In Acadia National Park, Misha starts to put together a more whole picture of America. She learns about sweetgrass from Suzanne Greenlaw, the woman behind Acadia's efforts to tie traditional conservation methods with Indigenous knowledge and hears from a falconer whose love of nature transformed his life.
In Acadia, Misha starts to put together a more whole picture of America. She learns about sweetgrass from Suzanne Greenlaw, the woman behind Acadia's efforts to tie traditional conservation methods with Indigenous knowledge. Following a treacherous hike, she hears from a falconer whose love of nature transformed his life.
Smoky Mountain National Park is on Wabanaki land.
More about the podcast:
Hello, Nature host, Misha Euceph, didn’t know about the National Parks until she turned 21. But after an experience in Joshua Tree and watching 12 hours of a national park documentary, she sets out on a road trip to answer the question: if the parks are public, aren’t they supposed to be for everyone? In this podcast, she goes out to see America and tell a new story of our national parks.
Hello, Nature can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
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ACT I
Hey guys. It’s Misha.
We only have three days left in our trip.
It’s early morning. I’m in a log cabin, in a forest in Mount Desert Island. Right outside of Acadia National Park.
It’s misty outside. There’s fog covering everything-- thin, tall aspens that, in the wind, sound like running water. A trail leads from our cabin down to the water--
Which is not what I expected.
When I think of Maine, I think of snow, lobster, Stephen King.
But this, this feels like a dream.
The sounds of this place, of these crows - it's a time machine.
I’m transported back to Pakistan. To the first time I met one of these shiny, black birds.
I'm 6 years old. I’m in the backseat of my dad’s car. I’m distracted by all the sights and sounds while we’re driving through downtown Karachi.
And then, something colorful catches my eye. And I’m like Baba!! Baba stop the car. Look over there.
There's this man, walking down the road. He is weaving in between cars with a basket full of little chicks! Little fluff balls, dyed all sorts of colors. Pink, purple, green, orange. And they’re crammed together, bubbling over like a pile of tie-dye cotton candy.
I know, I know it’s messed up. But c’mon. I was a little girl. I didn’t know how cruel that was. I just thought -- Cute! Colorful baby chickens!!
My Dad starts giving me a lecture on how unethical this is. But I am like - pleeeeaaaassseeee. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.
And, obviously, he is no match for his adorable daughter. So, I cradle a little pink one and a yellow one with peach streaks. All the way home. I am a mom now.
I remember playing in my room with them. The chicks would follow me while I run in circles. The pink one would eat bread crumbs from my fingers. And how it would tickleso much when her beak nibbled my skin.
I decide her name will be Chini and the other one will be Chum Chum and that I’m gonna take care of them for ever and ever and ever…
But one day, I make a huge mistake.
I take Chum Chum outside on our deck to play.
Above me, I hear a whooshing sound.
A huge bird lands in front of me. Jet black with a pointy beak. He cocks his head side to side and then looks down at Chum Chum - who is frozen in terror.
God, that crow must have looked like a T-Rex to her. Terrifying. Talk about a Stephen King movie.
And I'm paralyzed too.
Because what happens next is horrifying.
The crow grabs my beloved pet with its beak. Shakes her. Tosses her into its mouth and flies off...
This is like, the first time I saw the gruesome side of nature.
And I definitely didn’t understand it.
I think about that experience differently now.
As a city kid, I wasn’t prancing around in open fields or climbing huge trees. Nature and I-- we rarely interacted. Cute baskets of artificially dyed baby fluff balls.
But crows… wild birds... they fly all over the world. They don’t see cities or countrysides. To them, the borders of our urban spaces mean nothing.
When you see a hawk perched on a telephone wire. Or a hummingbird zipping through your garden. A nest snuggled up in a drain pipe.
You realize that you can’t control nature. Create a border around it. Keep it contained.
There’s something that Alan Watts said in his book, Nature, Man and Woman that really speaks to this.
He goes -
“[I]t becomes clearer and clearer that we do not live in a divided world. The harsh divisions of spirit and nature, mind and body, subject and object, controller and the controlled, are seen more and more to be awkward conventions of language. These are misleading and clumsy terms for describing a world in which all events seem to be mutually interdependent[.]”
With just a beat of their wings, these birds, remind us that our manicured neighborhoods are actually a little wild.
Welcome to Hello Nature by REI-Co Op Studios brought to you by Subaru.
I’m your host, Misha Euceph. This episode is my last stop. And, I’m on Wabanaki land in Acadia National Park.
ACT II
Misha: ok… oh my gosh.
Hiker: You got this. Don’t look down.
Misha: I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t said anything!
Cassius Cash --the Superintendent at the Smokies-- was like, oh you’re going to Acadia next? You GOTTA do the Beehive.
So now, I’m hanging onto the side of a cliff with a thin little iron bar melded into the rock.
Misha: Oh fuck. Yeah this is not for the faint of heart.
The beehive actually looks like a giant, rock-faced beehive. And to get to the top, you have to climb.
I’m holding on for dear life, and the sign at the trailhead keeps echoing in my mind.
“Warning!”
“This trail follows a nearly vertical route with exposed cliffs that requires climbing on iron rungs.”
Misha: Alright, there are some rock holds here. I think that’s the move. Ohhh fuckkk.
“Falls on this mountain have resulted in serious injury and death”
Misha: Oh no. Wind. No.
“Small children and people with a fear of heights should not use this trail”
Misha: I wish I was a goat.
I try not to look down, but people keep panicking. So they stop. And when they stop, everyone in line to climb the beehive stops.
Misha: It’s nice, yeah, getting to see some new things.
At this point, the trail is only like 6-inches wide. It’s literally impossible to not look down.
And my weak leg, with the bad knee, is not doing it’s job.
Misha: Oof. You don’t realize the weakness til it’s kinda like a life or death situation and you’re like, oh no. I have to use other things. (panting) Ok oh my god I feel safer. Is this it? This is the top? Ok thank the fuck god. Wow.
Apparently Misha the salty sailor comes out when she’s freaked out too.
I make it to the top. So of course, I have to take a bow.
Misha: Thank you. Thank you. There really should be applause up here. Good job, guys!
Let’s do that again, with the reaction I deserve.
Misha: Thank you. Thank you.. Good job, guys! Woohoo this is the top.
At the top of Beehive I can hear theAtlantic ocean. The air is crisp. It dries the salty sweat on my face. I can see the tops of the aspens-- the groves ripple like waves. There are salt marshes and beaches in the distance.
People on the beach look like ants. Dozens of forested islands rise up out of the Atlantic ocean.
The majority of Acadia National Park is located on Mount Desert Island. The largest island off the coast of Maine.
And a lot of people come here, to Acadia, for the birds-- the songbirds and woodpeckers, the warblers and thrushes, the sandpipers and the herons, the owls, falcons, hawks, Eastern Phoebe, Bicknell’s Thrush, Cooper’s Hawk, Tufted Titmouse, Chimney Swift …
Okay, there are a lot. Like over 300 bird species.
Misha: Wo hoooooo!
I’m kinda feeling a little bit like a bird too, because the only thing above me right now is the sky. It’s not the Montana sky, but it’s clear and an azure color. The kind of blue people reference when they say “sky blue.”
In the last 6 weeks we have been to 8 National Parks. We’ve traveled more than 7 THOUSAND miles. But that kind of distance is not a big deal for songbirds.
Olivia Wang: I think the thing that sort of surprises me that surprised me most about birds, especially the small little songbirds is, their bones are hollow, they're so light, they're only like a couple of grams each. But, then when you let it go, it's this animal that's going to travel 1000s of miles in the next couple of months as part of their lives. They just travel these crazy distances, seeing all these beautiful different landscapes. This tiny little bird body. It wows me. It's so cool.
My name is Olivia Wang, and I'm currently a graduate student at the University of Hawaii Manoa. I'm also a birder.
I’ve never been birding. I am not even sure what it means “to bird.” What even is “a birder”?
Olivia Wang: I would say my definition of it is if you take some extra time out of your day to just notice the birds that are outside around you, that's my definition of birding.
You know, if I see like something move through the sky really fast in the corner of my eye, I can't help but my eyes drawn towards it. And I want to look at it real quick to see if I can tell what it is.
