User:Smrankine

From NarratingLandscapes

My name is Stephanie Rankine. I am a fourth year Biogeography major at the University of British Columbia and am currently working on completing my minor in Ecology and Conservation Biology. Since the beginning of my university career in September 2003, I have taken two and a half years off to travel and experience the world first hand. Initially, I moved to New Zealand for seven months, but as my interest in ecology and conservation grew, I made my way to Southeast Asia to gain experience within these fields in a non-western society setting. My travels took me to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and eventually Borneo, where I lived for four months. While on the east coast of Borneo (I was located in the Malaysian province known as Sabah), I became serious about diving, receiving my Dive Master within the first month. I then worked as a DM guiding dives while learning about the underwater ecology around Sipidan and smaller surrounding islands. On completion of my degree, I hope to leave Canada and head for the South Pacific/Southern Hemisphere to pursue my interest in reef and marine conservation and the effects of human interaction with such environments.

For this Ethnobotany class, however, I hope to focus my research paper on culturally modified plants. In particular, the use of Cedar bark by Native First Peoples.

For this Ethnobotony class, I am completing a short research project and what follows is my proposal:

Last summer I embarked on a kayak adventure across the Browning Passage, just east of the Tofino shoreline. I was expecting a leisurely day on the water, which it was (don’t get me wrong!), but it turned out to be so much more. Apart from the abundance of wildlife we spotted, including seals, bald eagles, crabs, starfish, urchins (just to name a few), we also stumbled across some of the most magnificent trees I have ever seen. Our guide, and my good friend Chris, took us for a hike on Meares Island. This is where I had my first encounter with a culturally modified tree. At the time, I had no idea trees like this were even given this title, much less why these huge Cedar trees had massive scars running the length of their trunk. Upon bringing this to Chris’ attention, he carefully and thoroughly explained to me that Cedars were, and still are, highly valued and widely used by many First Peoples of British Columbia. He described how the bark was peeled off in large strips, which were dried and then used to make various items and tools such as canoes, houses, baskets and adze handles. I found this very fascinating, but after our kayaking trip, I did not explore the subject any further, until now! After completing some preliminary research, I realized just how much information is published and available on Cedar trees and their close ties with Aboriginal People. Currently, I am still struggling to narrow down my research paper, but hopefully this proposal will help me achieve a more focused paper. First, I would like to give a plant profile for both Western Red and Yellow-cedar. Here I will give a short description of characteristics (size, features etc), habitat, distribution and a brief history of the trees, including when and where they were first discovered. Then I would like to briefly list some of the uses and include some pictures. Here I would also like to introduce some of the coastal Aboriginal peoples of British Columbia who utilized Cedar trees and incorporated them into their lifestyles. I would like the majority of my paper to explore how Cedar trees influenced First Peoples way of life through the many uses, traditions around harvesting the trees and values held about the tree (including prayers, ceremonies and/or rituals in honour of this valuable species). I am also interested in comparing the past with the present, touching on how values and ideas around the tree has changed since the colonial era and how harvesting techniques may have changed, ultimately concluding my short research paper with the idea of Western Red and Yellow-cedar trees as a cultural keystone species. Another spin I might take on the research project might be focused more on one of the techniques of obtaining Cedar tree material and using it to make a traditional object (basket, hat, clothing etc) that would have been a staple item for Aboriginal peoples. If this is the approach I take, then I will include a photo journal of my progress as well as a detailed description of what I had to do. I have a couple of contacts, including Vivian Campbell and Debbie Sparrow, whom I look forward to meeting and from whom I hope to learn more about Cedar trees and their contribution to Native culture.