What is Episode 86 all about?
In today’s society, we’re more separated from nature and our food than ever before. We move around constantly and never put down roots in one single location. Few of us have the time, or make the time, to learn about our local wildlife and plant species and how to identify them. We buy most, if not all, of our food from grocery stores, and if we’re lucky, our community hosts a small farmer’s market where we can buy fresh veggies from a local grower. We’ve become strangers in our own homes, far from our ancestors’ way of life.
Now, what if you had the opportunity to chat with someone that has a deep, personal connection with their land. Someone whose lineage can be traced back for centuries. What would you ask them? How do they view the land and all the life it supports? And how can we also develop a deep connection with our home, food, wildlife, and one another?
In this episode, we’re sitting down with Rose Bear Don’t Walk, ethnobotanist and Ph.D. student at the University of Montana. Rose is a descendant of the Salish and Crow people and grew up on the Flat Head Indian Reservation in Montana. Rose’s mother ensured that she developed a strong bond with her home, heritage, and who she was as a Salish woman. When it came time to go to college, Rose chose Yale University to study political science. While there, she made the stark realization that her community lived in a food desert and was developing chronic diseases from eating food that wasn’t natively theirs. And so, she made it her life’s mission to learn her people’s traditional foods and restore them in her community.
Rose and I have such a fun conversation discussing so many topics like what her childhood was like, how she discovered ethnobotany and why she, as a Salish woman, felt it was her calling to restore her people’s traditional food, and how you, no matter where you’re located in the world, can develop a stronger connection to your land.
I hope you all are ready to feel super inspired and a whole lot more connected to our planet after listening to today’s conversation.
Alright, friends. Here is my conversation with Rose Bear Don’t Walk.
Listen to this episode.
Watch this episode on YouTube.
Rose in the Field
Links & Resources
Rose’s Websites
Salish Plant Society
Resources
Sign up for the Rewildology Newsletter!
Want to stay up-to-date on the latest podcast shenanigans? Sign up for the Rewildology Newsletter! (We promise – interesting emails only!)
Check out other Rewildology Episodes.
Follow Rewildology
