Hello, My name is Marcia Anderson. I am Alutiiq and German, born in Kodiak, Alaska and raised in the villages of Old Harbor and Port Lions. My family spent each summer and fall in South Naknek in Bristol Bay at our fish camp. I was very fortunate to have been taught, by my mother, to harvest a small handful of plants from each area. Although I grew up harvesting and consuming some local traditional plants with my family, we did not speak about them much. We learned from watching our parents and we kept very busy during our family outings to harvest berries and greens for the winter.
I currently work in a Health Promotion program and am drawn to anything that has to do with human health, especially looking at health from the perspective of the whole person. Working with traditional Alaska Native plants, is one of the ways, we promote health and healing for Alaska Native people, their families, and the community.
As we did not necessarily speak often about the plants when I was young, I now seek out educational opportunities to enhance my understanding and exposure to Alaska Flora in order to promote, teach and discuss the importance of our plants in relation to health.
I am truly excited about learning with everyone this summer. It is a steep learning curve for me, especially as I watched the videos, however, it is exactly what I desire to know and understand. My dad gifted me a Macro Lens someone gave him for his cell phone. He loves taking pictures, but does not use his phone much to do that at present. I will use this for the time being. It is such a cute piece of equipment and so simple. I, however, just had to order myself an Optivisor. After I saw the video examples of equipment, I was awestruck with being able to be hands free while dissecting and have a light too. My teenagers already think I am quite “weird” so it will confirm it in their minds even more, when I start using the Optivisor headband. Ha! I love to keep them on their toes and guessing about me! I also received my plant dissection kit this past week, and am looking forward to using it. 
A Big Hello to Everyone!
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Welcome Marcia! So excited to read about your adventures and that you are joining the class. I particularly was smiling when reading about the optivisor. I really love it too, exactly because of the hands-free aspect of it. Please do not feel overwhelmed by all the information presented in the videos. I understand it is a lot. Please come back to them and review them as you progress through the course. Please also have a look at the course manual under the Syllabus and Schedule tab. There you can find additional line drawings and definitions. I always find it helpful to write down a term and use a post-it and pin it to the fridge. Perhaps take a picture of a plant that shows this term and create your own illustrated glossary. Alternatively, you could also pick up a plant from outside and try to pin some terms to what you are seeing. Simple leaves, entire leaves, fused petals?
Cheers, Steffi.