West Coast native plants

Cows parsnip - very pungent and is an acquired taste.  Broad leaves, soft bristles on the stock, hollow.

Salmon berry shoots - peeled and eaten as a snack.

Elderberry seeds - mixed with wild crabapples elders used to juice to make.

Hellebare root - most toxic plant to first nation on coast.  Medicinal - do not ingest - use for bathing if deathly ill.  Burned when there is a death when the spirits are travelling through the village.  For flu season boiled in old pot cooking vessel and inhale the fumes.  Left to simmer - keep adding H2O.

Hemlock  - cambium layer - removed with special knife curved - somewhat resembles v/v mines the handle cooked all day over low heat w sugar and ooucha oil.

cottonwood - cambium layer - in early spring scrape cambium layer - taste like watermelon, resembles wet tissue paper.

alder bark harvest in spring (2 week window) oxides bright orange to deep red.  Used during TB epidemic.  Used for smoky salmon.

butter cup root - dug on mud flats, taste similar to sweet potato, very starchy.

crab apples - cheexwa - five sm apple chestas - caneas when these trees grow - passed down as property at potluck.  Known as wa-wobs prior and shortly up to 1950s blanched and preserved in barrels of ooluchan oil.

red cedar most important plant on the coast of BC for first nation people. Trunk used for making boxes - stem but paddles - planks for big houses. Bark used for clothing.  Very soft wood, when stems can be bent.

spruce roots - roots pulled p and steamed at dug convet.