Heidi Bohan

Episode #41 March 24, 2016

Heidi Bohan has over 18 years of experience working as an educator of native plants, horticulture, woodworking, ethnobotany, and traditional ecological knowledge of the Pacific Northwest.

She has been a carpenter, fine woodworker, architectural designer, and as a teacher has taught classes in basketry, carving, weaving, edible and medicinal plants, and more. She has worked with many local tribes, as an instructor and mentor for the Northwest Indian College.

Heidi is the author of a new book, The People of Cascadia: Pacific Northwest Native American History. It is an incredible living work with over 300 pen and ink illustrations depicting the daily life of the four major cultural groups of the Pacific Northwest. It was reviewed by tribal members and cultural experts and approved for the school social studies curricula in Washington State.

In this interview, I visit Heidi in person in her study. This interview goes deep into how to effectively use plants in your life, using Heidi’s incredible life as an example. Though Heidi happens to be my neighbor in the Snoqualmie Valley, I regard her as the most hard-core plant skills learner I have ever met. Medicine, tools, weaving, dyes, gardening, carving, baskets… you name it, she’s done it. She was a crucial mentor for me in my understanding of how to make the plants that grow around come alive in my life.

You can visit Heidi at http://heidibohan.com and http://peopleofcascadia.com

Episode Transcript

From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.

You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio and HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. Today, I am live in person with Heidi Bohan. Heidi has over eighteen years experience working as an educator of native plants, horticulture, woodworking, ethnobotany and traditional ecological knowledge of the Pacific Northwest. Heidi has been a carpenter, fine woodworker, architectural designer and as a teacher has taught classes in basketry, carving, weaving, edible medicinal plants and more. She has worked with many local tribes as an instructor and mentor for the Northwest Indian College.

Heidi is author of a new book, The People of Cascadia, Pacific Northwest Native American History. It's an incredible living work with over three hundred pen and ink illustrations depicting the daily life of the four major cultural groups of the Pacific Northwest.

It was reviewed by tribal members and cultural experts and approved for the school social studies curriculum here in Washington State. You can visit Heidi online anytime you want at heidi bohan, that's b o h a n, dot com.

Heidi, welcome.

Thank you. It's good to be here.

I should say thanks for welcoming me because we are sitting in a historical farmhouse that you live in here in Carnation, Washington which also happens to be the town I live just a stone's throw from here. And, among everything else, you know, Heidi manages and organizes our local farmers market which is I think I'm biased and then probably you are too but I think it's the best I've ever seen.

It's a people call it a gym of a farmers market, so I think it's a very special market myself.

Dang. It it is. It is. And it's it's only a block from my house too, which is awesome.

Oh, yeah. That's lucky. Lucky.

So, Heidi, you know, I met you fifteen years ago in Wilderness Awareness School. Do you believe it's been that long?

No. Yes. Actually, yes. Getting used to that idea.

Well, Wilderness Awareness School when we first moved out here to Washington and and not too long after that, maybe a couple years after, you started a little group called the Catkin Moon Medicine Society, which I was a part of. It was really a group of folks interested in studying the native uses of our native plants, kind of from a cultural perspective, especially.

And what struck me was that, you know, you were just learning along with everyone else, and you showed me that you don't really have to be just an expert to jump in and start learning to involve a community of people in what you're passionate about. And, you know, that never really seems to be an issue for you. Nothing really holding you back from delving delving you into from delving in and learning something. So what I was curious about is what first inspired you to delve into plants and native culture?

Oh, that's a big question.

It's okay. We've got time. That's just cool. We we don't we don't have any commercial breaks or anything.

We should Let's see.

So the native plants and native culture actually was inspired by the early movement of native plant knowledge in the, nineties. And, Art Krugerberg, I went and saw talk by him. He I call him the father of native plants in this area Mhmm. And got into helping out with the native plant restoration sites and some of the salvage operations. And in that time, someone gave me a photocopy division of the ethnobania Western Washington.

And I'd also met and married Ralph Bennett at that time, who's a Haida Native American woodcarver and storyteller.

So with my combined, knowledge of horticulture, having worked in nurseries and done organic gardening since I was about sixteen, it was a pretty easy leap into, tying it together with Native American, use of the plants and the plants themselves, getting to know what they were and where they grew and how they fit.

So, but you know, what really struck me is that you would seek out mentors, you would you could go to a cultural exhibit at a museum for example and just figure out how to make these various. I I mean, I was like, you had nets you made and Yeah.

Traps and all kinds of So I had a unique Figure that out.

I had a unique situation in that Ralph and I, moved into a park in Redmond as artist in residence, and there was a studio there where he carved and did storytelling events and I got involved with, creating some native plant gardens there and working with the school groups that came through.

And so as a result of working with school groups and just the general public who are interested, that gave me a reason to begin to experiment and and to teach back. So pretty quickly after going to a few ethnobani talks and a few local presentations, I realized that that knowledge was not being very there wasn't much out there. So and and I started to see where there was a lot of errors in the information. So I think that gave me the courage to to move forward and and having Ralph there and then native other native family members and people to talk to to bounce this off of to make sure I was understanding it correctly or, even talking about it correctly helped a lot.

And and so I used to do a Thursday, I think it was Thursday nights at Slough House Park where, I always said I was one week ahead of everybody else and we just did, we did a hands on whatever kind of the group wanted to do. And and we mostly did basketry, but we did do things like net making or cattail mat making, something that was usually of my interest, something that I was pursuing.

And I would then, so that gave me the excuse, the catalyst. And there's a real, you know, they say the fastest way to learn is to teach something. So so I really felt like over those four years of living at the park and being in that position, I just fast tracked this information. And I also was a, you know, a student who loved learning in school.

You know, I was a straight a kid, and and I ended up, you know, not finishing school just because the systems weren't there for someone like myself at that time. But, I think that was a big advantage. And I even say that to kids in school, you know, I feel like my life's a great big school report.

And that all these grants that I've used for my projects and stuff, that's all just a great big report, presentation to get people to fund what you do or, which is the people of Cascadia.

