of the meadow/opening [photo 19] were measured to be 1metre in depth and an average of 20 x 30 metres in size. One house depression was observed on the southern border of the opening, this depression being much larger (30 x 45metres) than the others at the site. 19 Dr. James McDonald and Brenda Guernsey – house depressions at edge of Meadow
There also were three depressions located in the southwestern area of the site seemingly contiguous and in-line with the three at the western end. It is possible that there were others in this line that is no longer visible with any certainty. There are two to three probable house sites on the northern boundary but these are not visible with the certainty of those that are identified.
Adawx15 (oral histories) of the Canyon
Richard Nelson (1983:15) suggests that Koyukon perception of the environment takes place at two levels; through empirical knowledge needed to survive (animal behavior for example), and through spiritual knowledge in which nature and the
15 The language of the Tsimshian people is Sm’algyax – Tsimshian words will used as appropriate particularly for the important plants. Any errors in the choice, spelling or format of these words is the fault of the writer. Sources for Sm’algyax words are McDonald (2003), the on-line “Sm algyax Living Legacy Talking Dictionary,” and Judy Thompson (2003). These words and words from other First Nations languages are italicized in this text. supernatural are inseparable. Many of the oral traditions of indigenous peoples worldwide document the laws by which people are expected to live, laws which ensure respect for the fellow living things with which their land is shared. David Anderson
(1995) termed this philosophy of living “sentient ecology” and Enrique Salmon
(2000:1327) ‘kincentric ecology” stating that;
Indigenous people view both themselves and nature as part of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins. It is an awareness that lie in any environment is viable only when humans view the life surrounding them as kin. The kin or relatives, include all the natural elements of an ecosystem.
Oral traditions commonly document human-environment interactions (a Western scientific and philosophical distinction that is not recognized in the languages of most indigenous peoples). Many of the stories refer to events happening as retribution for the misuse of, or disrespect for, fellow beings (animals, plants, naxnox or spiritual being).
Oral traditions are increasingly being found to have documented historical events such as earthquakes, landslides (see the Gottesfeld example referred to earlier), warfare, first contact with Europeans, etc. They also document the migrations of people as they adapted to the changing environment as the glaciers retreated beginning 10,000 ybp.
An increasing number of ethnographers16 have become interested in researching previously documented oral histories of northwest coast First Nations (i.e. Boas, Beynon,
Barbeau) and in preserving and documenting the oral histories and the traditional knowledge held by present day Elders in First Nations communities. Tsimshian ethnographers (Marsden & Martindale 2003; Marsden 2002; Miller 1984,1998;
McDonald 2000, 2003; nd; Seguin 1984) have documented or re-evaluated many of the
Tsimshian oral traditions. Dr. James McDonald has been working in this way with
16 Ethnography is defined (Funk & Wagnall 1980:264) as “The branch of anthropology concerned with the classification and description of regional, chiefly primitive human cultures.” members of the Kitsumkalum community. Dr. McDonald (2003:24) explains the use and meanings of oral traditions to Tsimshian people;
The ayaawx are of great importance and will be discussed several times in this book. The Tsimshian, like all peoples, have their laws and customs that regulate the behaviour expected from them. These are called the Ayaawx Tsimshian or Tsimshian Laws. The ayaawx (pronounced “a- YAOW-ach”) consist not only of the laws and rules by which people live with each other, but also how they live with other species and objects in the natural world. The ayaawx are sanctioned by spiritual powers and by secular authorities, both of whom can reprimand or punish people for the way they behave. These oral laws, passed on in the feast hall and recorded in the Adawx (oral histories, pronounced as “a-DOW-ach”) and other stories where cases of the law are illustrated.
It was the reading of Dr. McDonald’s book (2003) People of the Robin soon after it was published that stimulated an interest in visiting Robin Town. Following are descriptions of Robin Town found in the book (25-26);
Traditionally, the main town was Dalk Gyilakyaw, which usually is translated as Robin Town. Gyilakyaw means robin and the word Dalk describes a type of house built by important Sm’gyiget (or chiefs). Robin Town is sometimes called the old capital of Kitsumkalum because all the families eventually came to live there. The central importance of this town to the history of the Kitsumkalum people, resulted in their nickname “the People of the Robin,” a name they frequently use today. Robin Town was situated at the Canyon of the Kitsumkalum River. The site has not been occupied since the 1930’s but the area is protected as Kitsumkalum Indian Reserve 3, which is called Dal-ga-kila-quoeux. (Dal-ga-kila-quoeux is an old way people spelled Dalk Gyilakyaw.) There are no photographs of the Robin Town but it has been described as large. Henry Pierce said “the formation of the rocks of Kit-sum-kalum Canyon, lay in tiers, and tradition says that the first village discovered there was built right on the topmost tier.” (Pierce 1933:173) Robin Town became “a large village of three rows, and a great many people were in that village, who shouted when the geese were flying over the village. When they shouted, the geese would fall down to the ground and die.” (Boas 1916:336) In 1918, the Tlingit anthropologist Louis Shotridge, was told the following, by a Kitsumkalum leader, probably Sam Kennedy:
‘In the course of time, when other parties from upper Skeena River came down to join the community, the place gradually grew to a very large town. It was divided into different sections, each section being a single row of houses arranged on level ledges staged down the embankment, and occupied by different phratric divisions. The town grew so large that on some occasions a visitor from one section to another disappeared. (Shotridge 1919:119)
McDonald (ibid:116-117) recounts another description of Robin Town from the Saga of
Nisgeel as documented by Reverend William Henry Pierce (1933);
This village was built right on the ridge of the topmost tier. All the houses belonging to chiefs were built partly underground. One of the chiefs entertained Nisgeel and all his people. After the meal, Nisgeel was called outside by his host, who showed him the village and the dam across the Kitsumkalum River, and all the salmon traps connected with it. He gave him instructions how to build a dam and how to perfect it during high water. At last, night came and everybody went to bed. During the night while Nisgeel and his people were sound asleep, the rest of the inhabitants took their departure. In the morning, Nisgeel and his party awoke to find themselves the sole occupants of the village. With surprise they moved from house to house wondering what was going to happen, and hoping they would find life somewhere. But nothing was to be seen except a few dried salmon in each house, which had been left behind for Nisgeel and his people, and a quantity of feathers which covered the ground all through the village. The floor of each house, too, was covered with them. They came to the conclusion, after a thorough examination, that the inhabitants of this village had been robins, and the man who had entertained and instructed them in every detail was one of the birds. Nisgeel and his people occupied the village and followed out the instructions given him. They built a dam and salmon traps exactly as he had been told. This was the beginning of salmon traps being made and used amongst the upper river tribes. Any one visiting Kitsumkalum village today may see the hollows in the ground all through the ancient village, and each one is called the “Robin Chief’s House.”
McDonald (35-39) recounts a story told to William Beynon (n.d.) by Peter Nelson which
Mr. Nelson “called the story an adawx: Adaawgm Kisumkalum.” This story recounts the abandoning of Robin Town and the move to present day Kitsumkalum at the confluence of the Kalum and Skeena Rivers – 8 km downstream from the Canyon where Robin
Town was located. This story is of interest for a number of reasons, and is an excellent example of the consequences that might occur when people show disrespect for fellow beings. It is recounted in its entirety [see appendix #1], along with two other partial stories recorded by Boas (1916:179-182, & 336) that seem likely to be referring to Robin
Town.
Canyon Tsimshian Plant Resources and Management
The importance of berries and other plants in Tsimshian culture is documented in the story of “Potlatch to the Water Beings” (Allaire 1984) in which each of the 12
Tsimshian tribes is directed to provide a particular item for the potlatch. Interestingly the
Kitsumkalum people were directed to bring salmon and the Kitselas people to bring huckleberries.
