The Haida people have lived on Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands) for thousands of years. On these beautiful, and captivating islands, the Haida have developed a rich culture that is intimately based on the use of native plants for foods, materials, ceremonies, medicines, and other needs. Learn how plants were used and how the Haida cared for these precious resources and maintained sustainable harvesting for countless generations. Produced with the cooperation of many Haida elders and the approval of the Council of the Haida Nation, this book will be welcomed by anyone interested in the history and natural history of the Pacific Coast. Richly illustrated with black & white and colour photographs and drawings; complete with references and fully indexed.

A British Columbian favourite, updated with over 40 new photos and the most current botanical information, now available from Harbour Publishing!

In The Haida Gwaii Lesson, former University of California journalism professor and Mother Jones editor Mark Dowie shares the story of the Haida people, relating their struggle for sovereignty and title over their ancient homeland as a strategic playbook for other indigenous peoples. For over 10,000 years, the Haida people thrived on a rugged and fecund archipelago south of Alaska, which they called Haida Gwaii. Nicknamed "the Galapagos of the North," the islands are blessed with a diversity of species unmatched in the northern hemisphere. As western Canada was settled by Europeans, the pressure on natural resources spread with the growing population and its demand for fur, fish, minerals and lumber. Industries found their way to the coastal islands, where they ignored native tribes and commenced what has become one the Pacific coast's most monstrous natural resource extraction campaigns. After almost a century of non-stop exploitation, the Haida people said "enough" and began to resist. Their audacious four-decade struggle involving the courts, human blockades, public testimony and the media became a living object lesson for communities in the same situation the world over.

For millennia, plants and their habitats have been fundamental to the lives of Indigenous Peoples - as sources of food and nutrition, medicines, and technological materials - and central to ceremonial traditions, spiritual beliefs, narratives, and language. While the First Peoples of Canada and other parts of the world have developed deep cultural understandings of plants and their environments, this knowledge is often underrecognized in debates about land rights and title, reconciliation, treaty negotiations, and traditional territories. Plants, People, and Places argues that the time is long past due to recognize and accommodate Indigenous Peoples' relationships with plants and their ecosystems. Essays in this volume, by leading voices in philosophy, Indigenous law, and environmental sustainability, consider the critical importance of botanical and ecological knowledge to land rights and related legal and government policy, planning, and decision making in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and New Zealand. Analyzing specific cases in which Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights to the environment have been denied or restricted, this collection promotes future prosperity through more effective and just recognition of the historical use of and care for plants in Indigenous cultures. A timely book featuring Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and pathways toward ethnoecological restoration, Plants, People, and Places reveals how much there is to learn from the history of human relationships with nature.

Reprint of the revision of the 1975 edition. Each plant is illustrated in color with scientific name, family, a botanical description, habitat, distribution and its uses with warnings about similar, injurious, species. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This is a thought-provoking look at Native American stories, cultural institutions, and ways of knowing, and what they can teach us about living sustainably.