Reviving an Ancient Agricultural Practice: The Root Gardens of Canada’s West Coast Aboriginals

Ethnobotanist, Dr. Nancy Turner of the University of Victoria has worked with graduate students in the root gardens and has written a book with Dr. Deur called “Keeping it Living.”

By Daniel Green
Soiled and Seeded
Winter 2012

Excerpt:

One of the traditional practices Chief Dick recalls is the type of specialized agriculture done in root gardens along the west coast of North America known as t’ekilakw, or “places of man-made soil.” T’ekilakw is a system of perennial root gardens constructed along coastal estuaries using natural inputs from the sea. Due to governmental, intellectual, and societal repression of indigenous lifestyles, these root gardens had all but been forgotten or actively covered up until only a few years ago. The unearthing of what may seem to be a minor discovery could have profound cultural and even political ramifications.

The Discovery
In the mid-1990s, Dr. Douglas Deur of Portland State University theorized that Native Canadians along the coast of British Columbia had manipulated the land in ways conducive to food production. His research found that the gardens were designed to capture debris brought by tidal waves, such as dead fish, kelp, and other nutrients. These inputs nurtured the perennial roots of species such as Potentilla anserina ssp. pacifica (Pacific silverweed), Trifolium wormskioldii (springbank clover) and Fritillaria camschatcensis (rice-root).

Read the complete article here.

See: Keeping It Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on Northwest Coast of North America