As with many indigenous peoples plant fruits are important parts of the diet, important feast items both fresh and processed, ingredients for medicines, and as materials for the creation of dyes and fabrics for basketry and clothing. Tsimshian oral traditions indicate that the people made great use of, and managed for the sustainability and vigor of, plant fruits both in habitation localities and over the landscape in areas where particular plants might be found in abundance. McDonald (2003:53) notes that management techniques varied to enhance vigor and long-term sustainability, including;
“deliberate picking of the berries so that they would grow back more thickly….. pick the bushes every other year….berry patches cleared of overgrowth….Blueberry, black currant and gooseberry bushes were cleared and pruned to make them more productive.”
McDonald continues to note the use of burning as a management tool for berry patches in the Kitsumkalum valley as evidenced by; “Milgeelde is the name of a territory of the
Ganhada laxyuup that can be translated as ‘burnt shrubs’ or ‘burnt mountain tops.’” The specific berry species gathered and managed in this way were black huckleberry
(ha’lilaxsimaay – Vaccinnium membranaceum), and oval-leaved blueberry (smmaay –
Vaccinnium ovalifolium). Red huckleberry (Vaccinium parviflorum) and Alaskan blueberry (Vaccinium alaskense) are not mentioned separately in either McDonald (2003) or Thompson (2003) – the former lists Alaskan along with oval-leaved blueberry and bog cranberry, and the latter author lists Alaskan blueberry with oval-leaved blueberry under one Sm’algyax name. The Sm’algyax Talking Dictionary indicates that maay refers generally to berries and does not distinguish type. The dictionary also gives a word for huckleberry – weaeexs. Perhaps Tsimshian people do not distinguish red huckleberry and Alaskan blueberry as separate species.17
17 For discussion of ethnobotanical classification systems see Gottesfeld & Hargus (1998), Turner (1974, 2004:69-71), Hunn (1982) for northwest local examples and/or Berlin (1992) for a more global discussion. The evidence for mid-high elevation burning, where “Elder Winnie Wesley taught me that berries are sweeter” (McDonald 2003:54), is similar to Gitxsan berry management as documented by Gottesfeld (1993) Johnson (1999), and Gitxsan and
Wet’suwet’en management by Scott Trusler (2002). Interestingly there appear on mid- elevation slopes on both sides of the Kitsumkalum valley conspicuous non-forested areas that appear not to be related to avalanche activity. These patches (5-15 hectares) are expected by foresters to be rock outcrops likely covered in slide alder (Alnus crispa spp. sinuata). Given the unusual distribution of these patches throughout the valley future research, similar to Trusler’s field surveys of known and identified Gitxsan and
Wet’suwet’en berry patches, might investigate the potential for these patches to be areas of pre-contact berry management. It seems probable given the nature of the persistence of non-successional deciduous forests created by Gitxsan burning in areas around
Hazelton (much of which might have been related to hazelnuts – see discussion later) and the persistence of crabapple and hazelnut at Kalum Canyon, that these non-forested mid- elevation areas could be the remnants of “burnt mountain tops.”
Though huckleberry (weaeexs – Vaccinium spp.), (ha’lilaxsimaay - black huckleberry, smmaay - blueberry, red huckleberry) were preferred and managed on a much larger scale, other berries gathered and tended by Canyon Tsimshian peoples
(McDonald 2003:159-162; Thompson 2003:49) included; highbush cranberry ( _aaya -
Viburnum edule), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), red elderberry (lo’ots – Sambucus racemosa), thimbleberry (k’oo - Rubus parviflorus), soapberry ( ‘as - Shepherdia
Canadensis), Saskatoon berry (gyem – Amelanchier alnifolia), and bog cranberry (dahdee
- Vaccinium oxycoccus) amongst others. Pacific crabapple (moolks – Malus fusca) and hazelnut ( ? - Corylus cornuta), the latter interestingly absent or under represented in McDonald, Thompson, and in the ethnobotanical literature of northwestern First Nations (Compton 1993, Gottesfeld 1993,
Turner 2005) will be discussed in detail below.
Significant Plants at Kalum Canyon
Elders teach that respect and thanks for all things are a must. If we do not respect, give thanks and protect these plants – the life giving travelers that share our journey – they will not be there for us. K”ii7lljuus (Barbara Wilson) [Turner 2004:216].
Crabapple, hazelnut, riceroot, and black huckleberry persist in non-forested
patches in the Kalum Canyon at two village sites and two patches on the east side of the
canyon. These plants clearly occur and persist due to management activities of the previous inhabitants of these villages as one would not expect them to occur and persist given normal forest succession processes. In fact, forest ecologists in British Columbia, given their current understanding and classifications (Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem
Classification), would be surprised to find all the listed plants growing in this locality.
These plants are growing in “off-site” locations, meaning growing in unusual habitats
(i.e. drier or wetter than where normally found) or out of the normal range of the species.
All of the species mentioned can be considered of cultural importance as evidenced by the ethnobotanical literature, and crabapple and huckleberries (all species) could be defined as “cultural keystone species” (Garibaldi & Turner 2004) as they appear prominently in Tsimshian oral traditions and as feast foods. Following is a table of these culturally important plants that compares documentation of the occurrence and use of the plants throughout western North America. moolks
Pacific Crabapple
20
Tsimshian
“an obvious example” of a cultural Garabaldi & Turner (2004:7) keystone species for the “Tsimshian and Haida.” “wherever the old people camped there are McDonald (2000:10; 2005:250) crabapples.” reference to the use of crapapple as “a real McDonald (2003:160) sweet crab apple.” relating the narrative of the potlatch to Allaire (1984:83-84) honour the Water Beings tells of the Gillduzars "brought many boxes of cranberries and many boxes of crabapples mixed with grease.” “Pruning crabapple trees was also practiced Turner & Peacock (2005:121) in the territory of the neighboring Gitga’at (Coast Tsimshian) First Nation.” “’Big trees were cut to fall over but leave McDonald (2005:251) part so it will regrow as a small tree closer to the ground for pickers’ (notes from interview with Alex Bolton August 1982). Anthropologist Margaret Anderson also has heard about ‘stands of wild crabapple … [that] were cared for, including cutting down the crabapple trees when they get too tall to harvest’ (personal communication, October 29, 1997).”
Haisla & Henaaksila
“hemlock pitch served with oolichan grease Compton (1993:183) and Pacific crabapple” Crabapple was an important food among Robinson, (1973a:8) the Henaaksiala and Haisla. “The Haisla cultivated there crabapple grounds such as those found at ('Old Town') by cutting weeds around them.” An important site of planted 'Crab Apple Robinson (1973a:8) Gardens' belonging to a Haisla family group was located in a small inlet near Kildala A second type of “sweetcrabapple” is said Compton (1993:267) to grow at Kildala... “one 'sweet crabapple' tree for every 50 of the regular kind.” Crabapple used to make tools – “wood fern Compton (1993:153) harvest tool” Crabapple along with Rocky Mountain Compton (1993:396) Maple “species most frequently used for implement handles or other applications requiring hard, strong wood…” ….confirms two types of crabapple (sweet Cecil Paul Sr. (personal communication and sour) and describes the difference in June 8, 2004) fruit colour, sweet fruits being a dark green, and the sour reddish in colour. ….two types of crabapple had different Compton (1993:396) names; sweet gmx aic, and sour - ciwas.
Haida was one of many “Important traditional Turner (2004:44) fruits…for the Haida” “Pacific crab apples ... are named time and Turner (2004:45) again in Haida narratives, in the context of other ‘high class’ foods served to chiefs and special guests.” ”Crab apple wood, which is strong and Turner (1998:183) resilient, was used by the Haida, as by other Northwest Coast peoples, for making implements such as adze and axe handles and probably digging sticks” “Crab apples, along with highbush Turner (2004:105) cranberries and soapberries, were known in the stories and narratives as food of supernatural beings and high-class people.” [Swanton 1908a]
Gitxsan
“Crabapple occurs around Kuldo on the Rosamund Pojar (2001, personal upper Skeena River” communication) “Crabapple occurs along the Telegraph Dr. Leslie Main Johnson (2004, personal Trail –Upper Skeena – see place called communication) milkst”
Wet’suwet’en reports on the use and the nutritional Gottesfeld (1994:189; 1995:152) qualities of crabapple as part of the diet of the Wet'suwet'en people
Nisga’a
“camped at an old Nisga’a site on Hastings Dr. Leslie Main Johnson (personal Arm that stands out as a wonderful communication, May 2004) crabapple site…” “A place name on the Nass River - quotes Marsden (2002:134) Benyon as describing the stone totem in the adawx of Nispilax as; "A sharp pinnacle of rock. . . .At Crabapple Point. . .". The assumption is that this name came from documenting the adawx and was not a historical name but a translation to English.
Northwest First Peoples’
“The small clustered apples, though tart, Pojar & MacKinnon (1994:48) are still an important food for virtually all coastal peoples”
"fresh and preserved fruits in water or Turner & Loewen (1998:54) oolichan grease widely traded along NW coast and from coast to interior" "crabapple or vine maples sometimes were Turner et al. (1983 :26 & 30) used for bows”, and that "gaffs were made of crabapple wood."
“Pacific crabapple (Pyrus fusca), for Deur & Turner (2005:13) instance, was prized for its fruit, which was gathered in tremendous quantities up and down the coast.”
Crabapple qualifies as a keystone species and/or what Steve Wilson, chief councilor of the Haisla Nation, terms a “cultural botanical.” in pre-contact Tsimshian.
The persistent orchards at two village sites at Kalum Canyon, the additional two small patches on the eastern side of the canyon, and the persistence of trees throughout the village site at Robin Town are clear evidence that these trees or their seeds or possibly cuttings were brought to these locations and established. These trees along with the other plants noted were tended (pruning) to produce large amounts of fruit for the inhabitants of the villages and perhaps for trade purposes. Without the manipulations of Tsimshian people these trees would not occur at these sites.
Crabapple would be less unusual if found in its natural habitat. Pojar and
MacKinnon (1994:48) describe the preferred habitat of crabapple as; “Moist woods, swamps, edges of standing and flowing water, upper beaches, often fringing estuaries….”. Turner & Peacock (2005:136-139) list the management activities associated with culturally important plants, those growing within their natural habitats.
They list crabapple as a culturally important plant found, and being managed as an
“anthropogenic plant community,” within “Freshwater wetlands, marshes, swamps, alluvial floodplains,” habitat type. The authors also note (Ibid:139) that these communities might be found in; “Tidal wetlands: salt marshes, tidal floodplains, and
Human Occupation sites.” Crabapple occurring outside this list as it does in interior
Tsimshian territory only adds to the complexity of traditional knowledges pertaining to plant growth, regeneration, and sustainability and to the fact that crabapple in this instance is a case of a “culturally dispersed plant” (Nabhan 2000).
The writers own observations while working as a forest technician in the Terrace area have found crabapple to naturally occur around swamp edges where it apparently is able to survive due to lack of competition from other tree species. In no case, in the writers experience, have naturally occurring species grown to such large size as those found in the Kalum Canyon sites, sites which can be described as well-drained, far different than the conditions described as preferred habitat.
Brief explorations in the Dundas Islands indicated one instance of possible orchard cultivation (Island # 42, Moffat Islands), and the existence of naturally occurring crabapple along the waters’ and beach edges. Additionally numerous kayak trips to
Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) have revealed crabapple growing at likely Haida resource sites and in one case large crabapple trees were noted next to house depressions at the ancient village site at Benjamin Point on the southeastern corner of Moresby Island near Rose Harbour. Haisla Elder Cecil Paul Sr. also pointed out a former crabapple orchard on the Kowesas River estuary – site of a former village.
Hazelnut
21
Tsimshian
“When the people moved to Kitsumkalum McDonald (2000:6) they brought their nut bushes from Kitselas.” “We know the old people took nut tree McDonald (2003:57) saplings from Kitselas Canyon and planted them around their townsite at the mouth of the Kitsumkalum River. Nuts were also harvested further up the River at Kitsumkalum Canyon.” “Fruit trees were frequently tended and McDonald (2005:250) people now consider the presence of hazelnut trees and crabapple trees a sure sign of an old residential community or campsite.” “’Chestnuts’ [hazelnuts] were also McDonald (2005:250-251) harvested at Kitsumkalum Canyon (Priscilla Nelson, interview, October 23, 1980).”
Gitxsan
Listed as food source Compton et. al. (1997:150)
“..nuts gathered and kept all winter to eat Compton et. al. (1997:66) raw.” “roots bent for hockey sticks…” Compton et. al. (1997:159)
Wet’suwet’en listed as food plant Gottesfeld (1994:199)
Peoples of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia
[Secwepemc, Stl’atl’lmx, Nlaka’pamux, Nicola, Okanagan, Ktunaxa] listed in table of culturally important plants Peacock & Turner (2000:140) as food and “hazelnut bushes were burned individually”, and “hazelnuts and pine seeds were gathered from rodent caches” “Hazelnut bushes burned back to the Turner & Kuhnlein (1997:18) ground to stimulate nut production according to one Nlaka’pamux (Thompson) woman.” “individual bushes of hazelnut (Corylus Turner (1999:192) cornuta) were burned in the Spuzzum area”
First Peoples of Western North America listed as a “plant resource harvested and Turner, Ignace & Ignace (2000:1278) sustained by aboriginal peoples in northwestern North America”, and that hazelnuts were “picked from bushes or from branches broken off from main bushes….sometimes bushes burned or pruned to renew their growth.” for basket making materials ”All native Anderson & Moratto (1996;197) groups in the Sierra Nevada burned and/or pruned….hazelnut” to improve basketry materials – “Regular Anderson (1993:163) burning off of brushy areas [by the Karuk] produced good second-growth hazel twigs, which after two years were picked peeled, and dried in the sun.” included hazelnut in their list of those Turner & Loewen (1998:54) plants widely traded in northwestern North America and note; "nuts widely traded among Salishan groups of BC and among Columbia River peoples.” “In 1595 Luis de Velasco II…sent Anderson (2005:67) Sebastian Rodriquez Cermeno on a ‘voyage of discovery’ to locate potential California ports….he went ashore and found nearby ‘many Indians –men, women and children – who had their dwellings there.’ Cermeno noted, ‘The soil will return any kind of seed that may be sown, as there are trees which bear hazelnuts, acorns and other fruits….” “People of many tribes in California picked Anderson (2005:172) hazelnuts by the basketful and ate them raw or roasted….The Yurok pounded hazelnuts for flour….In addition to being a food source, hazelnut shrubs provided Indians with materials for many cultural uses – but only after the shrubs had been burned…baskets…cradleboards….rope… fish traps…arrows
The photograph above [photo 21] of 4 individual hazelnuts collected from a bush in the Kalum Canyon in late August give an indication as to how valuable a food resource these plants must have been for the Canyon Tsimshian. This plant provides the only indigenous nut resource for northwestern First Peoples. It is very interesting that there is little mention of hazelnut in both the oral traditions of northwestern people and the ethnobotanical literature of the area. Hazelnut is clearly an important and keystone species for the people of the interior plateau of British Columbia as documented by both enthnographic literature (Turner 1999; Turner & Kuhnlien 1997; and Peacock & Turner
2000) and indeed for people from that locality south through Washington, Oregon, and
California (Hunn 1990, Anderson, 1993;2005). Is it probable then, given the lack of documentation in the northwest, that hazelnut was an introduced species in this locality, one that might have arrived via inter-tribal trade? Given the potential importance of the nut in the local diet for people living at Kalum Canyon the lack of ethnobotanical and oral history documenting the plant is somewhat surprising.
