Sts’ailes Plant Relations & Forest Gardens
For the past fifteen years, Natasha has had the privilege to conduct archaeobotanical research with and for the Sts'ailes (Chehalis), to understand and demonstrate the nature, scope, and antiquity of Sts'ailes plant use practices within their ancestral homeland along the Harrison River of southwestern British Columbia. To date, we have documented the use of and relationship by Sts'ailes ancestors to more than 50 plant kin. We have also studied the archaeobotanical signature of Sts’ailes forest gardens, a unique kind of eco-cultural landscape composed of fruit and nut trees, dozens of edible berry species, root foods and medicinal plants, that were created and maintained over hundreds of years. Our work serves sovereign initiatives to reclaim access to land title and to restore relationships with plant and root and other kin across Sts'ailes territory by reviving land use practices and increasing food security.
Articles of Interest
Raspberry Relations of the Sts’ailes (2024)
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Historical Ecology of forest garden management (2023)
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The Archaeology of Camas Production and Exchange on the Northwest Coast (2017)
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