Olivia’s focuses on owls. So she works a lot at night. And one night she heard something strange like -
Olivia Wang: OOOWAA - AHHHH! OOOWAA - AHHHH!
-- it's just like this weird, ethereal moan, that kind of also sounds like a baby crying.
The first time I heard it, it freaked me out because I was like, is that a person moaning out here? Like are they ok? What is going on? What is this noise?
It was not a person, It was -
Olivia Wang: A wedge tailed Shearwater call or 'Ua'u kani in Hawaiian.
What we call birds matters. In fact, the names of birds is a hot topic in the birding community. In 2020, a movement started - #birdnamesforbirds.
Olivia Wang: This movement was trying to acknowledge that naming birds after people, often people who had, in addition to their contributions to ornithology, so for example, Audubon was, you know, a great naturalist. He painted so many of the birds in North America and contributed a lot in that way. But he was also you know, a slave owner.
So if you’re like me and know nothing about birding, Audubon is THE name to know.
And not AutoBahn like the road in Germany where you can drive super fast. Audubon like The Audubon Society. It’s one of the largest, most active wildlife organizations in the country.
But, Audubon was an enslaver.
Birds are often named for people. And a lot of those people were terrible humans. Like this guy John Kirk Townsend. THE Townsend behind Townsend’s Warbler.
He used to dig up the graves of Native Americans to steal their skulls for “science.”
Olivia Wang: And so the bird names for birds movement was sort of pointing this out and saying, maybe it's time that as a birding community, as the ornithological community, we move away from naming birds after people, and especially work on renaming some of the birds that were named for people who were racist, who were colonizers.
Imagine being a Black birder. Or a native birder. Or any BIPOC person. I mean, there aren’t a lot of them in birding, but…
Olivia Wang: It It certainly does affect people when they have to say the names of these people who you know, if you're black, and you know that this person was a slave owner, it's like, man, like do I do I have to keep referencing this person every time I want to talk about this specific bird like that sucks.
The #birdnamesforbirds gets a lot of press. Remember when David Truer said to me, people are in a monument toppling mood? This makes me think of that.
Tons of organizations get on board.
Because, obviously it’s the right thing to do. But ALSO, a lot of these names aren’t even helpful.
Like if I say we’re trying to spot a Townsend’s Warbler, what comes to mind?
But if I say, we’re looking for a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, you know right away that that bird is a redhead. “Bird names for Birds.” Seems simple to me.
Olivia Wang: And so do I think like changing eponymous bird names will solve all of those diversity problems? Absolutely not. But it is a good like symbolic step that the birding community can take to say, like, we don't want to continue to reference and honor these people anymore.
I mean, birding is one of those rare activities that’s literally free. Free doesn’t mean accessible. And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean welcoming.
Olivia Wang: Like you just take a walk in your park and you look at birds and you listen to birds, and you learn about them and try and identify them. And it's something that's so simple and easy that anyone should be able to do and enjoy. But clearly, it is not the same experience for people of color to just like walk around outside and try to enjoy nature, the way that it is for, you know, white people.
In a country where Christian Cooper gets the cops called on him for watching birds in a park, it means something to change bird names. It might be a tiny step, but it is a STEP in making birding more welcoming. Or at least a little less hostile.
ACT III
We leave the Beehive trail and drive over to a secluded cove called The Precipice.
Misha: entering south west harbor -
I notice myself noticing way more birds. Seagulls, a great blue heron...
Misha: Oh what is that bird?
Jonathan: Crow.
Misha: Oh really? It’s the most elegantly flying crow I’ve ever seen.
Jonathan: So non-chalant
Even though Acadia is THE place to go for bird watching, it’s not what it used to be. Recently, the bird population has taken a HUGE hit-- it’s fallen by like 40 percent.
And guess whose fault that is?
Us, humans. We’ve brought in a bunch of pesticides, destroyed the homes of birds by cutting down trees, paving roads, building cities. And we’re messing up birds’ food source-- insects and fish.
There’s this one kind of bird we really fucked things up for: The Peregrine Falcon.