Pojar and MacKinnon (1994:92) describe the habitat preferred by hazelnut as;
“Moist but well-drained sites at low to middle elevations; in open forest, shady openings, thickets, clearings, rocky slopes and well-drained streamside habitats.” This fits well with the sites where hazelnut is found in Kalum Canyon, however Pojar and
MacKinnon’s description of the range of the plant is of interest. A small range map indicates that hazelnut ranges from the British Columbia interior plateau region (south central British Columbia) south to California. The map also indicates an isolated occurrence around the present day town (Hazelton) and, Gitxsan (Gitanmaax) and
Wet’suwet’en (Hagwilget) villages. Pojar & MacKinnon comment on this range: “note the unusual distribution with a northern population centred around (not surprisingly)
Hazelton.” This noting of the “unusual distribution” of hazelnut around a former (and current) centre of population for First Nations in northwestern B.C. provides additional evidence that the plant may have been introduced in the northwest area through trade with southern neighbors, and was then extended further west to Kalum Canyon.
Riceroot
22
Tsimshian
“The main indigenous root crops tended by McDonald (2003:57) Coastal First Nations were the bracken fern and rice-root … During the early years of the 20th century, Mark Bolton had a rice patch (referring to the plant ‘rice-root’) on the Ecstall River…” “Sarah Wesley told me wild rice [rice-root] McDonald (2005:250) was weeded in the early spring and summer…”
Nisga’a
“When I was a girl we used to go out and Silimsk – Irene Seguin ( personal pick rice, but we don’t do that anymore” communication, April 2001).
Haisla
"riceroot harvested in April, May, and Compton (1993:197). again in fall"
Gitxsan
“rice-like bulbs were boiled for food and Compton et. al. (1997:141-142) served with eulachon oil, salmon oil, bear grease or groundhog grease.” “One woman would easily and quickly Compton et. al. (1997:142) gather and dry as much as five or six hundred pounds.”
Wet’suwet’en
“Rice root bulbs, a moderate source of Gottesfeld (1995:159) folate... .are available for limited periods in spring and fall”
Haida
“For eating, the bulbs were collected in Turner (2004:135). May, before flowering, or July after flowering…. They were boiled in water and eaten as a thin paste, or steamed like ‘cauliflower,”
Kwakwaka’wakw
“The final word in this story goes to Turner (2005:148) Kwakwaka’wak historian Daisy Sewid- Smith and Hereditary Chief and elder Adam Dick. When asked if the ‘grandfather’ (gagemp) segment of rice- root that was removed and placed back in the ground was removed simply as a means of cleaning off the edible portion of the root, or if his ancestors recognized that it might actually grow into a plant, Adam Dick was adamant: Adam Dick: That’s what it does [re-grows]. That’s why we were picking them off! That’s why …[it was re-planted]. …. "Kwakwaka'wakwn Chief Adam Dick Dr. Nancy Turner (March 25, 2004: transplanted and tended a riceroot garden" personal communication) “Chief Adam Dick and Daisy Sewid-Smith Turner & Peacock (2005:117) discussed the practice of removing the small propagule at the base of each rice- root (xukwem) bulb and replanting it at the time the bulbs were harvested”
documents the creation, transplanting, and Deur (2002a16; 2002b:146) tending of root crop gardens including riceroot, Pacific Silverweed (Potentilla anserine), and Springbank clover (Trifolium wormskjoldii) by the Kwakwaka'wawk people of the southern coast of British Columbia.
First Peoples of Northwestern North America include riceroot in there list of harvested Turner, Ignace & Ignace (2000:1278) plant resources “The bulbs, resembling tight clusters of Pojar & MacKinnon (1994:110) white rice, were eaten by virtually all northwest coast peoples, including the Nuu-chah-nulth, Comox, Kwakwaka’wakw, Heiltsuk, Haisla, Nuxalk, Haida, Coast Tsimshian, Kaigani Haida, Tlingit, Dena’ina, Kodiak and Aleuts” “From a nutritional standpoint, the most Moss (2005:282) important Tlingit food plants were …’wild rice’ or rice-root (kuh)…
Riceroot occurrence in the Kalum Canyon area is limited to the moist and open meadow site, where it appears as though it may have been the central resource produced/managed at the site, and in the moist seepage area along the north boundary of the Robin Town village site. The writer noted riceroot growing naturally (?) in only one instance in the Terrace area, a clear-cut adjacent to the Kitimat River. It was also noted to be fairly common on beach edges in the Dundas Island group that were examined as part of this project. Given these observations it appears this plant is more prevalent in coastal areas. Once again, it is clear that riceroot would not naturally occur in the Kalum
Canyon locality without the intervention of the Kitsumkalum people.
ha’lilaxsimaay
Black Huckleberry
Tsimshian
“Elder Winnie Wesley taught me that McDonald (2003:54) berries are sweeter high ‘up mountain’ and she called these ‘mountain berries’” “Favorite berry patches had trails to them McDonald (2005:245-246) that were maintained so that people carrying cedar baskets strung from their necks could easily reach and harvest the berries”
Haisla
“burned areas within their territory in the Turner (1999:199) vicinity of Kitimaat, to encourage the growth of berries, which were an important element in their diet”
Nisga’a
…cites Stephen McNeary as stating; “the McDonald (2005:247) Niska [sic] used to burn off sections of mountain side to encourage berry growth” (1976:109) and “yields of hillside berries were increased by burning off clear areas” (1976:113).
Gitxsan
“refer to traditional berry patches as Gottesfeld (1993:96) occurring ‘half way up the mountain,’ that is, in the montane and lower subalpine forest zones dominated by conifers….at about 3000-4000 feet in elevation” “They are favorite for drying, retaining Trusler (2002:44 from People of Ksan their fine flavour through the drying 1980) process, and they are easy to roll when dried. Also, they preserve well in grease. We can even keep them for quite a while by putting them away in a cool place in boxes without preservatives”
Wet’suwet’en
listed in table “Reconstructed traditional Gottesfeld (1995:151) Wet’suwet’en diet.” Peoples of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia
“Culturally important plant list” Peacock & Turner (2000:140);
“fire…stimulated growth of huckleberries” Peacock & Turner (2000:154-155) …“They know just when to burn. And then two or three years after, lots of huckleberries,” “Okanagon elder Selina Timoyakin told me Turner (2005:61) that all the plants and animals, and even different kinds of rocks, formed discrete communities, each with its own leader or chief. For the berries, Black Huckleberry is the chief” “The Origin of Black Huckleberries” – an Turner (2004a:60-61) See appendix #3 oral tradition of transplanting
First Peoples of Northwestern North America
“Another valued berry – the prize of all Turner (2005:60) berries in the eyes of many is the black mountain huckleberry (Vacciniun membranaceum). The name for this sweet, delicious, juicy berry in Nuxalk and several other languages simply means ‘berry’” black huckleberry listed as important food Kuhnlein & Turner (1991:11)
It was the practiced and knowledgeable eye of Dr. Leslie Main Johnson that first observed black huckleberry growing within the crabapple orchard located on the top tier of Robin Town. It had not been noted in previous trips to Kalum Canyon because, similarly to all of the plants being discussed in this section, one would not expect to find it there. To find black huckleberry in Tsimshian territories it is usually necessary to hike or drive to mid-elevation forests. Pojar & MacKinnon note (1994:58) note this in their description of the ecology of the species; “Common understorey shrub in dry to moist coniferous forests, but also in open areas (e.g. burns, open subalpine slopes), from middle to high elevations.” This is reflected in, and perhaps confirmed by, Tsimshian oral traditions describing traditional berry management at a place named “Txasawdaw Baxyaa
Ik, or ‘the place where they moved up into the hills’ (McDonald 2003:54, 2005:246).
Traditional berry management by Kitsumkalum people, similar to that described by
Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples (Gottesfeld 1993, Trusler 1995, Gottesfeld 1999), is also confirmed by oral traditions, particularly the naming of a territory north of Kalum
Canyon; “Milgeelde is the name of a territory of the Ganhada laxyuup that can be translated as ‘burnt shrubs’ or ‘burnt mountain tops” (McDonald 2003:53, 2005:248).
