Interview with Shirley McBride

Speaker Key:

IV: Interviewer (Candace Polson)

IE: Interviewee (Shirley McBride)

[0:00]

IV: So today is July 8th, I believe.  OK, so, my name is Candace, I just started here with Ni Dakinan, with Tara and Lindsay. Let’s see here. So I work with Ni Dakinan which is the natural resources department. This interview is part of the climate change project that I had been talking about. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to understand which plants are important to this community specifically and how we can help with the long-term sustainability of these plants. The purpose of this interview is to gather information about the medicinal uses of plant species. So we want to learn about the plants that you use, or have been using in the past, traditionally by your family. So, a copy of the transcript will be available to you, and we’ll be keeping one here as well. So are you willing to have your interview audio taped for these purposes?

IE: Okay.

[1:05]

IV: Thank you. And I’ll get you to sign here just for the consent.  Okay, so first question is what is your full name and date of birth?

IE: Shirley McBride, I was born March 16th, 1938.

IV: Okay. Now, do you currently harvest medicinal plants on TFN traditional territory?

IE: Some of them. 

[2:00]

IV: Do you harvest medicinal plants on lands outside of the TFN traditional territory, and if so, where?

IE: Yes. At Ostaboningue.

IV: Ostaboningue? Okay.  So, have you in the past harvested medicinal plants outside of TFN traditional territory, and if so, where?

[2:30]

IE: No. 

IV: Okay. So how often do you now, or did you in the past, harvest medicinal plants?

IE: Usually in the summer.

IV: So, seasonally?

IE: Seasonally, yeah. 

IV: Okay

[2:45]

IV: As a child did you gather medicinal plants?

IE: Yes.

IV: So who taught you what medicinal plants to harvest?

[2:55]

IE: I can’t tell you that. [laughing] Her name was Flora Lafrance.

IV: Okay. Is she related to you, or?

IE: Not really, not really.

IV: Just a mentor or teacher? Okay.

[3:15]

IV: So, what plants do you currently harvest, or have harvested in the past?

IE: I harvest wintergreen.  I harvest Labrador tea. I harvest some poplar bark.  And… Wait now. I have to think of it. Golden root. Plantain. And cherry bark. That’s mostly what I … Cedar.  Cedar and spruce bark.

[4:15]

IV: Okay. So, what part of the wintergreen would you use? And for what?

IE: The berries. And the leaves. 

IV: Okay. How would you prepare it?

IE: The berries, I would just eat them. The leaves I can make tea with them.

IV: Okay. And are these used for any specific health issues or ailments?

IE: Stomach remedy.

IV: Okay. The berries and the leaves? 

IE: Mmhmm. 

[5:00]

IV: Okay. And Labrador I guess you would use the leaves, right?  For tea?  And what does that help with?

IE: It’s just a…  A general good … 

IE: General medicinal uses? 

IV: Yeah.

[5:20]

IV: And the poplar bark, what would you use that for?

IE: The poplar bark is used for worms in children. Pinworms. 

IV: Oh really? Pinworms…  And how would you prepare that?

[5:30]

IE: You just take the outer bark, and you scrape the inner bark. It’s a kind of a slimy little white inner bark.  And you just mix that with water and give it to them.  It kills pinworms. 

IV: That’s really interesting.

IV: Okay. What about the golden root?  You would use the root.

IE: Golden root is a good remedy for… like it’s a fortifier… I don’t know how to say that… that builds you up? 

IV: Okay. How would you prepare that?

[6:15]

IE: You just take the roots and you make a tea. It’s a tonic, I guess. That’s what I’m trying to say. 

IV: Okay, I see.  And the plantain?

[6:30]

IE: Plantain is good for any kind of infected sore. And you use it as a poultice. You crush the leaf and it’s good for boils, or anything that’s infected. You just put it directly on. 

IV: Like a topical? 

IE: You just put it crushed… You just take the leaf and crush it and you put it right on there. And you cover it. There you go.

[7:00]

IV: Great. And what about the cherry bark?

IE: The cherry bark is a good remedy for when you have- for pee!

IV: Oh, urinary tract?

IE: Yeah.

[7:20]

IE: Oh yeah I forgot about the cranberries. Cranberries also. 

IV: Okay. Same thing then? 

IE: Yeah. IV: How would you prepare the cranberries and cherry bark?

[7:30]

IE: Just make a tea with it. You can eat the cranberries. But  it’s better if you make a very strong tea with both.