Peregrine Falcons are native to the area but by the 1970s, they’d completely died off. And not just in Acadia. It was happening all over. Why?
You know the answer.
Humans were stealing their eggs. Humans were trapping them. Humans were shooting them. And humans were using DDT. Which was the final blow to the falcons.
Right now, on our way to the Precipice, I think about a poem I grew up with. It’s by the Pakistani poet, Muhammad Iqbal. My favorite refrain goes:
“You are a falcon. Make your home on the mountain tops, where you belong.”
It’s strange to me to think about all the damage we have done to falcons because we have admired them for centuries. We’ve trained them to hunt for us. Like Falconry is in Gilgamesh.
Rodney Stotts: Falconry is the oldest land sport known to man. before you had guns before you had bow and arrows, there was a rabbit 300 yards away. How could you get them? If you had a bird of prey, you can actually catch that rabbit, and you guys have dinner for the night.
My name is Rodney Stotts. I'm a licensed falconer. That's trying to open a sanctuary named after my mom called Dippy’s Dream.
Um, well, I grew up in Southeast DC and some of the roughest neighborhoods, I guess you would call it. You have violence, drugs, guns, prostitution, unemployment welfare, uh, you name it.
When he’s a kid, Rodney uses his love of animals as an escape.
Rodney Stotts: I used to hook school and go to the Willie Park zoo and spend days and spend a day there. It doesn't matter if I'm an Otter to a giraffe, elephant rhino, or a monkey or spider or snake. All of them. I love them all the same.
Teenager Rodney starts dealing drugs. He does it for a few years, but then he wants to get his own space-- an apartment. And for that, he needs to look good on paper.
Rodney Stotts: You can't put on your application drug dealer.
He comes across this job at the Earth Conservation Corps.
Part of his job is to clean up a river. He picks out plastic bottles and cans.
Rodney Stotts: You can see the water moving faster, cleaner. Uh, we started seeing great blue herrings come back in beavers, uh, loose fish and stuff that we hadn't seen when we first started.
And noticing things changing-- it starts to change Rodney. He gets super fascinated with birds. And he gets involved with this project to return Bald Eagles to the DC area.
He becomes obsessed with birds of prey. He wants to rehabilitate injured hawks, eagles and falcons. But it requires a special license.
Rodney Stotts: And so I was told the only way that we would be, I wouldn't be able to have birds of prey that are flighted and releasable was I had to become a falconer. So when I say it, that's what I'm going to do. People looked at me like I was crazy. It was an oxymoron to hear “Black falconer.”
Okay, so to become a falconer, you need to get a mentor. Someone who can show you the ropes. I mean, these birds are some of the most intense hunters on earth.
So he calls this guy-- a white dude. And he’s like hey, will you be my sponsor?
Rodney Stotts: He just said, black people don’t fly birds, y’all eat them.
And Rodney’s like ooooookay, that’s a no.
He looks for another sponsor. And ends up working with this incredibly kind woman. And he gets his license. But the birding world is small.
One day, he’s at a falconry event, and he runs into that racist guy.
Rodney Stotts: He said, I was the guy you talked to on the phone. You know I was just joking. I said, well I wasn’t. You see that bird right there, that’s my bird. And just turned around and walked off. I didn’t have any more conversion for him.
Rodney is now a master falconer. Like a black belt of falconry.
Rodney Stotts: I liked something about all of them, like Gyrfalcons, if you're out in an Arctic somewhere, you can't see them. All of a sudden, you'll just see a puff of feathers pop up from where this bird turned sideways and camouflaged and blended in. So they can approach his prey without ever seeing him, the stealthiness of them.
You have your Peregrines that can fly up into the sky. And what they'll do is they'll tuck their wings and stuff in and come barreling down at the ground 220 plus miles an hour.
Rodney’s relationship with his birds is not owner and pet. It’s a relationship of equals. The kind of relationship I want with nature.
Rodney Stotts: You always had to make sure that you made that Raptor understand that we are a team. And if you don't work for me,
So if that bird haven't decided I can do better about myself and leave you then you are without a bird. Now you have to start all over.
Just remember. Bird brain does not mean stupid, bird brain just mean the brain inside of a bird.