Burning as a tool of berry management is documented to have been used by many aboriginal peoples of North America (Turner 1999, 2004a, 2004b, 2005; Turner, Ignace
& Ignace 2000; Boyd 1999:Anderson 1993, 2005; Anderson & Moratto 1996; Storm
2002). Tending of what would normally be an “understorey” species increased vigor and productivity by increasing the amount of light, and quickly available nutrients, to the plants of interest.
The occurrence of black huckleberry in the crabapple orchard at Robin Town, a low elevation and an uncharacteristic habitat, seems to further confirm that the
Kitsumkalum people not only managed black huckleberry on the mountain slopes but also brought it closer to habitation sites.
Kalum Canyon Agro – Ecosystems: Ecological Indicators of Past Human Practices Dr James McDonald has documented extensive evidence of Tsimshian horticultural practices from oral traditions and the historical record, and he (2005:240) recalls that;
Very early in my work with the Tsimshian community of Kitsumkalum, I was surprised to encounter historical information about their gardening practices. Some of this information was recorded in published and archival sources, but much of it lived in the oral archives of the Tsimshian Nation. As we spoke about their household economies, people frequently told me about their own gardens or reminisced about the gardens tended by their parents and grandparents. Elders shared their knowledge of gardening local plants and of caring for berry bushes. On hikes, friends taught me to gather and eat roots, berries, and other plant products. Taken as it came, in bits and parts, the pieces of information were not remarkable in themselves and I may not have made much of it but I was trying to systematically cover every sector of the Tsimshian economy for a study on the impact of colonialization (McDonald 1985), so I was inclined to record everything I learned. Consequently, over time, a body of information was collected which, when I collated the pieces, revealed the nature of Tsimshian plant management practices, including gardening practices, and how integral plant cultivation was to the indigenous Tsimshian productive economy.
Following up on McDonald’s work at Kitsumkalum field investigations focused on the identification of ecosystem anomalies in and around known prehistoric habitation and resource-use sites. These were most often observable as patches in the almost continuous forested matrix making up the Tsimshian homeland. All documented anthropogenic plant communities exist as either patches (gardens, orchards, Robin Town village site)18 , or edges (Dundas Islands forest-ocean interface). The best examples occur at the Kalum Canyon sites. These field investigations provide corroborating evidence that the Kalum Canyon plant communities are in fact gardens and orchards or
“agro-ecosystems”, which Douglas Deur (2002a:11) defines as “human constructed, genetically simplified environments created to increase the output of valued plants.”
Field and ethnographic research into plant management activities on Tsimshian traditional territory, in particular at the Kalum Canyon, provides evidence of the following; manipulated environments (gardens, orchards, terrace gardens), cultural
18 Appendix 4 shows both the meadow site and Robin Town village sites as examples of “patches” in the forested matrix. dispersal and transplantation of plants, pruning, burning, boundary marking, tillage, and earthworks and irrigation. These findings are similar to horticultural activities being documented through the Northwest Coast area by ethnobotanists and ethnographers
(Anderson 1993, 2005; Anderson & Moratto 1996; Blackburn & Anderson 1993;
Compton 1993; Deur 2002a, 2002b, 2005; Deur & Turner 2005; McDonald 2000, 2003,
2005, nd.; Moss 2005; Peacock & Turner 2000; Turner 2004a, 2004b, 2005). These findings come as no surprise to First Nations people (note the wonderful exchange between historian Daisy Sewid-Smith, Hereditary Chief and elder Adam Dick and Dr.
Nancy Turner [2005:148] quoted above in riceroot ethnobotany table).
One can infer from the off-site nature and the ethnographic evidence provided by
Dr McDonald (2003, 2005) of the Kitsumkalum transplantations, for example; “Wild plants were sometimes transplanted into a garden environment and so they could be cultivated within villages and towns” (2003:57), that crabapple, hazelnut, black huckleberry, and rice root were all likely brought to Kalum Canyon from other localities.
Evidence of transplanting native plants on the northwest coast is also noted for springbank clover and stinging nettle (Compton 1993:394), rice-root and camas (Deur
2002a, 2002b and 2005), wapato (Darby 2005), and rice-root, highbush cranberry
(Turner, personal communication 2004). At the Canyon the identified plants were transplanted in both patches adjacent to village sites (crabapple orchard and meadow sites) and next to houses. The persistence of crabapple and hazelnut next to house depressions or house remains (Gitlaxdzawk) has been noted in other localities and again is supported by McDonald’s ethnographic evidence (as noted in the crabapple section). The time frame for the gardens at Kalum Canyon and in other areas of the
Northwest Coast is problematic, just as the discussion of the origins of aboriginal agriculture traditions is controversial. Some anthropologists argue that agriculture on the northwest coast began after contact with Europeans, others believe that the cultivation of native plants has aboriginal origins. The late Wayne Suttles (2005:191) presents both sides of the temporal argument but concludes; “..the pattern of resource management in aboriginal culture makes it likely that most of the practices were aboriginal.” Dr.’s
Nancy Turner and Douglas Deur (2005:16) summarize what has been a long known anomaly to, and perhaps most compelling early evidence refuting, the noncultivator perceptions of Northwest Coast First Peoples;
Many readers will be familiar with the one notable exception, mentioned previously, to Northwest Coast peoples’ reputations as noncultivators: tobacco (Nicotiana sp.). At the time of first European contact, several explorers documented their observations of this crop, which was – by that point in history- the one familiar to the western eye, and represented it as a single example of a cultivated plant to be found among Northwest Coast peoples. On the northern Northwest Coast, the Haida, Tlingit, and probably the Tsimshian grew tobacco, of a species or variety apparently no longer in existence but related to N. quadrivalvis; it was grown in garden settings and was propagated from seed capsules each year.
McDonald (2005:271) makes a strong case for the antiquity of Tsimshian agricultural practice;
Thus, the overall conclusion is that the Tsimshian have a history of cultivating plants, including gardening, that is rooted in Tsimshian mythology and recorded in early archival materials….. Perhaps the most important point I can make is that, whether they independently invented or borrowed the practice of gardening, the Tsimshian have been horticulturalists for as long as Europeans, ethnologists and historians in particular, have known them. Only our stereotypes of the Tsimshian productive economy, society, or culture describe a people without gardens.
The writer would add that given the complexity of knowledge (continuing to be compiled and documented as Traditional Environmental Knowledge) held by Tsimshian and other
First Nations people about the natural world, it would only seem to be common sense that the people would have recognized and mimicked plant reproduction and the tending of plants to improve productivity and sustainability of valuable plant resources.
Conclusions
“A world of barely perceptible human disturbance” (Denevan 1992:369)
We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills and the winding streams with tangled growth as ‘wild.’ Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and…. The land ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ‘savage’ people. [Standing Bear, Ogalala Souix, quoted in Nash 1982] (Blackburn & Anderson 1993:15)
The corroborating evidence of field and ethnographical research documenting the existence of “agro-ecosystems’ created and managed through a complex suite of horticultural activities by Tsimshian people prior to contact with Europeans adds to the growing body of literature that is indeed dispelling the myth of First Peoples as hunter- gatherers. This literature is proving the misconception of applying Darwinistic thinking in the study of “past and present human subsistence systems, and consequently in our understanding of such related (and possibly interrelated) issues as changes in demographic factors, the evolution of complex social and political forms, and the origins and spread of specialized agroecosystems dependent upon domesticated plants and animals” (Blackburn & Anderson 1993:15). The growing documentation of evidence of agriculture on the Northwest Coast is not only dispelling the myth of the label of hunter- gatherer describing First Peoples societies, it is also providing awareness of how much there is still to learn of the complexities of these cultures, in particular with their close association and knowledge of the varied environments and lands they call home. It is hoped that this work will add to Dr. Douglas Deur and Dr. Nancy Turner’s objective in concluding their book Keeping it Living (2005:340) that; “in ‘keeping it living’ – we hope to stimulate discussion, as well as reevaluation of traditional assumptions regarding Northwest Coast traditional lifeways.” This reevaluation is needed to not only reconnect diverse selves but to perhaps discover together a new lifeway for all, one that is sustainable, a lifeway that will require a reconnection with the land and its resources.
The creation and management of these sophisticated “agro-ecosystems” clearly adds to the literature that is deconstructing the notion, or helping to “dispel the myth,” that the Tsimshian and other First Peoples along the north and west coasts of North
America can be categorized as hunter-gathers or even “complex hunter-gatherers” as is the current thinking. The Tsimshian cultural landscape as defined was seen as important in order to help “dispel the myth that social complexity arose here [on the Northwest
Coast] in the absence of food production by demonstrating that the ‘hunter-gatherers’ of the region were not simple ‘affluent foragers,’ but active managers who have cultivated, sustained, overseen, and promoted culturally valued plant resources” (Turner & Peacock
2005:102). The intention to document agro-ecosystems in Tsimshian homelands led to further investigation and location of additional evidence for “ecological indicators of past human practices” (Storm 2002:1) that would support Tsimshian peoples’ oral traditions and archival information as to their modification and maintenance of Tsimshian traditional lands.
Field evidence of Tsimshan horticulture (fruit, nuts, vegetables) in the form of persistent landscape patches containing culturally important plants adds credence to the growing body of literature that is “dispelling myths” about pre-contact aboriginal ways of living, and human-plant interactions, in northwestern North America. William Denevan
(1992:369) was perhaps one of the first scholars to illuminate the general myth pertaining to all aboriginal peoples of North America; “The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness, ‘a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.’” The myth followed, particularly in the case of aboriginal peoples of northwestern North America, that aboriginal people were blessed with bountiful natural resources which they utilized through hunting and gathering. Their cultures were labeled by anthropologists’ classification schemes as “hunter-gatherers” which connoted a lower level of social and cultural development in the Darwinistic, linear, food production continuum (see Smith 2005:43). This concept went unchallenged by earlier ethnographers even though evidence to the contrary is now being found in their papers, information which was ignored for reasons unknown. It does seem that ethnographers of the time, Boas, Beynon, Barbeau, and others, were more concerned about the complexities of art and social structures (clan system, potlatch, oral traditions/laws, etc.).
Perhaps it was the very nature of, and richness of the oral traditions that they were documenting that made them ignore references to day-to-day living prior to contact with
Europeans.
More recently evidence of more complex human-plant interactions has been gleaned from previously ignored archival documents, and from oral traditions of Elders and informants throughout the northwest. With growing documentation by ethnobotanists and ethnographers, questions began to be raised as to the wilderness dwelling hunter-gatherer societies prior to and following contact with Europeans.
Concepts or labels such as “proto-agricultural” (Anderson & Moratto 1996:187) and
“incipient agriculture” (Smith 2005:57) began to be discussed leading to a re- conceptualization of the myth to define a middle ground on the cultural development continuum that would better resolve the difficulties classifying northwest cultures (which exhibited many of the characteristics [sedentism, food storage, highly developed arts, social stratification] of more highly developed agricultural societies) as simply hunter- gatherers.19 This middle ground has come to be known and named (labeled) – “complex hunter-gather” (Ames & Maschner 1999, Hayden 1996). This label, and the characteristics that define it, seems to be the standard anthropological concept attempting to classify cultures of northwestern North America in the current literature. Ames
(2005:70) states this new classification best; “The coast’s peoples are the world’s best- known examples of complex hunter-gatherers….”
E. Richard Atleo in his preface (2005:viii) to Keeping it Living puts the arguments above into perspective, an aboriginal perspective (worldview) that is particularly needed when participating in the academic discourse as to cultural development. Atleo powerfully illuminates problems in the discourse, including that being engaged in here;
For those born into this worldview it has, perhaps, until very recently, been assumed that all who do not share in this cultural experience belong to less developed category of humanity. This latter view has been manifested in Western science, whose own origin story places the beginning of the universe at 15 billion years ago, sometime following which humanity’s ancestors came into being and have been evolving ever since. In this story, the hunter-gatherers evolved into a more advanced, agricultural form of humans. Much current debate about First Nations’ use of resources represents a refinement of earlier discourses about the apparent links between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists, and as such retains and does not question these long-standing evolutionary assumptions.
Atleo (ix) continues and questions the assumptions from an aboriginal worldview, a worldview that leads to even more important questions and discourse about human- environment interactions;
Since the assumption of all relationships between all life-forms is a common ancestry, protocols become necessary in the exercise of resource management. If the salmon are not properly respected and recognized they cannot properly respect and recognize their human counterparts of creation. This historical process is neither evolutionary nor developmental in the linear sense.
19 For an excellent discussion of these developments see Bruce Smith (2005: 37-66) and Kenneth Ames (2005:67-100) in Deur & Turner’s (2005) important, and often quoted here, book Keeping it Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America. Changes are not from simple to complex, as a more modern worldview would have it, but from complex to complex, from equal to equal, from one life-form to another.
Given this perspective the writer concludes this current work that is attempting to
both participate in the academic discourse and celebrate Tsimshian culture and lands.
This work has provided the reader with a description of Tsimshian cultural landscape, a very special place, that is but one of many indigenous culturescapes that defy classification and celebrate the world’s natural diversity. Tsimshian culture, past and present, has much to teach about human-nature relationships. The Tsimshian Nation and all indigenous cultures are clearly equal to western cultures and as such clearly not in need of being defended or re-conceptualized in cultural development schemes in Western science. The overarching value of recent research by ethnographer/ethnobotanists like
Dr. Nancy Turner, Dr. Douglas Deur, Dr. Kat Anderson, Dr. Eugene Anderson, Dr.
James McDonald, Dr. Gary Nabhan, Dr. Leslie Main Johnson, is their willingness to respectfully listen and learn from aboriginal peoples about this different view of the world. It is hoped that by documenting what the writer has termed anthropogenic plant communities and/or agro-ecosystems, terms that likely have no equivalents in Sm’algyax, the language of the Tsimshian, but would also conceptually not exist as categories in the
Tsimshian worldview, that other interests has been piqued to engage in working with
Tsimshian people in learning about another way of seeing and living in the world.
Further Research
The existence of agro-ecosystems containing culturally important (keystone) species at the Kalum and Skeena River canyons leads one to consider Dr. Nancy Turner’s ideas about cultural edges (2003). Research thus far has not found similar evidence of horticultural activities in coastal areas of Tsimshian territory. The Canyon Tsimshian (Kitsumkalum and Kitselas peoples) are also known not to have engaged in the winter migrations to villages at Metlakatla Pass in Prince Rupert Harbour as the other Tsimshian
Skeena River tribes did. The canyon areas, particularly Kitselas Canyon on the Skeena
River, were known to have important positions in the control of trade up and down the
rivers. Tsimshian control of coast – interior trade 20 lasted until the first steamboat was able to navigate through the canyon in the mid 1800’s. Being located at the easternmost edge of Tsimshian territory with its transitional forest ecosystems and a differing array of plant resources from those available in coastal areas, and living in close proximity to
Gitxsan, Nisga’a, and Haisla peoples, with whom oral histories suggest they appear to share common ancestries, it may be that the Canyon Tsimshian were an excellent example of Dr. Turner’s cultural edge. The oral history documented by Dr. James
McDonald that the Kitsumkalum people engaged in burning as a berry management tool, combined with the existence of the unusual mid-slope non-forested patches in the Kalum valley indicate that this might be the western most locality in the northwest where this management technique was implemented at a landscape scale.
It will be interesting as further ethnobotanical and ethnographic research is undertaken to find out if other agro-ecosystems will be discovered, either persisting communities in the field or discussion of horticultural activities in the oral traditions, amongst First Nations in northwest North America. Given recent discussions with both
Dr. Leslie Main Johnson and Rosamund Pojar it is likely that evidence of Gitxsan agro- ecosystems will be extended from Trusler’s (1995) investigations of Gitxsan berry
20 this trade was developed over millennia as evidenced by the finding of obsidian blades (5000-3500ybp) at Kitselas Canyon, these blades had origins in the Mt. Edziza and Anahaim Lake areas of British Columbia – in both cases localities more than 400 km from the canyon site. See Berthiaume (1999) and Allaire (1979), Fladmark (1984). management to documenting crabapple orchards along an ancient Gitxsan trail near the old village of Kuldo where there are reports of crabapple trees having been observed.