The book is a result of a grant that Yeah.

That actually spun off of other grants that I'd written for developing curriculum with school districts and, activities for teachers to implement. And and those kits are still out there being used by schools and parks and but those teachers would ask me what can we use to teach with and what book is there and I actually ended up, you know, there really isn't anything. I don't know what to recommend to you.

Did did you find a lot of the books that were out there, maybe put together by maybe more academic, type of ethnos botanist that maybe weren't connected to actual Well, there were many ways to answer that.

One, there was a real emphasis on northern tribes.

Mhmm.

You know, there's a lot of information on Northern tribes. There's a lot of, books that specialize on the art or maybe the stories. But, even with the northern tribes there aren't a lot of books that talk about the daily life of the, in a historical context of how the people lived. And so that became the focus of this book was a local look, you know, not just the northern tribes and comprehensive about their the way they live.

You could find that information if you researched, if you were a researcher and you could get it from this book and that book and this resource, but these were all, like you said, they were these were academic studies and certainly not something a teacher or a or even a a student or even someone new to the state that wants to learn more, just just wants to learn more isn't gonna have the kind of, wherewithal to go to the libraries and go to the museums and get that comprehensive look. And even if they did, wouldn't know if it was accurate or not because that ends up being one of the biggest issues is you can read one thing here and one thing there, and it can be the opposite and you've got to be able to determine which is the truth.

And so, so that led to that.

So this woman of Scottish descent settles in the Pacific Northwest and literally records and to revive the connection with the cultural roots of a lot of native people around here.

You know, when I when I announced my my marriage to Ralph, my mom actually pointed out that, here was this northwest coast, Irish Scottish person marrying a Northwest coast.

And, you know, and that was that was really a kind of a first alert for me that there wasn't that much difference really in terms of landscape between my ancestors and northwest coast people here. We were on waters, we were hunting whale, we were using the sea as a primary food source, And, so there are just a lot of commonalities between our cultures.

Salmon was big They make haggis here?

No.

Well, that's a personal bad idea. We should talk to the people in the prairie area, but there's Bagpipes, are there bagpipers?

Yeah.

But, you know, but just in terms of use of food and actually when I did go to Scotland and Ireland, there are so many commonalities in the plants.

I felt like I was in familiar land. It was just, you know, different, species but same types of plants.

I I noticed the same thing in Ireland like, when I was in the northwest coast. That is also it's interesting that you say that because I get a little chills up my spine because it's like I was attracted of all places in the world to go travel when I was in my mid twenties and had the ability to do that. I went to Ireland for a year and was in the coastal area And here I ended up in the North. And I remember coming out here the first time in Washington and I thought to myself, I love this place because it's a connection. It's like a cross between Ireland and Alaska. It's like Ireland with trees.

It's pretty good, I agree.

You know, even the weather. Yeah.

So, you know, on that note, I there was a period when I was really wishing I could live in Ireland. I you know, after I'd spent some time there and came back and I longed for that. I longed to live in a land that my ancestors had been from. And and, and and actually since I was so deeply involved at that point in native culture, there is that there's definitely, almost an apology to be that involved because I'm definitely I don't look native.

I, you know, I I, I'm clearly I don't have, you know, one thirty second ancestry. Right. And, you know, I don't have any claim to it and, and yet here I was immersed in the information. And so having gone, you know, I I kind of I missed that, that I didn't get to live in a land where my ancestors came from.

And I was speaking to my daughter about it one day that, you know, I'd love to live in Ireland, but I don't know what I would do.

And she just looked at me kind of surprised and said, well, do what you're doing now. And that was a huge statement for me. That was a real epiphany of, of course, I'd be a plant person there. I would be a I would be a person that was carrying on passing on what the culture, cultural traditional knowledge is there. I would be teaching. I would be an herbalist and and, a basket maker and all those things. And so that helped me claim my my right to have that knowledge in this land that I live in now and that I am honoring the ancestors of this land by learning from them.

Mhmm.

They're the ones who they've lived here for ten thousand years or longer, and who better to learn from than from those ancestors? And I felt that strongly even before my trip to Ireland, and when I do teach the basketry and the traditional skills, you know, I have a lot of students who come back the next week and they've branched into a whole new technique and a whole new form, which I think is nice. I think that's, great, but my personal choice is to stay with the traditional techniques until I figure out why they're why they were done. Sometimes and sometimes it'll be years before I'll figure out why did why would you do that particular technique when it seems I could be faster this way or whatever.

And and usually, sometimes it will take me years to finally go, I figure I understand that now. Why that would be the better way to do that? So, so anyway, there's I just I feel like, we even though if we don't have native ancestry in this land, I think we have the cultural memory of living in connection with the land and that's what people are called to, when they get involved with the work that I do.

Yeah. It's like I I find that when people work with plants, it's like they it's like they they're really interested in it, but they don't know why. Yeah.

Like, why why do I wanna make this Yeah.

You know, this this herbal remedies? I mean, I it's like I, it's not you know, it's like there's just something in them that that drives them to it that they've been doing for since ancient times maybe.

Yeah. And that was Cat and Moon as well. So Cat and Moon was made up of people that at the ends of the workshops that I would do, I would see these faces looking at me like, now what do I do? Like, you just inspired me and now what do I do?

Like this almost panic look in their eye like, well, you're not just gonna leave, are you? And and, so from those people, I just to say there had to be some way to offer them something where they could incorporate this into their life because they clearly wanted to incorporate this into their life. And so, cat and moon was based on the study of native plants in all of their uses, not just for basketry, not just for medicine, not just for food. We tend to kinda compartmentalize how we learn things and and, so I that was that was the focus of that.

And to do it throughout the seasons, I when I first conceived the idea, I was gonna have people sign up for a year, but I wasn't sure I could get people to sign up for a year. So I just did it, from equinox to solstice to solstice to equinox in quarters. And and, I really think I probably could have got people to sign up for a year because many stayed on. I forgot.

They stayed on.