Rodney isn’t in a position to name species of birds. But, he does name the Falcons he works with.
He names them after the people he has lost. Close friends from the Conservation Corps who were murdered. His older brother. His mother.
His birds-- they carry the names of his people.
Rodney Stotts: You die twice. Once when you physically die and the next time he dies, when the last person mentions your name, when your name is no longer being mentioned, then you're truly gone.
So as long as I mentioned their names, they're always still here with me.
All of my animals basically are named after the people that I love that we've lost. So when someone dies, the first thing we always say is they're up there looking down on us. Where's the bird. Up there doing what? Looking down on you.
Rodney’s now living in a rural part of West Virginia, where he’s building a new space.
Rodney Stotts: It's basically going to be donation-based because you can't afford something. That doesn't mean you don't deserve it.
I want you to be able to have a place where you can come ride horses and learn about the birds, the hawks, the owls and the falcons, in the winter time, get to walk and do hunts, uh, get to play with the goats and the chickens and everything. Learn about gardening.
It’s a sanctuary for birds-- a place where he’ll train and nurse injured Falcons, Eagles, Hawks. But it’s also a sanctuary for people. At risk youth. People who are going through a rough time.
Rodney Stotts: We all have hurt somebody sometime in our life. How many people have you ever tried to heal?
So that's my thing. I know the amount of pain I've caused in people's lives when I was ignorant, when I was one of those people that trust me, you really wouldn't have wanted dating your daughter.
Now, I'm the guy you want your daughter to marry.
ACT IV
Misha: It’s kinda special… okay point one mile here
We arrive at the Precipice. We’re meeting a ranger to show us some Peregrine Falcons IRL.
Jonathan: That might be her
Misha: Is that Becky?
Jonathan: yeah
Misha: Hi! Misha and Jonathan? You’re Becky, right?
Becky Cole-Will is not just any ranger-- she’s the chief resource manager at Acadia. And the resources in that title-- it refers to the natural resources (the animals, insects, the ocean and plants) and the cultural resources (the people, the stories, the history). So, basically, Becky is the chief of EVERYTHING.
Anyway, today she’s our falcon guide.
Becky Cole-Will: So they’re a raptor. About the size of a crow… They’re just built to fly and to hunt. So they’re really cool that way.
She tells us about the scientists who wanted to bring the Peregrines back in the 80’s.
Becky Cole-Will: Dr. Dury and one of his students said, hey Acadia. This is the perfect place to try these experiments with reintroduction.
So just like the wolves in Yellowstone, scientists re-introduced Falcons to Acadia.
Like, they literally place baby falcons on the sides of mountains. And it works.
Becky Cole-Will: I can’t always tell if it’s a gull or… I just always look at a white bird and say, IS IT??
It’s been a little bit-- maybe 20 minutes. And we haven’t seen a single Falcon. Just boring old seagulls, which I could see in LA. And I’m annoyed.
I got spoiled in Yellowstone with Jeremy, where wolves were popping onto the spotting scope left and right.
And then, Becky pulls out a binder-- a BINDER-- to show us what we’re looking for.
Becky Cole-Will: This is what the chicks look like.
Misha: They’re kinda ugly.
Becky Cole-Will: WHAAAT? They are this fluffy white thing. Notice how big their feet are…
The peregrine falcons at The Precipice are apparently super shy today. We don’t spot a single one.
But, my disappointment doesn’t phase Becky. Because she has other items on the agenda. She wants us to meet someone named Suzanne Greenlaw. At this salt marsh. Which grows a specific type of plant: Sweetgrass.
ACT V
Suzanne is waiting for us when we pull up. She’s decked out in rain boots and a stylish purple rain jacket. Her thick salt and pepper hair is pulled back into a ponytail.
Suzanne Greenlaw: I’m an aries! Cuz I can be sharp and quick -
She hands me this beige jacket with a black mesh net around the face.To protect me from the mosquitos and bugs in the marsh. It’s warm and sunny, and I already have a jacket. But I put this one on too. We can never be too safe when it comes to bugs.
