For 15 years, the Elisabeth C. Miller Library has been hosting an exhibit by the Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists every spring. These artists keep alive a tradition of many centuries by creating scientifically accurate portrayals of the flowers, leaves, seeds, and other parts of plants, often with more detail and accuracy than a photograph.
One of the local, participating artist is Sharon Birzer. Recently, she illustrated many of the native plants of southwest Alaska, published in “Yungcautnguuq nunam qainga tamarmi = All the Land’s Surface is Medicine.” This new book is written by a consortium of experts in cultural anthropology, ethnobotany, and the Yup’ik language, and is based on a 20-year oral history project to preserve the stories of elders and their traditional way of life.
The book is divided equally into two parts. The first is a catalog of the native plants used for food or medicine, organized by the time of harvest and starting with the plants that define the spring after long, cold winters. One example is Mertensia maritima or Neqnirliaraat, literally “best-tasting things,” a plant I grow in my garden. Although not widely used, “one Nelson Island woman reported collecting them before they flowered, cooking the stems briefly, and eating them with seal oil.”
The traditional tales of the plants and the land where they grow are collected in the second half of the book. Quoting many of the elders, these entries are in English on the left page, and in Yup’ik on the right. This includes “mouse foods,” caches of plants parts harvested and stored by voles and lemmings before the onset of winter, and an important source of food for humans.
Winner of the 2022 Annual Literature Award from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries.
Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin