Branching Out: An Ethnobotanical Garden in Community

sgʷigʷiaʔltxʷJoin a meaningful legacy project that involves a living landscape for learning. The ethnobotanical garden at  ‘House of Welcome’ was started in 1994. Over the years, students have participated in visioning, creating, caring for, and communicating the garden’s teachings related to Coast Salish history and culture; to plants, land and climate; and to cultivating relationships (including with our own heritage) in the context of Indigenous knowledge.

Now, after a year of revitalizing the ethnobotanical garden and its website, students continue to steward and learn from the habitat areas (representing forests, mountains, wetlands, and camas prairies) and theme gardens (focused on pollinators, medicinal plants, traditional foods, and dye/fiber). This year, we also explore how the ethnobotanical garden and Indigenous Arts Campus can serve as a “hub” for many kinds of interdisciplinary and intercultural learning because it reminds us that the Coast Salish were the original inhabitants of this place, and that Indigenous arts and sciences came first.

fallwinterspringAs the garden and website “branch out,” we collaborate with the ‘House of Welcome’ and multiple communities to continue visioning and caring for the garden; communicating its story; creating useful resources; and making plans for a sustainable future. In this process, we gain knowledge and skills in ecology (emphasized in ), Wordpress website development (emphasized in ), and medicinal botany and dye arts (emphasized in ). Throughout, we are exposed to Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and history through readings, films, guests, and dialogue.

This program supports studies and careers related to Indigenous leadership, botany, environmental policy, climate justice, community herbalism, education, the arts, nature writing, Internet technology (IT), community development, and more. While it is recommended to participate the entire year, students may join any quarter.