Two or so quarter to three quarters.

Yeah. And I had people stay on for two years or so. And I run into them now and they they do say that they definitely made it part of their life in one form or the other.

So I would say that too is, you know I was studying at Ravencroft and there were some traditions I was learning there.

Like you know, I was learning medicine making and it was definitely involved with seasonal cycles and gardening and stuff. But there's something about when we were working with you where we would go out and we would go to a salvage site and harvest maybe Oregon grape or something from a a place that was gonna be bulldozed down and or we would you would show us artifact trees where cedar planks were harvested for homes.

We would go to all these places and it just put it into this context of sense of place and connection to the past. And that was really powerful.

That's neat to hear. Yeah. Once a month, we did an excursion, and then I did a workshop that tied to the excursion.

Right. Mhmm.

And I tried to make it relevant so that would be seasonal. And and I started this new group, the Gather at a Gardener group, and we were doing the same thing. And that was every other week as well. Mhmm.

And really the expeditions, I think, are the most inspiring for people and to take people to different ecosystem types and Mhmm.

And, then, you know, paint the picture of what what that how that ecosystem fit into the human. And so that's another piece here I think that's, important is that we as a culture have, really focused on the study of plants or the study of, you know, in the scientific way and in that process removed ourselves from being part of it. And so when I I actually had one woman in Cat Can Moon who at the end of the classes would be so emotional she'd be, you know, crying. And I finally asked her, she'd been involved in the Native Plant Society for years and had gone on all the walks and, you know, really participated. And I finally asked her one time because that's pretty much what I thought I was doing is taking people out on walks and we're doing plan ID and then we do these activities.

Mhmm.

And I asked her, why is this so emotional for you? I you know, what is that that what's triggering that? And she said, kind of in this almost awe to voice, she said, you let us touch them.

And that was a big deal for me to really get that. Yeah. Because cause we even do that as educators. And I and I actually when I do trainings for teachers and, naturalists and the like, I I tell them, you know, when you take these school groups out, thirty kids or so, you know, we have all these rules, stay on the trail, don't pick the plants, you know, and we're doing that and we have this set of reasons that we're doing that, but we don't explain that to kids.

And I've gone into groups of kids where they're afraid to touch plants. They're afraid to go off the trail because it hasn't been properly explained to them why. And and so I started adding into that when I tell kids, well, they can't go off the trail and, you know, you need need to let me be at the front and all that. I'll say, but some other time, come back here on your own or with your parents and definitely go off trail and definitely pick some plants and and and explore this place, you know, because that's the best way you're gonna get to know this land.

So that I think we just get ingrained in this stay on the trail, don't touch, just look, you know. Gosh. And, we don't really engage.

And I think going out to Eastern Washington with you to Uptanum Ridge, we were up and we were digging up the location and learning about and we even went to the, what is that place? The, you know, we, where the herbariums were.

The the arboretum was my arboretum.

Yeah.

We could go and see the Plants impressed.

Yeah. And compare them right there.

But that really, when you did that, it really showed me that the mentoring really showed me that wow, this is multifaceted study. It's like you would go to the arboretum, into the laboriums and check the plant to make sure it was this one, and you would go with maps and find the places, and you go out and then learn about it. All the aspects before getting to harvesting and sharing and everything.

So that does come to the research piece. I have figured out that not everybody likes to research.

Right.

And and I do.

I love research and we're sitting in my library right now.

That's beautiful. I know where this whole was this wonderful little alcove room on the second floor overlooking this tree farm and an old barn and this is a late nineteenth century house. Yeah, nineteen oh seven.

Beautiful.

And I've got, I don't know, two, three hundred books in here. And, and I don't, you know, I and I don't mind going to archives and digging around and pulling out that info.

So and not everybody wants to take that time so that that becomes the reason why You know, I'm one week ahead of people or one month or one year, you know, and and, it's just because I think of the ability to focus on that.

So I remember the time too when you were, we were doing cottonwood salve.

Uh-huh. And you're actually just like, well, we're gonna make it in lard. And he started talking about how a native person would have made it.

Like not just do this beeswax and Yeah.

And olive oil, but we're actually good. Let's think about how this would have been done before pressed olive oil in the area. Yeah. And how restored like in the bulbs of the bullet kelp you were talking about. Right.

You remember all that.

Oh, I do. I remember like it was yesterday.

And for for listeners, the, lard is the equivalent is bear grease Mhmm.

Which, you know, bear and pigs have similar body types as do we. You know, we're all very closely related and that was the other piece on that. So yeah, but I do have done workshops where, I have to usually I I also have the olive oil alternative because there are people that still view lard or something as as not so good. So, but that's the traditional counterpart right there.

How how is the work you've been doing, because I know when you're married to Ralph, Bannon Huthaita, which is, just so folks know who don't know where that, those, those peep first peoples lived was, of islands, kind of right off Canada right off Canada near the Washington border. Right?

Canada and Alaska. They they actually are dual citizens because, Prince of Wales Island is is and Queen Charlotte Right. Are the two islands the Haida people live on. And and, Prince of Wales is, Alaskan, I believe. And, Queen Charlotte is BC.

So so the work you're doing here then, having limited experience over the years and working with the, different, Native American elders or leaders over the years of my years of wilderness awareness. Just knowing that sometimes that can be, touchy areas, sharing culture and all with people. And so how has the work you've been doing been received by the local elders? When they look at this book and they work with you, like how has this how has this been?

Well, that's that's a perfect question. No. Actually, that one is great because I've had elders look at it.

Right.

And, and I and tribal members look at it and say, just like thumb through the pages, we had such a beautiful culture.

And that to me was the most gratifying thing to see that that's what this book conveyed to them was the very thing I was trying to convey, which is this was a beautiful, complex, intact culture prior to to European contact. And and even the front cover conveys that with Bill Holm's wonderful painting with the back of the Noocha Nooch man and his canoe, you know, a fully intact culture, totally sustainable, healthy, beautiful, looking at that first sale as it arrives on the horizon of a of a Spanish galleon or a I don't think that might be Cook's, sale as it comes on on the shoreline. So

that's what I try to convey and those same elders then will buy fifteen of them to give to their their grandchildren for Christmas. Wow. And that is that is the greatest reward for me to get that kind of, response to it from native people. This book is not intended for native people, you know.

I I I but my measure of it being successful was that if a native person read it, that what I wrote in there was true to them, was correct, not that an academic would look at it and find it correct. That's not my first priority that academics or cultural experts look at it and say it's correct.

So if I know there's a controversy, and there are some controversies about things like, was the horse present in the Yakima culture prior to this?

Oh.

You know, and if that if those people there are people that believe the horse was present, I'm gonna say that in this book, you know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna dispute that or say that that's not true. I'm just gonna say that there is that belief that that is the case. And same with the different theories about how people arrived here in the northwest.

I can remember the first time I told said something to Ralph about the land bridge theory and how people came over on the land bridge, and he just he just was like, oh no, they didn't we didn't come over that way. We've been here for thirty my grandma says we've been here thirty thousand years or longer.

And, I actually laughed when he told me that. I thought he was kidding and then I felt kinda sorry for him because, that he didn't know better.

And then and then I started realizing that every time you hear the Landbridge theory Alright.

It's a theory.

It's a theory. And that was fifteen years ago. And since then the Land Bridge theory is now quite debunked as the primary way that people came over, from, the Asian con continent or arrived here. And the to me, the one most fascinating aspects of that is the the the the research that has disproven it has been as the primary way. It's not to say that wasn't one way they came over. It's the fact that they're finding thirty thousand year old archaeological sites in scattered places around North and South America debunk the ten thousand year old land bridge theory.

Right.

And that his grandma had said that thirty thousand years ago.

We've been here since thirty thousand.

And knowing, but it is known as well that Haida would would row in canoes as far as Hawaii. Right? At least?

And further. And Ralph's dad used to say that. Ralph's dad is Kwan Kilt Kwan and, he's passed on now. But he told me, you talk about they could go out in their canoes and they would use the oil in the clamshell, and he didn't mention, but I've since learned that that would include a piece of metal that would then give directional to the North Pole.

And so he said, we used oil in the clamshell and the knowledge of the ocean depths to find our way. He said, we knew the ocean floor like you know mountain ranges, and we could just find where we were as we are traveling around. And that, again, is how the Polynesians travel. That's that's a known way to travel, that you just know how deep it is below you with whatever method you use.

And so, yeah, and I've had MacKay elders tell me that they've been trading with the Chinese for three thousand years, and and there's, you know, Chinese artifacts found in in, in burial sites or in archaeological sites. Oh, really? Pre date. Yeah.

So you go out to the Ozette site and you'll find bamboo in the Ozette site which was buried prior European contact. They had the use of the word iron prior to European contact. Wow. I mean, there's just, you know, there's extensive information to say that there was something going on with inter with trade.

I mean, I I actually, at this point, I think it's pretty well accepted that there was something going on prior to European contact.

But Yeah. Really amazing. So that's what I when when, you know, meeting you and and listening just to the times that we were teaching or we were out, it just always would just, just blow my mind other all the things that, you know, that it was a lot of, like, a perspective thing, you know. And, one of the things I remember, oh my gosh. I don't know what if it was you or Tanya, but it was definitely you were involved with that at the time saying that the, the not to say the native name, but the, for around here for the plant devil's club.

That in the native language, it would somehow translate or something to, like, the most sacred thing or something like that.

Or medicine or powerful. Yeah.

And when and when I heard that and I thought, oh here is the European pioneers coming over and grabbing this unfamiliar thing going, ah its devil's claw and then you have the people living here calling it the most sacred. Yeah. That the perspective shifted the whole world, just shifted and I go, oh.

I see and it was like wasn't like trillium like was it the eye of the transformer or something?

Oh yeah. That is the one.

It was like trillium which is well, when it comes to plants, I do. Yeah. Like a three three leaves, trillium makes sense. Yeah. But then the eye of the transformer was like, oh my gosh. That's so cool.

And big here in the Snoqualmie Valley. Right. You know, the the, he's star child.

Moon. He's the moon. So you're talking about perspective. So, one of the things that was a big perspective shift for me was how we view the land here.

Mhmm.

So when I, you know, when I talked to Ralph or some other family members, they'd always be talking about going, you know, here we are, maybe north of Seattle, and they'd be talking about going up to Seattle and over to they kept her feet. Directionally, things were never what I would think of as up or down. And I realized we view the map only with north as the Right. As the up and the south as the down.

And from a traditional perspective, up was the mountains and down was to the sea. Mhmm. So I did my maps in the book and I started using that in my teachings as well. I shifted the maps around so that up, our north, was actually the top of the cascade range, and then the Puget Sound was down.

And, so you'll see that in the book. And I have teachers comment on that still. They like that I kept that in the book. That we still have that up and down, that sort of whole shift in how we view the land.

I I have a friend who grew up on Mount Rainier.

Mhmm.

And I remember him. I could never get used to that. He said, we'd be here. And now Mount Rainier from where we're sitting is south.

And he'd always be like, I'm gonna go back up to Rainier. Uh-huh. And I'd be like, but it's down. He goes, no, it's up.

And I'm like, oh, yeah. The car's in south.

Yeah.

So people who live with the land, not a map, are when they A ski area.

It's a car park.

Yeah.

So, yeah, lots of cool ways to and that and that's I think that's relevant. That's part of what this is about is this isn't just a study for the sake of a study.

Mhmm.

It's how do you make this relevant, so Yeah.

Like, so for those studying about herbs and wanting to bring them into their lives and bring plants, and when you say not just using them for medicine, but like that's what I never really had the perspective as well. When I saw you making cattails, you have dug them up and made flour pancakes and all this kind of stuff with them, but you were making mats out of them.

And then there was all these other, especially cedar. So I could get into a few plants here and cedar is probably the best one to see start with, because when you mentioned that it first heard from you that it was the, tree of life Mhmm. In this area. So what about that perspective and the connection to the plants the natives had here and how it infused in their day to day life.

