Teddy, Snow

Today is my grandson Teddy's first birthday, Happy Birthday Teddy! Last year I was supposed to be back in England in time for Teddy's birth so that I could look after Holly, but it didn't work out because Teddy arrived three weeks early, still, at least this makes him a Capricorn, one of the best signs of the Zodiac.

We have big snow. Last night I went downtown and I could feel that bite in the air that tells you it's coming. By the time I drove back out of Vancouver, there had been a sprinkling of snow, but when we woke up this morning, there it was, magical, covering everything and still falling.

The reason I was downtown in the first place was that a lecturer from the University of Victoria was talking about First Nations plant management at Vancouver Public Library, which in itself is more like a walled city than a library.

When Europeans first came to BC, they judged that the indigenous people did not farm the land, they were classified as Hunter-Gatherers. This was quite convenient, because they could simply annexe the land, whereas it was clear that the people fished, so they were accorded the continuation of fishing rights.

The reasons why this happened were twofold. Firstly, because the First Nations methods of plant management were not what the Europeans were used to, and secondly because the women dealt with the land whilst the men fished, only the men's activity was noticed.

At that time, and for many years, European farming was broadly similar to today's, just without the technology, so fields marked off and sown.

First Nations managed the plants where they grew. So for example, a run of salal or blueberry bushes would be pruned, and after cropping, deadwood removed and even burned off, they had a method of swift, shallow burning.

A field full of camas bulbs, or clover root, both of which they used as a root vegetable, would be tended. They had a tool that they used to dig around a square of earth, then they would lift the square and turn it over, exposing the bulbs. They would harvest a certain number of bulbs of the right size. Whilst they were doing this, seeds from the flowers would fall back into the soil as well. Then they would return the section of earth to its place.

Another method they used was to build up the soil over certain roots, like composting, so that the roots would grow bigger.

When we went to the Victoria Museum on Friday, we saw a longhouse, a real one just outside the museum building, but inside there were some models of settlements. There were apparently some quite large villages, around 20 or so longhouses, with maybe 50 people living in each longhouse. When the Spanish came and brought horses, some of the bands became more mobile and with a need to find grazing for the horses and that is when tipis were used.
With the large villages however, it was important to have some way of managing the food supply and the methods we learned about last night rendered sustainable what was available.