Hello everyone! My family and I live in the boreal forest in Haines Junction, Yukon. I work as an Herbalist and Education Assistant. Educating children about the edible and medicinal uses of plants has been a great reward. Northern kids are just naturals at plant knowledge! We live on the traditional territory of the Champagne Aishihik First Nations and are very grateful to harvest wild plants in their traditional territory called Dakwakada. I grew up in Southern British Columbia helping my parents in the garden and always searching for plants like wild ginger, sasparilla and hazelnuts. The boreal forest has been such a great place to learn about the diversity of plants. I love finding orchids right in my backyard! Some of my favorite plants are prickly roses, fireweed, and spruce. I’m looking forward to learning more about our northern plants.
I am using the macro lens on my Samsung phone to take pictures. As well I will be borrowing a microscope from the school for the plant dissection s. I also have been using a handheld microscope to look at the morphology of plants. I’ll attach a photo of it.
Welcome Raven,
glad you are able to join this class. I hope some of what you will learn will be useful for you in your job teaching kids about edible plants and medicinals. We are blessed with a bunch of it here in Alaska and neighboring Yukon. One just has to look and you shall find. I was amazed to find a small stand of the spotted lady’s slipper or Alaskan lady’s slipper orchid on our hike at Bison Gulch last weekend. I know they can be rather abundant in certain areas in Alaska and northern Canada, but finding it on this hike near Denali was a surprise.
Those are beautiful lady’s slippers! I’ll keep a look out for those on my next hike in Kluane National Park.