So that's western red cedar is what we're talking about here. And other cedars other cedars are, in different parts of the country. But western red cedar is pretty specific to this area, you know, this region. And, it really came into play about five thousand years ago is when it really shows up in the pollen record.

It's becoming a big part of the life here, maybe longer. And so, the uses of it. So it it, you know, I actually think, this is one of the plants I actually use as an example of, I think the people's use of the plant may well have helped it become even more useful to the people. Just that relationship between this plant and the people, and this is plant that's that that splits easily, every part of it.

Mhmm.

So, it it it the bark splits into these beautiful strips that make wonderful baskets, and cordage, the roots split into fiber that you can use for the baskets that are waterproof, and the the boughs twist and twine into something that makes them the strongest cordage in the world and and of course the wood splits in these amazing planks that, you know, you can take a cedar tree and put use, you know wedges and split planks that are you know several inches thick and you know twenty thirty feet long that are used on the plank houses, so every aspect of that plant was just it was manageable. It

was it made itself available and so and then it its bows itself are considered the smudge here used in ceremony and and for purification and for cleansing, you know, as part of people's cleansing ceremonies. So it was just imbued and it was just surround and of course it's this most beautiful regal tree when you see it and used for the canoes, you know, it's buoyant, you know, filled with air bubbles Insulating right so the three to four inches thick for these planks that they were used on the roofs and the walls actually I was, I guess not totally surprised, but I loved the link to find that that's exactly the thickness of wood if you want wood for solar mass.

If you wanna use wood for solar mass in a in a solar house, passive solar house, you use wood three to four inches thick. Any less or any more doesn't it's not effective. So, so here they might do whole houses with these three to four inch ceilings.

Without cutting the tree down or killing the tree?

Well, they could cut the tree down and frankly, I think trees fall down.

Right. Sure.

I mean, there's so much, wood falling in wintertime here that, I don't think there was a whole lot of net need for cutting trees down unless you were sounding for, you wanted to get a tree that was sounded for a canoe or something.

And, but I suspect a lot of material was taken from trees that tipped over. We see that quite a bit, here. Mhmm. So, yeah, you would have to you could take planks from a live tree when that was done, but, you could also get them from one that had fallen.

Wow.

And cedar cedar bark as well.

So Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That's amazing.

So other, so what about some other plants that strike you that are from from this area?

I mean, I, well, one I'm thinking, I'll bring up the one thing is, like, salal Mhmm.

Which, yeah. Once you that you know about Salal and the connection and uses of that because that was a real eye opener for me too. Mhmm. You know?

So, yes, salal, which is an understory plant that it's it's so adaptable.

In some places, it only grows two or three inches tall. It's just low ground cover or it grows six to eight feet tall given where what situations it's in, dry or wet or sun or, shade. And with evergreen leaves, which is, I think, important because the leaves themselves are medicine. They can be used, chewed, and used as a poultice for bleeding cuts and infected cuts and, colds, that kind of thing.

And then, the berry and as a dye too, it makes kind of a gold dye. I haven't used it much, but, it's useful. But then the berry is really the key element to the to the salals because the salal produces the in fact, it's on right now. I need to get out there because I it's been a little late this year.

And it's a relative of blueberry, so you can't imagine, folks. It's like a big blueberry leaf. Yeah.

We kinda Well, it's it's actually relative I don't know if they're all related, but it's it's in the Aracaceae.

Aracaceae. Yeah. Yeah.

So, so it's closely related to things like, madrone and, huckleberries.

Huckleberries. Yeah. So, and so that but it has a berry that's quite different than a blueberry.

It has that little, crown on the end or, a little fuzz.

It opens up. It's got something odd at the end. So, anyway, so those berries were gathered and crushed and dried into cakes, you know, that were saved and stored and they're preservative in themselves. They're sweet and then they tend to preserve other berries. So and I have some salaw cakes.

Yeah, it's really I didn't know that.

Yeah.

I have a salaw cake that I made as a demo, just a sample, that I made in nineteen ninety four or something. And I used to keep it in a plastic bag, you know, take it out to show people. And I don't even bother anymore. And it does has it not molded. It still smells like you could eat it if it hadn't been handled by thousands of people. It is still an edible, food.

How how did you make it?

I just take that's the thing.

So I always say listen carefully here. You take the berries, you mash them, and you dry them.

That's really it.

Because people are always like, okay, so now what just Like, they they might need to be more You take the berries.

You mash them.

And and ideally, you dry them on skunk cabbage leaves or swan planter leaves, same plant, big waxy like leaves, on cedar planks, which help heat hold the heat, and, hold that heat all night long when you so that the next morning as the sun rises, you have this sort of steady drying.

Oh, right.

I found that dried dried twice as fast on a cedar point because they do on a, cookie sheet or something like that.

It doesn't matter, folks, if you're not from the northwest, how dry of a day we have at the peak of summer. When you wake up in the morning, there's gonna be a layer of mist and more water on the lawn.

Very few people water their lawns around.

And, and then that was, traditionally, can you say something like that? Well, okay.

That was dipped in Hooligan oil.

Hooligan oil. That's from a whale?

No. That's from smelt. That's from a species of smelt. I don't know the scientific name on that one, by heart.

It's in the book. But, also called candlefish. They would run the rivers here by the cabbillions. I mean, they just ran the rivers.

They're still run the rivers down in Cowlitz and then up north.

And I actually have heard some interesting, elders talking about hold a panel of elders from the Nootka or good good people talking about how we needed to respect these smelt better as they're coming up the rivers because they would send up, scouts. There were the males who would come up the river first to check it out, and we're catching them right now.

And we need to leave them alone so they can go back to the main group Right.

And bring them up river. And, Wow. So, yeah. So they attribute a lot of the failure and that we should not let dogs and women who are pregnant down on the river at that time because those are things that will deter the the those scouts.

And, so just, you know, there's all this tradition that's, you know, there's this is on a radio talk show asking people to to honor these traditions so that the smelt will return. So anyway, we have a major decline in the smelt runs and well, they used to run the rivers, and I've actually been out there with the smelt, net and captured my own smelt. And so then they would be taken. They were called candlefish because they're so high in oil, that you could take a dried smelt and light it, and it will burn like a candle.

Oh my gosh. Just a dried smelt. And but the oil itself could be rendered out by a, a rotting process where you let it parsley ferment in a in a pit or a canoe or something like that and then you scoop off the, the oil And done properly, you know, there was a standard that if it was done the best, if it was a good oil, it didn't have an odor. So even and and I have oil that I use that you do have a slight a fermented smell to it, but I tell people if you can separate your nose from your taste buds, your nose tells you it's slightly fermented, but the taste is actually like butter.

It's actually very a nice pleasant taste. And so, berries were dipped in them. Dried olegan I mean, berry cakes could be dipped in them or fresh berries. They're poured over everything.

When I go to the feast, they still have that at the traditional feast. They'll bring it in and you'll watch elders pouring it over their, mashed potatoes and anything that's on the on the their plate and eat it that way.

Between between that and salmon drying and everything, there was never a shortage of Business has been the best place to live.

Yeah. And think of the smell for the food. Yeah. You think of so, yeah, I got into the traditional foods piece because Ralph's family, they were all in the, you know, I work my primary work with the tribes right now is related to preventative health through traditional plants and Wow.

Traditional foods. That's my primary work. Cool. Diabetes prevention is is, you know, at the forefront and and heart disease and all those things, all of which are directly tied to nutrition and and this this use of food that's not part of their traditional diets.

And So, when I spotted that early on with Ralph and his dad at the time I was married to him, we lost his dad and his mom both to diseases, diabetes and heart disease, and they both of those people, when I talked to them about their illnesses, they attributed it to their food, and they spotted a period in time when they, I think it was during an economic difficult time for them where they were buying, they said, flats of eggs and hundred pound sacks potatoes and that's what they were eating. And and their health declined from that point on and and, so and Ralph lost his older sister and older brother all in a very short period of time and that alarmed all of us and so and he was fit, you know that he's a fit person.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and yet, he wasn't eating right correctly, you know, for diabetes prevention. And so we I got into salal and olequin oil as the first thing, salal cakes and olequin oil.

I thought if we could just have that every day, almost like medicine, that would be a start. And then start cutting back on the sugars and some of these other things. And Ralph is, you know, a healthy robust, I think he last time I talked to him, he's, you know, been checked and has no evidence of diabetes.

And he's near sixties. He's past sixty now.

So he's outlived his, the brothers and sisters that had passed on before him.

So that was personal. That was very personal.

But then on a much broader scale, you see that as just being epidemic within the tribes and it's it's a tragedy and it's related directly to food and so that's the work we're doing right now I'm now with the natural resources division with the Snoqualmie tribe and I was with their social services department for many years just working with the youth and Right.

And families and and we have done it. We we accomplished things like got food gardens in and Changed food policies at our group gatherings where it's no longer white bread It has to be whole grain and and, you know, there's a real and no pops and things like that. So there has been a shift and and, now we're looking at restoration sites. That's the natural resources division where we are going to incorporate try to rebuild the resources for people to gather and harvest their traditional foods starting with the berries and, you know, berries is a really important food and that's different than fruit like palm fruits and bananas and things like that.

Berries are a very different fruit. So, nutritionally, so, so yeah, that's and that's really about making it relevant that that's you know that's most of my work right now is how do we make this knowledge, this historical knowledge that we have and make it relevant. And I know that's your work too. Right.

The medicine.

Right.

The the plant medicine.

Right. Because when I when I started first started hanging out with wilderness awareness school in the early nineties and I was out with John Young once and he's like, oh, dandelion, you can eat it. And I actually remember him saying that when I when I was out with him in high school. When I was like fifteen, he did a he did a class at my high school, you know.

And then but it was always this thing in a book.

And it would always be like, oh, native people used it for this, this, and this. And when that when I started to break then it started becoming alive and infused in my life. And then I went, oh, my gosh. It was like that whole turnaround.

Like, it's no longer so, you know, in a book or something that people did, and it was something that people do and people need want to relearn, let's say, reeducate ourselves as we once knew.

Yeah.

And and and and and and like you said, diet.

Like diet and and, you know, just the way to take care of ourselves on our day to day first aid, and it's so simple.

So simple. And then I I recently did something, for our local group.

I don't know if you were there for their transition group on, Kimberly with Cam and just She went there.

That's right. And, so so it's first aid out of the box. Something like that.

Natural disasters out of the box is my was my talk. Nice. What if you don't have your box? With you?

You know, that box that we all set aside for the natural The band aids and the antibacterial stuff.

That was when the the thing that happened down in, wasn't Katrina, the one down, in Costa Rica.

Chile.

No. Earthquake?

What are you trying to say?

Haiti? Haiti. Haiti.

Yes. And, and I you know, you saw that footage on TV and it was just it was it was horrible watching these people. And one of the pieces of footage that I saw that so struck me was, people in a park, they'd moved these seniors out of a senior center, had them all on beds out in this park, but no aid had come. It was now on day ten or something, and there had been no aid.

And even though there had been very few real injuries, they now were infected. The cuts that were were infected. There had been no painkillers and no antibiotics. And they're in a park.

And I'm looking around at all these plants at this park, and I'm thinking, does anybody there know how to use these plants?

Right.

I bet there's plants right there that they could use for antibiotic and pain relief.

Of course.

And and then I did have a friend go down in that time frame, and she confirmed it. Yes. There's plants galore down there that could have been used and no, people did not know how to use it.

Of course, you're in a tropical area. There's more plants that wanna grow all over there than anywhere. Sure.