IV: Okay. And the cedar and spruce bark?

IE: Cedar and spruce bark. It’s good for colds and that kind of thing. Just make a poultice for your chest, or make a tea.

IV: And these are plants that you find around in this area? 

IE: Yup, they’re all here.

[8:15]

IV: So, what would you consider the most important medicinal plant that you currently, or in the past, have harvested?

IE: I like them all, but I think probably the wintergreen and plantain.  They’re the ones I use most frequently. Maybe that’s my big favourites.

IV: So do you use any medicinal plants in cooking? Like as spices, or flavour?

IE: No, I haven’t but I have sage that I gather and use it. 

IV: In cooking? 

IE: Yup. And I’ve- I gather wild garlic, wild onions. But they’re not really medicinal. I have gathered mushrooms but I don’t trust myself.  But in the fall we get the angel hair… angel wing mushrooms. They’re so good.  They’re a very delicate little mushroom, and we have lots of them growing on our lawn, Danny’s lawn, and on Donna and Jean’s lawn.  So we have all we need. They grow in our area. But they’re really delicious.

[10:05]

IV: Okay. So are there any special habitats or locations that you look for in order to find certain plants?

IE: Well the wintergreen, obviously, is in the bush. I haven’t-I haven’t used cat tails strangely enough.

IV: Okay. So are there any special weather factors that you look for in order to decide if it’s time to harvest? So like, either a dry summer, or an early spring, or…

IE: Most of those plants are available… not considering the weather.  Most are weather tolerant.

[10:55]

IV: Is there… Are there any particular rules that you use in harvesting? Such as… so an example they have here is ‘take only a third of the leaves from each plant.’

IE: Oh yeah, oh yeah. You don’t over… You don’t take everything that’s there. 

IV: So no over-harvesting. That seems to be the general...

 IE: Yeah. I think that’s- it’s basic rule, yeah. 

[11:25]

IV: So are there any plants that you think animals use as medicine?

IE: I think they know better than we do, what to use. For instance, a bear will pack his wounds with mud. We wouldn’t do that, but they know which mud to take and pack their wound.

IV: Okay. Have you noticed changes over time to plants that you have traditionally harvested? So like logging maybe impacted, or fewer sites to harvest.

[12:00]

IE: Yes. Yes. 

IV: What sort of things have you noticed? 

IE: Well I noticed that, with the water levels fluctuating, it’s harder to get the cranberries. Because they grow along the water there. Both the low bush and the high bush, they prefer watery- wet roots. And, with the water fluctuations, I very seldom find the wild low bush. The low bush are exactly like what you get at the store.  And they grow about ye high along the water’s edge. Sometimes we can’t find any because the water… 

IV: So I guess climate changes eh? 

[12:50]

IE: See, when Bugsy used to gather… that was maybe 15, 20 years ago even… she could get them by the basketful. And now I’m lucky if I get half a basket. 

IV: Okay. So I guess that would go along with this next question; have you noticed any changes in your access to the medicinal plants? 

IE: Yep. Exactly.

[13:20]

IV: Are you concerned that climate change could affect your ability to harvest medicinal plants?

IE: Yes. Yes, definitely.  And plants are not adapting to that kind of change.

IV: Okay. I’ll put that down too.

[14:00]

IV: Okay. Do you consider access to these plants to be, um, crucial to your way of life?

IE: Not crucial, but I would like to have them there when there’s shortages and we do need them. I would like to see them at least be sustained. Because we may not always have plentiful everything, but we can go to the store [inaudible] we don’t have the money to do that. We need the plants.

IV: One of the parts of this project is we’re going to try to see how we can help with the sustainability of these plants, so what we did, actually, is we did try transplanting Labrador. We have a couple of little plants there, we’re going to see how it works.

IE: Really? 

IV: Yeah! Yeah. So it’s exciting. [laughing] 

IE: Are they doing their best or… 

IV: Uh, well we just did it last week. So far, some of them are thriving but a couple of them seem a little bit dry so I guess we’ll see in a little bit.

[15:10]

IE: How did you, uh, how did you take them from the ground? 

IV: We took the whole root system with the moss and everything and just brought it over into the other ground that we have here.

IE: I wonder if they, uh, they’re fussy about the kind of soil.

IV: Yeah, that’s what we were wondering too, I guess we’ll have to… 

IE:  Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.

 IV: Yeah. Research all of that for sure.

[15:30]

IV: I guess that concludes our interview. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you very much. 

IE: You’re very welcome.