Suzanne Greenlaw: My name is Suzanne Greenlaw. I am Maliseet from the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. I am a PhD candidate at the University of Maine and the school of forest resources. I work to create management options, invasive species response plans. Kind of creating natural resource management tools for Wabanaki cultural needs.
Becky and Suzanne have been working together for years.
Becky Cole-Will: One of the things that I've learned is that we might not be able to, like write a deed that gives us back land back to the Wabinaki people, but we we darn well better figure out how we right relationships that allow for access, use, restoration of relationship, and opportunities to help us figure out co management strategies going forward, particularly related to climate change. We're asking people whose story and knowledge and, and commitment to the land goes back 13,000 years to sit to help us figure out what are we gonna do in the next 100? And we can't make decisions around other people's cultural heritage unless we have those other people telling us what's important.
The water in the marsh is still, brownish. And there's thick, overgrown grass all around it. And the grass is not on solid ground. It’s not even dry. It’s submerged in water. Sometimes I tromp on it, and step too deep into muddy wet goo.
Suzanne tells me to follow her exact footsteps so I don’t get stuck or fall into something. She’s leading us to the spot where Wabanaki harvesters go to harvest sweetgrass. Out of respect for the practice, she asks us not to say the name of the marsh.
Suzanne Greenlaw: I feel like you end up living here in the summertime doing the research just counting grass.
Misha: Yeah
Suzanne Greenlaw: But the wind is nice. It hopefully will reduce the bugs.
Okay, so President Biden appointed this woman, Deb Haaland as the Secretary of the Interior earlier this year. She’s the first native American person to have that title. The position, the Interior Secretary, oversees the land and resources in the U.S. Including the National Parks service.
Last week, Deb Haaland came to Acadia. And met Suzanne.
Suzanne Greenlaw: Yeah she. She was just so personable. It’s like having your aunt at the table. She has this loving energy. I don’t even know how to describe it. Ahemm. I just got a mosquito in my mouth. *hacks*
When we get to the sweetgrass spot, the wind picks up. Just enough to keep the mosquitos from diving into our mouths.
Suzanne Greenlaw: I find this landscape really gorgeous in a way that there's so many variations of green. And then when the wind blows that shade just shifts and moves. It's like it's it's a life of its own kind of. And then as the summer goes on, it turns into more of a yellowy kind of green. And it's just this beautiful mosaic of colors. It's really really gorgeous. Um, so right, so like these shades of green. What pops out for for sweet grass is that it's it's more of an emerald green, and it's quite shiny. It's like it pops like that, I don't know what that pops for you. But this stuff right here. Do you see how like it when it bends over? It has almost that white sort of shine to it?
Wabinaki people use Sweetgrass for a lot of things. For medicine, for basket weaving.
But by the 19th century the Wabinaki had been pushed from their own land.
And Mount Desert Island has become a vacation spot for wealthy White people.
Lush sweetgrass marshes become private property. So natives can’t just go and pick some for basket weaving or medicine.
In 1916, some of these wealthy people decide to donate their property to the National Parks Service-- they feel like this area is so beautiful that all Americans should be able to access it. It’s an incredibly generous act.
But the creation of the National Park still limits access to sweetgrass. Because taking anything from a National Park is illegal.
The parks were founded on this version of conservation where taking something like sweetgrass from Acadia will disturb the ecosystem.
On top of that, for generations, the Wabinaki people were considered wards of the state. Which basically gave the government the right to manage their finances.
Suzanne Greenlaw: Right? The state would say, I will only give you your money, if you turn into farmers. I will only give you your money, if you don't speak your language. I will only give you money, if you don't practice your religion. Um. And it's your own money.
Forced assimilation.
And it's your own money. You know, it was really horrific. The policies for assimilation. And that wasn't this long, that was not long ago, like what like four generations ago, like 100 years ago, 120 years ago, like, that is not that long ago, we still struggle now with language in our communities, because of those policies. Um. So when you can make baskets and come down here and sell it, that gives you some agency that gives you ability, ability to resist those assimilation policies.
