Seeding reconciliation with plants
Vancouver Métis herbalist teaches how to find the edible and medicinal growing around us
When herbalist Lori Snyder offers to share her knowledge about edible and medicinal plants, attendees want to know how far into the forests or parks they have to travel to find them.
“They’re there as soon as I walk outside my door,” said Snyder, a Métis herbalist/educator who holds workshops through the Vancouver park board, as part of its action on the 92 recommendations of the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission that pertain to area parks.
Snyder, who is the artist in residence at the Hastings/ Sunrise community centre, has created a medicine wheel garden at the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre to grow native plants.
The garden is listed among the board’s reconciliation-focused projects designed to explore “a new relationship with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations” specifically and First Nations, Métis and Inuit people in general in Vancouver, according to a staff report to the board chair and commissioners.
The report recommended park staff develop a decolonization strategy to guide future projects to carry out reconciliation with Indigenous people.
Snyder gives talks at elementary and high schools, community centres, retreats and to teachers on professional-development days, as well as giving private tours.
“I want people to open their eyes and pay attention to native plants and to learn more about the land that we’re now calling our home. People are more conscious and more curious. We can bring that into the school system so the children can learn it,” she said.
Nature’s biodiversity sets a good example for humans, said Snyder, who dishes up folksy philosophy along with her knowledge about plants.
“How do all of us reach out and learn more about our diversity and our communities here in the city, that we are just one human family and we have diversity in that family.”
Snyder, who was born in Squamish but didn’t grow up in a native culture because her family never discussed it, learned about identifying native plants from a neighbour from Ireland.
She studied horticulture, aromatherapy, herbology and about permaculture. Her approach is to develop a relationship with plants.
“The plants are saying eat me, I’m your food and your medicine,” she said. “When I’m meeting plants, I first ask, ‘Who are you? Can I eat you? You’re actively giving me nourishment, so I can live a long and healthy life.’ Why would anyone put poison on them or throw them away?”
The types of plants that are plentiful and are often considered weeds, said Snyder, are dandelions, chickweed, plantain (also known as frog’s leaf by the Musqueam), bitter lettuce, yarrow, clover and pineapple weed, also known as chamomile.
She said they can be processed into tinctures, skin salves, incense or tea and she often adds plants she finds to egg dishes, salads or soups.
“The dandelion stem, you chop it up and cook it in butter and garlic and mix it into eggs. Oh, it’s so delicious,” she said.
“We should be building harvesting corridors” for the 23 different berries native to the area, including salal berries, Oregon grapes, salmonberries, saskatoons, wild plums, blueberries and black huckleberries, which have healthful antioxidants, she said.
“Why are we not eating the foods of this land?” she said. “When we travel, we eat the foods of those countries.”
Snyder planted corn, bean squash, sunflower, nodding onions and sunchokes in her medicine wheel garden, which she started seven years ago and is open to the public.
Harvesters in the wild should know what they’re picking, take only what’s needed and no more than 10 per cent of what’s available and remember to thank the plant kingdom for the harvest, she said. Also, seeds of beneficial plants should be shared.
Snyder would like to see native gardens built into future public parks, which she said can benefit ecosystems by attracting insects and birds, and secure local food sources at a time when food supply chains could be insecure.
“Why wouldn’t we, regardless of the pandemic or not,” she said.