And so that that brought it back to me. So I used as my example in my talk here, I brought in Oregon grape. You know, that I just cut on the way to the presentation that night. It was just on the side of the road here and we have huge stands of it. And I said, you know, this could be used for all those purposes that we were talking about for, for dealing in, you know, like just that one plant if you knew how to use that one plant you could use it for this many things including things like, salmonella poisoning and some things like that, you know, intestinal, and, you know, antifungal, antimicrobial and all that. So, so I'm big on it and I'm now and I have been all along but now I'm even more so we need to plant salaw and Oregon grape everywhere down every alleyway down and see how it's food, it's medicine and you know these are things that we we don't need to ignore these plants and just relegate them to, you know, a native plant restoration or, a garden design.

And I'm and I'm guessing you are probably the only other person in this entire town that walks down the new trail about new gonna Oh, there's gonna be a lot of very great wine coming in my mind.

But no, you were like I feel like, for first aid, it's like you're they're talking about it. I could walk down from here to the river and pass by twenty plants that I could, you know. And and that wasn't like hard hard to learn.

Yeah. Exactly.

Now it's just now it's only so many years later and it's just so infused in my psyche that I can't imagine.

Yeah.

It's where I turn first, actually.

Yeah.

Even my kids, you know, they get the cut or scrape or whatever out to the yard to get the plantain or whatever.

It's like And that's a mentality shift.

Yeah. To not go straight to the to the first aid box in the house.

Yeah. Totally. It's all important knowledge. And, and so, what I'm wondering then, you're talking about food and everything and what's really interesting about that, your desire to work with native peoples and teach them, is you're also been running the local farmers market. And just so folks know, we have this nice little quaint town here. It's a once main street town.

And if you pull off to the off the side, there's this little side street and every Tuesday around three o'clock up go the, before three o'clock up go the the white festival tents about maybe twenty, thirty of them. And there's local farmers from the valley and there's people who sell, native people as a company who sells salmon and meat and there's, and it's a very food based and not one of these like, you know, three quarters of them are crafts and there's a couple of vegetable in this.

It's food and food from our valley. So I mean, are you seeing is what you're trying to do with that also trying to create some sort of, you know, model for people to that or what?

Sure. Yeah. That's yeah. To me, it's, you know, I've been I left home when I was thirteen.

I was part of the back to the land movement and and, you know, I lived way back.

I lived in a place we called the wilderness that we lived, cooked over open fires and made our houses out of Wow. Out of Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah.

I can show you some photos. Yeah. And, we made our houses out of redwood planks and redwood bark and and and, by bed was sand, you know, a bed of sand and cook and, and I lived that way for several years in that situation. And then we worked at a neighboring ranch where we grew their food that is now part of John Jevons' research gardens in Northern California.

We grew fifteen acre gardens for this nearby, community.

And, so that, kind of lent itself. So, but at that time I was part of that group of we gotta get ready because, you know, it's gonna happen. This, you know, the collapse is gonna happen, you know, sort of the and and that was, you know, thirty something years ago. And at some point, you you kind of have to say, you know, life goes on.

We have the right to live a joyful life, even though we know that oil is, you know, depleting and and the environment is, you know, degrading and all these things, we also are alive and and so there's we have to blend those things. So I'm constantly in solution mode. What's solution? Where where can we find solution?

And I got involved with permaculture and at the same time was really eyeballing this Carnation Farmers Market, which was a small market at the time. And, and I joined the Snow Valley Tilth which runs the farmers market and, is made up of local farmers And I was so impressed with that organization of people. It's a small group of people, but so effective. They these farmers know how to get things done and they don't talk about it a lot.

They say it and like next week it's done. And and, so I started volunteering at that farmers market because I was doing this book, I was teaching, I was doing all the other work, so this was just straight volunteer time for me. And I thought, well, it's another way I can connect with my community and come down out of my house in the woods because at that time I was living up on the hill ten miles out of town and and, so I just sat down there at that the information booth every week and I remember you coming in and you saw me doing the flower edible flowers.

Yeah. The edible flowers.

You still give me credit on it for your on your your, website.

And, so I was doing that kind of thing. Like, just trying to show people some cool stuff. How to make infused herbal honeys and stuff like that for the honey guy and try to promote his sales. And, then they asked me the next year if I wanted to be a manager.

And I was like, sure. You know, that sounds, you know, if it's a day and a half a week, that sounds fine. And, but it's really, for me, that's all about the relevance piece of, you know, we have a connection with these plants. They're plants that garden or the farm at this point, and with local food systems.

And and, you know, people have contacted me to apprentice they've I've had people contact me and want to apprentice with me and and I'll ask them, you know, well, what's your interest? And they're like, well, I'd like to be an Indian. Like, I'd like the Indians where they could just walk in the woods and just be able to survive in the woods. And, and I'd say, well, you know, my response to that is, well, actually, you know, if you were an Indian walking around alone in the woods, you'd be kind of a dumb Indian.

Some would be wrong because because actually the tribes here were very complex and intact socially networked communities. So, you know, we live right along this river here, this Tolt River is named for a fish trap that was there, that was owned by a family, that was shared by tribes around the region, you know, that people would come in, rent, basically, essentially rent the fish trap for a day, and pay with fish Wow. For their time to use it. That's how the the fish traps around here were used.

So it wasn't like everybody had to build their own fish trap or everybody had to make your own basket or everybody had to you didn't have to know everything because you're a part of a complex social system. So same with food. I see in our area here, I don't think we all need to grow all our own food to survive. We have farmers down here in the valley who are doing a very effective job of it.

And I during that time I was deciding to become part of the market in the till. I was up there on the hill growing these my self sufficient little garden and ducks and you know all that working my fanny off and wondering if it was really the most effective use of my time. Mhmm. Maybe instead what I should be doing is taking a portion, a good portion of that time, and going down the valley and donating my time or trading my time at a farmer and making and and I could enhance.

So that that and that to me is a real strong premise for permaculture is that we combine our energies as a community rather than this whole survivalist back to the land, which was our mentality. We were that's the mentality I came from. Instead we get back into social structures like traditional social structures where we share skills and we share resources and so to me that's the farmers, this new movement of farmers and farmers markets. And the farmers markets is just a small component of fixing a very, very broken food system.