Because access to sweetgrass was limited for so long, Suzanne has now made it her goal to create access
Suzanne Greenlaw: Many of us don't have coastal properties. We were placed on a reservation land base. And we didn't have access to buy coastal properties. Most of the coastal properties is owned by private landowners and some of those people it's their second homes, sometimes in the coast of Maine. Right. So these places that people have gone to for generations to pick sweet grass. Now landowners are denying their access to them. Sweet grass harvesters had multiple stories of, of having this contentious relationships with landowners. One where this woman, you know, had been going this one spot to pick sweetgrass all of her life, her grandmother showed her the spot. This is where she learned to pick sweet grass. She was picking one time the landowner came down and started yelling at her and was threatening her telling her next time he sees her on his property, he's gonna bring a gun.
Misha: Yeah, you're working towards helping protect that access, right and you’re working with Acadia. Can you tell me a little bit about how you're doing that?
Suzanne Greenlaw: Yeah. So Becky, do you want to come and talk about this part, the federal rule change from a government position?
Becky Cole-Will: So yes, in 2016, the Code of Federal Regulations was changed from you cannot harvest anything under any circumstances to allowing and I put quotes around allow because that's an offensive, you know, approach but to to afford a process whereby parks could consult with and set up a situation where where tribes could start issuing permits to harvest plants of cultural significance, medicines, plants, like sweet grass, in national parks. and that we meant that we needed to start by talking To tribes about what's important. So.
Becky holds a listening session to see which plant is most culturally significant. The Wabanaki nominate sweetgrass.
Becky knows these people have lived here for twelve thousand years. Of course their practice is sustainable. But as chief resource manager, she needs to do some paperwork-- jump through a bunch of hoops. She needs to prove that harvesting sweetgrass is sustainable, so she can issue permits to the Wabinaki to pick it in Acadia.
So she works with this botanist, and he is very western scientist about it. He picks random patches of land for indigenous people to harvest sweetgrass. But those patches aren’t spots where a lot of sweetgrass grows. So then, Becky decides to do a second study-- led by a native woman: Suzanne.
By the time the two studies are complete, there is no comparison. Harvesting sweetgrass IS sustainable.
Suzanne Greenlaw: On average, the sweet grass stems that was here, I think it was like 280 before anybody got here in that one meter square, and they went up about 100 stems. So that's about 30% more after.
Becky Cole-Will: You think grass likes to be picked?
Suzanne Greenlaw:Well, it is really interesting when we saw the results to the sweet grass harvesters and one of our meetings, we were showing this cool results. All of a sudden, you heard this like movement behind us. And the gathers there were so excited. They were clapping, and fist pumping to statistical results slide, which is very unusual. I've never had anybody clap to stats.
Misha: Why was that? Why was that explain what like the results meant? And why were people so happy.
Suzanne Greenlaw: So native people are the most research people in the world, but their lives have not improved. That's in Decolonizing Methodology, that’s a quote. Our narrative is being taken away from us all the time. But native people we are written about constantly, we have not been in charge of our own narrative for a long time. And that's why it's changing. This study shows and supports what native people have known forever, but have told they don't know, which is that Wabanaki ways of knowing increases the population of sweet grass.
We have to prove that in the study. That is saying that our belief system is not as true as science. And that science is that, was the one truth that we have to prove to all the time. For example, with the Glenn study, it didn't show any response. It showed the grass stayed the same, right. So that would actually be in opposition to what native people said, but but that's because of the methods that was chosen. Right. So to have a native person, helping to inform the methods, having native people, voices being respected and heard and having the results actually support what they're saying. It's sort of a shift and a change that's happening that people feel I think. We're in charge of our own narrative now.
Misha: Is that why you're getting a PhD?
Suzanne Greenlaw: Yeah. Yeah. You made me cry? Yes, for sure. Why? Yeah. Because, of all those reasons. We have. The people I love are often…
Something I learned from Deb Holland, is let yourself cry, to not be like not to hide the tears.
But people I love are often made to feel like they don't, are not good enough. Through our education system, in particular, their science. And you can see these people in a position of powers, that they think they're doing the right thing. Because it's not personal, but they're actually disrespecting native people over and over again, without even knowing it. And so it was important for me to find other ways to, to show the beauty of the knowledge and to give people a voice and to, to create a platform for other native people, the people that I love.
