fragments – Gulf Islands of British Columbia & drier parts of south-eastern Vancouver Island

Revisiting WSÁNEC (Saanich) ecological legacies: Learning from Tsawout First Nation’s Belly-Rising-Up traditional food gathering site

Tsawout Nation Belly-Rising-Up site, Saanich, British Columbia 24 April, 2005 photo by Gordon Brent Ingram

The ‘Belly-Rising-Up’ site is on the Tsawout First Nation lands on the east coast of the Saanich Peninsula on south-eastern Vancouver Island just north of Victoria, British Columbia. Belly-Rising-Up is part of an Indian Reserve negotiated in the early 1850s as part of one of the few Douglas Treaties. Belly-Rising-Up is an extremely important location not only for Canadian and West Coast history and politics but for cultural and social futures.

This seemingly natural ecosystem has an exceptional array and density of food plants crucial to Salish communities — that can only result from careful protection, harvesting and management. Belly-Rising-Up was one of the subjects of the Douglas Treaty negotiations in part because of the importance of these (agri)cultural sites to the Tsawout people. But in the ensuing century and half, knowledge and appreciation of these food production landscapes, indeed of Salish agriculture in general, has largely declined. The remaining knowledge of the Tsawout is as precious as are the demonstrative features and genetic resources of the site. So the strategic importance of the Belly-Rising-Up site, that continues to be protected and managed by the Tsawout First Nations, extends to new research and as an example for new land management initiatives that more squarely acknowledge and actively involve the leadership of aboriginal stewards and governments.

Tsawout Nation tea-house and treaty sign, Saanich, British Columbia 23 July, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

While I visited the beach area adjacent to this rock and marsh since I was a young child, I did not actually visit the Belly-Rising -Up site until about 2000. An older friend, celebrated artist Michael Morris, grew up on the east coast of the Saanich Peninsula and mentioned to me of his encountering a Salish healer at Belly-Rising-Up decades back. This person spoke of the rough English-translation of the Tsawout name and the cultural importance of the place.

Belly-Rising-Up from a recent subdivision to the south, July 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Beach at Belly-Rising-Up 30 June 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

So while new to this Tsawout protected area, my formative experiences were a few miles due west on the west side of Central Saanich: adjacent to and inside of the Tsartlip First Nation‘s Douglas Treaty lands in Brentwood Bay. So being introduced at a young age to traditional Tsartlip land management, for food plants especially the last of highly site-specific burning, there was something strongly familiar with what I found at Belly-Rising-Up; a quality about the place that was sometimes garden-like.

Belly-Rising-Up with wetland and Garry oak, Quercus garryana, savanna, 30 June, 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

camas, Camassia spp., Belly-Rising-Up 24 April, 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Berry, probably blackcap, cf Rubus leucodermis, 21 July, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Saskatoon berry, Amelanchier alnifolia, Belly-Rising-Up, 21 June, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

flower of cinquefoil, Potentilla pacifica, Belly-Rising-Up, 30 June, 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

freshwater habitat of cinquefoil, Potentilla pacifica, below Belly-Rising-Up 21 June, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

marsh habitat of cinquefoil, Potentilla pacifica, below Belly-Rising-Up 21 June 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

marsh with cinquefoil, Potentilla pacifica, below Belly-Rising-Up 24 April, 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

crabapple, Malus spp., Belly-Rising-Up 24 April 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

crabapple, Malus spp., Belly-Rising-Up, 21 June 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

crabapple, Malus spp., below Belly-Rising-Up 30 June, 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

crabapple, Malus spp., below Belly-Rising-Up 30 June 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

chocolate lily, Fritallaria cf lanceolata, Belly-Rising-Up, 24 April, 2005 photo by Gordon Brent Ingram

chocolate lily, Fritallaria cf lanceolata, Belly-Rising-Up, 24 April, 2005 photo by Gordon Brent Ingram

chocolate lily, Fritallaria cf lanceolata, Belly-Rising-Up 24 April 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Garry oaks, Quercus garryana, with lichens, Belly-Rising-Up, 24 May, 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Garry oaks, Quercus garryana, on Belly-Rising-Up, 23 June, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Lomatium nudicaule, below Belly-Rising-Up, 21 June, 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

Lomatium nudicale, Belly-Rising-Up, 30 June 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

red elderberry, Sambucus racemosa, Belly-Rising-Up, 21 June 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram

red elderberry flowers, Sambucus racemosa, Belly-Rising-Up, 24 April, 2005 by Gordon Brent Ingram

wild rose, Rosa Nutkana, Belly-Rising-Up 30 June, 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

sea lettuce, cf Porphyra perforata, 21 June 2004 Belly-Rising-Up by Gordon Brent Ingram

sea lettuce, cf Porphyra perforata, 21 June 2004, Belly-Rising-Up by Gordon Brent Ingram

tule, cf Schoenoplectus acutus, below Belly-Rising-Up, 30 June, 2006 by Gordon Brent Ingram