The Haisla who occupy a similar coast-interior transition zone and who through a number of interesting reports from Compton (1993) which mention crabapple orchards and the transplanting or stinging nettle and springbank clover, would also be likely to be found to
be peoples’ with well developed horticultural practices. The Nisga’a, whose traditional
lands also cross the coastal and interior boundaries, and who were also hosts to the annual
oolichan harvest shared by Tsimshian tribes at Nass Bay, would also be good candidates
to have engaged in horticultural activities.
Intensive management of plant resources by peoples who held/hold such
extensive knowledge about the natural world should not be a surprise. The research in
this paper including oral traditions that are supported by field documentation of
anthropogenic plant communities, those that could only exist with human intervention,
gives support to the narrowness of focus of early ethnographers in describing the
supposed-to-be dying “hunter-gatherer” cultures in northwestern North America. This
work and future work by a new generation of students interested in ethnobotany and the
lessons to be learned from the Traditional Ecological Knowledge held by First Nations
peoples’ in the northwest will add voice to both dispelling the hunter-gatherer myth and
to respecting and learning the lessons from First Nations people and their knowledge
holders that may be the key to living sustainably in our ecologically threatened future. Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank the wonderful people of Kitsumkalum. If this paper proves of the slightest value to that community in its endeavors in the future the worth of the project would exceed the writer’s expectations. Thank you for the permission to visit the places of your ancestors and for helping this writer see the lands we share with a new perspective. I would like to thank Athabasca University for providing research funds which enabled visits to remote areas of Tsimshian territory. Dundas Islands and Gitnadoix
River are areas that are difficult to get to and it was important to visit those wonderful places and search for more anthropogenic plant communities. Thanks also to Brian at BC
Parks for offering to take the writer to sites identified in Gitnadoix Provincial Park and for sharing interest in the Tsimshian cultural landscape. Thanks to Rob and the Haida
Queen for the trip to Dundas Islands one way being quite rough and the return very calm.
Thanks to Dr. Leslie Main Johnson for stewarding and steering the writer through to the completion of the Master of Arts Integrated Studies program at Athabasca
University and particularly for visiting the Kalum Canyon sites in late August of 2005.
Dr. Johnson’s enthusiasm about the magic of the place was similar to the writer’s and her eyes were able to add to the complexities of the observations to be found there.
It is indeed fortunate that Dr. James McDonald has been on sabbatical from the
University of Northern British Columbia and in residence at Kitsumkalum of this current year. The writer joined Dr. McDonald in visiting the Kalum Canyon sites with a group of students enrolled in an anthropology class offered by UNBC in Terrace this summer. In spite of the heat the writer was able to begin learning from Dr. McDonald about Robin
Town and the Tsimshian cultural landscape in general. Together we revisited the Kalum
Canyon area on a number of occasions this fall (2005) and Dr. McDonald has been helpful with the completion of this paper.
I would like also to thank my colleagues at Northwest Community College – Judy
Thompson and David Archer whom I do not see often enough but whom share passions about local First Nations peoples and cultures past and present. Judy is a current student of Dr. Nancy Turner, whom also deserves thanks for being nearly everyone’s mentor.
One of the most wonderful people is Barbara Wilson (K”ii7lljuus) - I cannot thank her enough for sharing in brief conversations her enthusiasm for life and common interests in plants, the riches of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the traditional and present day lifeways of First Nations peoples in the northwest.
The writer would also like to thank members of the First Nations Council at
Northwest Community College. This group of educators who come together from many rural communities in the northwest to discuss ways the college might improve access to and success in educational programs has helped provide me with an additional “pair of eyes” (Urion 1999) that initiated the desire to embark on this MAIS journey. To all thanks and particularly Silimks (Irene Seguin), Gwaans (Bev Clifton-Percival), Jacob
McKay, Charlotte Guno and Debbie Moore.
Many thanks to the library staffs at both Northwest Community College and
Athabasca University. Your fast and efficient services were appreciated. Also thanks to
Dave O’Leary and my wife Patti Barnes for proof reading this paper prior to submission.
Finally thanks to Cecil Paul Sr. and the wisdom he bestows on the writer each time we meet. As with all of the above it is hoped our paths continue to cross and that you all continue to brighten the writer’s life and learning. Thank you all my teachers. References Cited
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Appendix 1
Adaawgm Kitsumkalum James McDonald (2003:35-39) This was really a former large village – that is Kitsumkalum ages ago – and there were really a great number of people. These have since perished in a war and there were so many people in this village, ages ago that, when geese flew over the village they would fall down being so excited at the many people who shouted at them. This [big] village was on the upper river of Kitsumkalum, and it stood on [big] wide terraces, and it was here that a chief lived, who had an only son and the chief loved him very much. Nisgitloop was the name of the great chief who loved his only son very much. The people of the village also loved the son of the chief and the prince had one peculiarity – he ate only the tips of salmon. He would not eat that which the people ate, but ate only the salmon tips. When his father’s tribesmen caught salmon he would cut off the salmon tips. Although the people tried to feed him with the flesh of the whole salmon, the young man did not want it. The name of the young man was Big Eagle. While he was young the [prince] became ill and all the shamans were unable to cure him and he died.
When his parents had put him away to lay behind the village, the great Chief and his wife were very sad so he at once said to his slave “You go and say to all my people that we will leave this village and we will go to the mouth of the river and make our village there.” The slave went about saying, “My master now says that you shall all leave this village and at the mouth of the river there you will make your village.” When the people heard what the slave that Nisgitloop had sent said, they started packing up and prepared to move to the mouth of the river. The great chief was so sad at what happened [to] his son who died that he could not bear it, so that was why that he wanted to move with all his tribe.
And even now that he lived at the mouth of the Kalum river, and it was now long since they had left their old village, he always remembered his dead son. And he and the [son’s] mother could not stop mourning and rally all of the people always remembered the dead prince. After the people had lived there a long while, one spring all the young people got up to go and gather fern roots at the old village, as it was here that the fern root was plentiful. There was only one responsible woman who accompanied the young men and women. And this is what the ancient people did. They would not allow the thoughtless to be by themselves and there was always a responsible person with the young people to advise them. So this is what the woman would do that went with those that gathered the fern root. This was really a food of the people, this fern root, the roots of a different fern and when the people gathered it, they roasted it by burying in the ground and there they made a fire on top of it and when it was cooked they piled it up until all their baskets were filled and then they packed it down and put these into their food boxes. It was kept a long while. While the young people were doing this, gathering fern root, some of them went and caught the new spring salmon and everybody was now happy. Well the young people were all eating the freshly cooked salmon.
The people were close by to where the Prince lay buried, that is Big Eagle. And when one of the young men found the tip of the salmon of what he was eating he suddenly thought of how Big Eagle used to like this. So the thoughtless young man said to the others, “It will be well, that I should invite Big Eagle here and [he] really liked salmon tips.” Then to this all of the thoughtless young people argued to what this man said.
So the young man at once arose, holding the salmon tip, and he said, “Come Big Eagle, see this which you formerly relished. Come down and eat it.” The responsible woman, who advised the young people was afraid at the thing which the thoughtless young man had said and scolded him saying “It is really tabu that people should haunt the people who were now dead. It is well that we at once return, now.” But the young people paid no heed to what the responsible woman said and when it was night the young people started to play. So, then the wise woman at once took her two children and hid them some distance off and she herself hid. She knew that the young people had done wrong in teasing the dead.
