Planting Our Future
Traditional Plants
Salal Berries
Cakes, dipped in Eulachon grease, sweetener, jams, pancakes, and also dried.
Tea – stomach tonic, diarrhea, and tuberculosis.
Elderberries
*Berries only, stems are poisonous* Jams, syrup, pie, and wine.
Flowers – create wash for hemorrhoids, arthritis, and sores. Inner Bark Tea – epilepsy, emptying bowels and induce vomiting.
High-bush Cranberries
Cobbler, Jam, Pie, syrup, and wine.
Treats bladder infections and reduces plaque, gingivitis, and tooth decay.
Soapberries
Fresh, cakes, jams, pudding, and Indian ice-cream.
Rich in vitamin C and Iron – Tea – Treats flu, indigestion and constipation. Juice treats boils, acne, and gallstones.
Black Huckleberries.
Cake, muffins, jam, syrup, ice cream
Tea – Good for the liver, diabetes, and the gull bladder.
Crowberries
Cake, muffins, pancakes, pie, jam, and juice.
Very high in vitamin C – Tea – treats diarrhea, colds, and chills.
Prickly Currants
Jam, Pie
Tea – treats colds and diarrhea.
Camas
Bulbs eat raw, toast, boil, dried, used as sweetener.
Roots were used to induce labour and the leaves were used after labour for vaginal bleeding and to expel the afterbirth.
Bitterroot
Starchy roots used to thicken stew, cakes and pudding
Roots treated diabetes, rashes, and poison-ivy.
Stinging Nettle
Boiled – salads, cream soup, soup base, juice, tea, wine, beer
Leaves – rich in protein and vitamin C – treats gout, anemia, dyssentry, increases lactation and urination, and reducing menstrual bleeding and bladder infections. Tea – hives, hayfever, bronchitis, asthma, kidney stones, and multiple sclerosis.
Wild Sage
Do not eat. Burn for fragrance and prayer.
Tea – treated bruises, eczema, body odour, and sores. Northern wormwood tea eased delivery of baby and also aided in abortions.
Sweetgrass
Drink only, do not eat. Use as essential oil and burn for prayer.
Tea – coughing, sore throat, chafing, venereal infections, windburn, and sore eyes. Also helped with internal bleeding and childbirth.
(Mackinnon, et al., 2014)