******

The proper spelling of the name of the Saanich people is,

in their language, which is most correctly spelled,

in which the name of the Tsawout people is spelled,

Written on October 18th, 2014 , 'Indian Reserve' lands & other areas primarily stewarded by First Nations, Coastal Douglas fir forest and parkland at its northern margins around the Salish Sea, freshwater habitat & related fisheries, Gulf Islands of British Columbia & drier parts of south-eastern Vancouver Island, historic Garry oak (Quercus garryana) savannah typically the result of Salish food production & burning, island ecosystem, Northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems on the Salish Sea, traditional indigenous / aboriginal food plant, urban habitat

Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, half-way up the south-west face of Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island

At the northern margins of its range, Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, is a particularly beautiful, and increasingly rare, flowering tree. On the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, ‘dogwood’ is largely confined to the edges of underground streams with year-round moisture but rarely truly riparian. On the south-west face of Mount Maxwell on Salt Spring Island, relatively dry and with soil ph levels relatively higher and less acidic, there is a ‘draw’ that drains a glorious swamp near the top of the mountain (on the summit road about 1 kilometers before the parking lot) and quickly becomes a stream emptying into Burgoyne Bay (about 2 kilometers north along the shore from the Burgoyne public wharf). In 2011, the parcel with lower part of this seasonal stream was finally acquired for protection by Nature Trust and in 2014 was quite drinkable. And going up the stream through the oak meadows this ‘draw’ continues to be full of ‘dogwood’.

I have been photographing this particular grove of dogwoods, half way up Mount Maxwell, for thirty-five years now. There has been no sign, so far, of the introduced Dogwood anthracnose (dogwood leaf blotch) blights from the introduced fungus Discula destructiva, When finding these trees again, in a violent rainstorm on the 14th of May, 2014, all we had to make photographs were un-smart cellular telephones. But these were the same trees that I photographed decades before with medium-format Rolleiflex and Pentax cameras.

These photographs were taken in collaboration with Julian Castle. We jointly made these exposures and montages as ‘castle & ingram’.

Written on May 14th, 2014 , Coastal Douglas fir forest and parkland at its northern margins around the Salish Sea, Ecological Reserves under the British Columbia Ecological Reserves Act, Gulf Islands of British Columbia & drier parts of south-eastern Vancouver Island, island ecosystem, traditional indigenous / aboriginal food plant

Camas, Camassia leichtlinii, re-establishing half way up the south-west face of Mount Maxwell of Salt Spring Island

In recent decades, the two northern species of camas, Camassia leichtlinii and C. quamash, have been disappearing markedly on Salt Spring Island and other Gulf Islands. Fields of camas were harvested and stewarded by Salish women who have been effectively obstructed from their gardens for more than a century. Similarly, controlled burning based on five millennia of Salish knowledge, and often carefully focused on maintaining sites of camas and other nutritious bulbs, has been outlawed. And sheep grazing, that initially involved Salish engaging in more western agriculture, began in the 1850s and continued until 2001 (even in the original boundaries of the Ecological Reserve) along with a large feral population. And spiking, native deer populations, buoyed by the lack of historical predators and hiking, have grazed remaining the tops of blooming camas bulbs before they have been able to produce seed.

In this area of Mount Maxwell, where the original Ecological Reserve was established in the early 1970s, Cowichan food gatherers were active and burning until the 1930s. Since then, the Garry oak savannah, the original Salish fields, have grown in to woodland and Douglas fir forest. And in 1980-81, I proposed re-establishment of some controlled burning in this area in a report to the Ecological Reserves Unit of the Province of British Columbia (as part of my M.Sc. thesis in Ecosystem Management).

As as the decades have passed, the population of flowering camas on Salt Spring Island have plummeted. Curiously, one of the few signs of any increase in camas populations and ANY reproduction has been seen in the area burned in the June 12 – 15, 2009. What is unclear, after this May 8, 2014 site report, is whether or not there has been an increase in camas throughout the burned areas or just those that saw the application (or more likely lack of application) of fire retardant. Another question is whether or not the seed that was being produced on May 8 continued to ripen (or was browsed) and was viable.

These photographs were taken in collaboration with Julian Castle. We jointly made these exposures and montages as ‘castle & ingram’.

Written on May 8th, 2014 , Coastal Douglas fir forest and parkland at its northern margins around the Salish Sea, Ecological Reserves under the British Columbia Ecological Reserves Act, Gulf Islands of British Columbia & drier parts of south-eastern Vancouver Island, historic Garry oak (Quercus garryana) savannah typically the result of Salish food production & burning, island ecosystem, Northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems on the Salish Sea

Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecologies on & below Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island

The white flowering tree in the upper left is Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, that sometimes occurs on the cusps of more open Douglas fir forest and Garry oak woodland.