So after the young people had been playing for some time around the fire, they suddenly all heard that there came sounds like whistling from the hills from where Big Eagle lay buried. And there came sounds like the voice of a crying person, and when that was done suddenly the young people saw where a skeleton was walking down very slowly and saying, “Give it to me.” The young people knew it was the ghost of Big Eagle, whom they had teased while they were eating. The young people tried to escape, but they could not do so, and the ghost came down slowly to them and was now close to where they were and all of them suddenly died. And only the wise woman and her two children survived. When it was day, the woman saw what had happened to all of the young people and she then returned to the village, and said to the people of the village. “It is not good, what has happened to us, all of the young people are dead. I stopped them when they were teasing where the Prince Big Eagle lay, but they would not listen to me. One of the thoughtless ones pretended to feed him with the spring salmon tip, and when it became night the ghost of Big Eagle came down, and when he spoke to all of the young people they all suddenly died. And we escaped because we hid some distance away, right from the first and this was why we escaped.” All of the people of the village at once went up to where all the young people lay dead and when the people saw what had happened to all the great many young children and they all wept.
Now there was a great shaman who was more powerful than ghosts and this the people remembered and someone was sent to get this shaman. When the people brought the great shaman from the Nass River and he went to the upper river to see where Big Eagle lay, he also examined all the dead young people. Then the great shaman said “The souls of all these young people here have not yet gone to the ghosts’ community and it will be this night that the ghosts shall come for them.” So the great shaman at once gathered together all shamans to help him. When all the shamans came in, they then went to where each one of the young people lay, now dead, and then the head shaman asked his supernatural aide just what had happened [to] these dead [people] and the supernatural aides replied to him, “You have no time to lose as this night, the chief of the ghosts will come across to get the souls of these young people. And I will be able to go for them as they have not yet been taken by the Chief of Ghosts.” When the head shaman went out from the house all the other shamans followed behind him and the head shaman kept on going ahead. This was the shaman who had fought with the ghost and defeated them and he was founded as being able to bring back people who had died and make them live again. The head shaman came to where a river ran, which river was not visible to any ordinary person, but only to those that were shamans. So when he, the head shaman, came to this river, he said to his fellow shamans, “You will wait for me here. And you will not stop singing so long as I am gone because I am really going to try to bring back the souls of all the dead young people.” The head shaman was not gone long, when he returned and seemed to be carrying a heavy thing. And when he met all of his fellow shamans, he then went to the houses where the dead bodies of all the young people lay who had seen the ghost of Big Eagle. After the head shaman had finished jumping over all of the dead bodies, then he threw something into each one of the bodies. After he had done this, the young people became alive again. So this is why it is tabu for people to ridicule anyone that is dead or ridicule anyone that is mourning the dead because even when a person dies his ghost is always present among the people and can do harm to people. And when people want to send anything to these that are now dead, they burn the things they wish to send, in the fireplace and this is done when some person of the village is dead, and they say when doing this, “This is for you,” (calling the name of the person) and they also call out the name of the person by whom they are sending it by. And whenever wood cracks on the fireplace, the people of the house say at once that it is some one of the household who has recently died, that is speaking and they take some belongings of this person and burn it in the fire. (This I add to this narrative I am telling.) So this is why the people of Kitsumkalum left their village on the head waters of the river Kitsumkalum and made a new village at the mouth of the river
Appendix 2
43. The Story of Part Summer (first paragraph only) Boas (1916:278)
In olden times there was a very happy people in the village of Gitsemgalon. They lived in a very pretty town of three rows up the Gitsemgalom River. I called it the Tree- Row Land, for the village was built in three rows. They built their houses on top of the hill, the second row under the first and the third row under the second one. The town was on the bank of a river, a very good river, and the village was not far from a very large lake. They went there very often in the summer for picking berries of all kinds, which were growing along the sides of the lake, which was their hunting ground. Sometimes the people would live there in summer for drying berries for winter use, and in winter the hunters would live there. Therefore they built their little huts on the shore of the large lake.
24. The Chief Who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck (edited excerpts only) Boas (1916:179-182)
In olden times, long ago, the people of this coast used to marry animals, birds, frogs, snails, mice and so on. So it happened with one great chief. His village was at the northwest side of Xien Island, and his tribe consisted of many people. He had no wife. His people assembled several times, and tried to find a woman to be his wife. Then the chief said to them, “If you bring me a woman of the Robin tribe, I will marry her; and if you will bring me a woman of the Sawbill Ducks, I will marry her.” Then the people of his tribe had a great meeting to talk over these matters. Some of his wise men took counsel, and chose hunters to search for the two women whom the chief wanted to marry. Therefore the hunters fasted; and after their fasting, some went up the mountains and others went out to sea. Those who went up the mountains reached a large plain, where they saw a large village, and they went towards it. When they came near, they saw young people walking up and down on the street. They seemed very happy, and they were good to look at. They were young men and young women. When they saw the hunters coming to their village, some young men ran in and told the people and also their chief, who invited the strangers into his house. They spread mats at the side of the chief’s large fire, and immediately sat down. Then some one touched the side of one of the hunters. It was the Mouse Woman. She said, “Do you know whose village this is?” He said, “No.” Then the Mouse Woman said, “This is the village of Robin, and this is the house of their chief. He has a beautiful daughter, whom her father will let you have to be your chief’s wife if you promise him to take good care of her.” After Mouse Woman had spoken, she went away.
The princess returns to the Xien Island village and marries the chief and after a number of years she returns to her home village up the Skeena River…… They went on many days, and finally reached a beautiful town. There were four rows of houses there, and every row was full of houses, and chief’s house was in the middle of the first row. It was a very large house. The village was very beautiful, and all the people in the village looked very fine. As soon as they reached there, the Robin chief invited the strangers who came to the town with his young daughter, and the chief was much pleased to see her come; and when all the young men were seated on one side of his large house, the chief first gave them cooked fresh spring salmon to eat, and then fresh salmonberries and all other kinds of fresh berries. After the meal the princess called the young men who came with her from her husband’s town, and led them to one side of her father’s house. There she opened the door of a large room and showed them snow and ice, which filled the inside of the large room. Then she took them to the other side of the house, opened the door of a large room, went in, and all her companions followed her. There she showed them a large hill full of salmonberry bushes and all kinds of berries around that beautiful hill. There were all kinds of wild flowers budding on the green grass, and all kinds of birds were singing on the flowers. The hummingbirds went in rapid flight among the flowers. Then the princess took them to the rear of the house and showed them a large beautiful river. The river was full of all kinds of salmon. So the people said that the house of Chief Robin had winter on one side, and the summer on the other.
Appendix 3
The Origin of Black Huckleberries Turner (2004a:60-61)
In this story, Eagle was a very beautiful young woman who lived at Kettle Falls. She had many suitors, and the old grandmothers, who were her teachers, decided to hold a big running competition, with the winner of the race to become her husband. The course for the race was extremely challenging and led over rough rocky ground and steep precipices along the Columbia River. Mountain Goat sent his sons to compete in the race. The eldest son was one of those courting Eagle, but she and all the other people there despised him because of his ugliness – his bony legs, big horns and thick body. Old Mountain Goat sent a gift of huckleberries with his sons, but because the goats were so unpopular, their contribution was set aside from the other gifts. The eldest mountain goat brother sat down despondently. His younger brothers, however, planted one of the huckleberry bushes they had brought from home in front of him. The eldest brother ate all the berries from the bush, and felt much better, regaining his self-respect because of his brothers’ kindness. Nobody thought the mountain goat brothers could win the race, but they were allowed to enter the competition. When the race began, the people laughed at them with their awkward gait. When they came to the cliff, however, the goat brothers raced right across the face of it, a feat that none of the other animals could achieve, and because of this they easily won the race. Eagle’s grandmothers had almost been ready to throw the goats’ gift of huckleberries into the river, but the women were astonished to see the goats racing across the face of the rock. The agile mountain goats won the esteem of the grandmothers and the others. The grandmothers then brought the choice gift basket of huckleberries over to the Eagle for her to taste and name – she named the fruit “sweet berry.” The story goes that from the bush the goats had planted now come all the huckleberries in Sinixt territory.
Appendix 4 Kalum Canyon Aerial Photo Note red outlines indicating the smaller “meadow site” and Robin Town