And and that's, I think, our number one work in the next, and health system.

Right.

The two combined and all of those are answered, those problems are answered by the things the work that you're doing and the work that I'm doing and many others, of course. And, so, you know, I think earlier on, we were, you know, even before this interview, we just talked about something about, you know, rather than waiting for just jumping right in and and and that's my nature. I I read some things about the whole philosophy what's going on with the environment or the whole philosophy what's going on with peaco oil and all that. But all I gotta know is it's enough true that it's something to be concerned about and I wanna I wanna do the thing I know I can do which is local and small scale and something I can actually do something about and that's the pharmacy.

That's it. You know, that's what Kimberly is and sometimes you may remember a time when we feel helped knowing what we know about the earth and everything. Feeling helpless about how big it is. And then, you know, we just kind of have realization. You know what? All we can do is what we can do as long as we're doing a small piece Yes. And living our passion and contributing.

There's hope that links and we came to that same realization about food. We used to have a vegetable garden and it's been years since we've had one. We have a small little herb garden where we grow the some of the plants and medicines that we use, the ones that we don't harvest locally.

Other than that, there's an awesome CSA, community supported agriculture farm in our valley. Yeah. Where we've been belong to for years. In fact, we belong to one of these for probably a decade now in this area. Yeah. We supplement with the farmers market.

Yep.

And that's our summer food pretty much.

Yeah. And then you're supporting you're helping to support a sustainable food system. And I don't mean to say people shouldn't grow their own vegetable gardens because I and what I focus on as a market manager, I began to realize it's kind of silly for me to grow a big vegetable garden in the summertime because I have all this food at the market. So I focus on extended foods foods. My I try to extend my season into fall and then have something happening in spring. So I just put my winter garden in right now. So those are my approach at this point.

And then I grow stuff that I know I'm gonna, use in bulk.

So it might be tomatoes or beans or something if I know I'm gonna wanna set a bunch of sun.

Right. Garlic. Yeah. Exactly. Definitely garlic. Yeah. Gotta have garlic.

So, yeah. That's I, you know, people I don't know.

People ask me to describe what I do or, you know, I meet people I haven't seen and, you know, when I was a carpenter. If I run into someone when I was a carpenter Yeah. They actually just absolutely don't know what to say when I tell them what I'm doing, because it's really hard to encapsulate what I'm doing. And I guess one way that I try to say it is I just I'm a, you know, focus on plants, native plants in particular, and people's relationship with them by teaching, you know, I don't know, it's just hard to describe it. So to for a lot of people, it's it's disconnected and yet for me, it's all completely connected.

But you found a way to take this, what you say is hard to explain all of your passions and this big idea and that's rooted in ancient wisdom and also projects to a sustainable future. Put all that together and somehow make a living from it all. Absolutely. That's what can be done folks.

We can.

And don't think you can.

It's just not as secure as some people think of it. And yet, and yet when this economic downturn happened, I realized I was more secure than almost anybody I knew by virtue of having my finger in many pots.

Right.

And, and so I just could sort of direct more energy where I knew it was gonna have more long term effect rather than panic over whether my one job was still gonna be funded next year.

It was actually by but that's that's that does take a fair amount of courage, and I think that's, you know, a lot of what we're dealing with here is is, people having I I you know, not let alone growing up, but even before I moved to Washington, I'm not even sure if I heard of acupuncture and and and and people doing herbal remedies and stuff and here I am and fifteen years later and that's my work.

Yeah. And, yeah, there were no jobs in it and there's no four zero one k, but, you know, you I just it's like a combination of a passion to get it out to people and for what else am I gonna do with my time. I can't know what I know and not take action somehow. Yeah. It's impossible for me to do that.

Yeah. And there has to be some deliberation. You know, I don't have a four zero one k either.

And, so then I have to look at, okay, what can I do?

And I one of my big wake ups a dental plan.

Yeah. Yeah. One of my big wake ups was finally reading this article about seniors that are still working. And then and then I realized, oh, yeah. I'm just never gonna stop working.

So what am I gonna do? What can I do that I can do until I die? Yeah. And one's teaching, one's writing, one's I just began to list out what are the things that I can actually do, you know, for the rest of my life that I love doing and that I could physically do as well.

So and then part of that's building community around yourself and and, so Yeah. That's So there's it does require some deliberate effort. It's not just you randomly just sort of go along until the final Thinking about, like, so for me acupuncture is kinda like my retirement plan.

I actually, I love working and I don't like having a job, but I love working.

No. And I wanna work, you know, I'm fine working till the day I die, you know. It's, but, I know what else and I wanna do something I'm into for the rest of the world.

Yeah. If work is what you love, then what else would you do? Right. I mean, I'm not gonna go hang out on the beach somewhere. No. It's never been my focus.

If I did, I'd be making baskets Or golfing that.

Yeah. Well, you got that Scottish background. I think you have some golf movement.

Well, you know, you know, Heidi, we we could just talk for hours, I'm sure. But and we could do it again sometime. We can and so once again, folks, you can visit Heidi at heidi bohan, b o h a n, dot com and peopleofcascadia dot com has more details on, this incredible book, People of Cascadia Pacific Northwest Native American History, where you can also buy the book, like I said, peopleofcascadia dot com. And I always recommend going to the author's site and ordering, because they always make more money that way. And we wanna support our local information farmers.

Like I bought one from you in the post office parking lot. Yeah that's true. I was like, I want one. I was like, okay.

Give me a little sign on my card.

Exactly.

So, Heidi, once again, Heidi Bohan, thank you so much for spending, time with us today on Herb Mentor Radio. I appreciate it.

Well, thanks, John. It was really fun. I really enjoyed it.

Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com is a production of LearningHerbs.com.

Visit LearningHerbs.com for free herbal lessons including Herb Mentor news, home remedy secrets, and supermarket herbalism. You'll also find the herbal medicine making kit and our board game Wildcraft.

Thanks so much for listening.

Heidi Bohan

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