Misha: And you feel like, maybe getting like a Western stamp of approval can help do that?
Suzanne Greenlaw: Yeah, I mean, Western science is still the gatekeeper for natural resource management.
Becky Cole-Will: But you're creating something completely novel with your dissertation work to you're developing an indigenous research methodology. That is, it's going to be incredibly powerful. It's going to be spoken on and followed and celebrated by scientists everywhere.
Suzanne Greenlaw: Well, I hope this is a model exemplar of relationship building engagement and, and science. When you are working with native people, it's become widely accepted that indigenous knowledge is, is crucial to understand to help us adapt to climate change, right? If you look at all the publications, you can see that over and over again.Yet, the gatherers themselves still don't feel valued in their own knowledge. Right. So let's scientists that are incorporating indigenous knowledge without giving back the community without showing the value to their own people who hold the knowledge and who generate the knowledge. So I want that as an example, as well, that this knowledge actually resides in the harvesters. As scientists. We don't need to create better management tools. What we needed to create is ways that need to be can harvest and manage it themselves, or practice their stewardship values themselves.
EPILOGUE
Remember when Rodney said that people die twice? Once when they physically pass away.
And once when their name is said for the last time.
There are names that have been said for decades, names that have become synonymous with the parks, with nature, with America.
Names like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir.
And then there are names that have been forgotten, erased, obscured.
Names of the buffalo soldiers in Yosemite, of the Chinese immigrants who built Wawona; of the young indigenous artists making petroglyphs on the side of a mountain in Arches; of the Blackfeet men and women who were forced to caricature themselves at Glacier; of the women and children murdered in Yellowstone.
And there are names of people whom I’ve met throughout the last 6 weeks -- across America -- the people who are brave enough to speak the truth, to believe in the world not as it is, but as it can be, as it ought to be. A more inclusive and honest America.
Who are brave enough to build that future.
People like Suzanne Greenlaw, Derek and Ed DeRossier, David Treuer, Jeremy Sundaraj, Taylor Bland, Olivia Wang, Rodney Stotts, Tom Rodgers, Angelo Bacca, Carolyn Finney, Michele Johnson, Antoine Fletcher.
These are the names and stories that will be with me for as long as I’m lucky enough to live. And, I want you to remember them too. Tell people about them. Carry them with you.
Because these are the people who have shown me that the National Parks are not simply, “America’s Best Idea.”
But they are quintessentially American.
They are beautiful, they are places for freedom, peace and awe. But, like us, they emerged from darkness, pain, and trauma.
When I started on this journey through nature, I thought I needed a bunch of things.
That, in order to experience it properly, I needed gear, hiking boots, a poop shovel, a compass -- who uses a compass??
I thought I needed to know what I was doing. Like, on top of being a casual rock climber, I also needed to dabble in river rafting and fly fishing.
Nature can be really intimidating.
I mean, after a pandemic, just leaving our houses can be intimidating.
I thought this trip was teaching me how to “be in nature.” And in some ways, it did. Like I can pitch a tent in less than 10 minutes.
But what I learned on this trip is that the national parks, our national parks, are just one example of nature.
I’ve always been in nature. Of nature.
Because, like Carolyn Finney told me, everyone’s first experience in nature is being born.
The trip is over. It’s time to migrate home.
From my airplane window, I look down at America. My country.
And I think about something that Olivia Wang, the bird biologist said.
Olivia Wang: To notice nature more, one thing that I like to do -- and i still do this sometimes when I go to a new spot - First, I just sort of close my eyes. And I listen, and I try and notice all of the different sounds that I hear. I think that is really helpful for just you know, getting to know the place a bit and clearing your mind.
You know how birds are some of the few creatures that break the invisible barrier between urban life and wildlife?
When I was in Acadia, I kept thinking about the birds back home, in LA.
The sound of seagulls near the beach. Pigeons cooing on telephone wires. Parrots squawking in palm trees.
I get to experience that for free. No gear. No compass. Just my ears.
They’re there every. Single. Day. I just have to choose to pay attention.
So this is me.
I’m home.
I close my eyes.
The sounds get louder.
More clear.
I listen.
And I imagine that the birds are listening to me too.
The End