Reflections from Aiyanna Brown, Healing Landscapes Intern 2024
Qá’pai. Tci tanq’ua’t Aiyanna Brown. Tsum aná du Shannin Stutzman. Tanketsí du Esther Stutzman. Tsum Komemma Kalapuya nau Hanis Coos.
Hello, my name is Aiyanna Brown, I am the daughter of Shannin Stutzman and the granddaughter of Esther Stutzman. I am Komemma Kalapuya, Hanis Coos, and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
I had the privilege of being The Healing Landscapes Intern 2024 for Vesper Meadow and The Understory Initiative (TUI). I heard about the internship at one of my Native American Student Union (NASU) meetings through Stasie Maxwell who I had met earlier in the year because of her continued involvement with NASU. The school year was ending, I knew I should look for a summer job and the internship seemed to be the perfect fit. Prior to this summer, I had an interest in native plants and land restoration but not much hands-on experience. I was excited to get to be outside, learn, get my hands dirty, and above all connect with the land that I am fortunate enough to live on. Although my people would travel to what is now called The Rogue Valley to trade, my traditional homelands are further north. I believe it is important to respect the land while you create a connection, especially one you are a visitor to.
At the start of my internship I was nervous because of my lack of plant knowledge, for example, I can't remember scientific names for the life of me. I had some general knowledge but knew I had a ways to go. I was also excited about all the things I would get to see and experience, I wanted to see more beautiful places around Southern Oregon as well as become more knowledgeable about native plants and some restoration activities.
One of the first things I did in my internship was help with Camas camp. Vesper Meadow Education Program excitedly hosted the first Camas Camp in collaboration with the Indigenous Gardens Network (IGN), The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde families. This was a private event held at the Vesper Meadow Restoration Preserve. It was special for me to be in attendance not only as an intern for The Healing Landscapes, but also as a Siletz tribal member. Tribal families were able to do hands-on work with native plants, use traditional methods to cook and eat first foods, and share traditional knowledge. I enjoyed digging in invasive grass plots and searching for dormant camas bulbs within the clumps of invasive grasses.
Events like these are integral for me and can be for many others in their own healing and reconnection process. They also further a beneficial relationship between the tribes and other land stewardship and restoration organizations. I look forward to more camas camps in the future, and I plan to cook more with camas in different ways and explore various methods. Recipes like camas muffins, camas soup, roasted camas, crockpot camas; the possibilities are endless.
Another thing I started with early on in my internship was seed collecting during field days. I learned very quickly the importance of being prepared on field days, especially after getting a decent sunburn one day. I got to go to many different locations throughout Southern Oregon, from Prospect to Mt. Ashland, to The Table Rocks, and more, each was different in terrain and plants and all of them were beautiful. At first, I didn't know what to collect or how to collect it, but Kathryn and Tuula from TUI were always so helpful in showing me however many times I needed in order to identify and collect what we were looking for. I quickly became fairly comfortable and had a selection of native plants that I was able to confidently identify in the field including common camas, Death camas, Lomatiums, Mules ears, Cinquefoil, and a few more.
My favorite plant to collect seeds from is camas. When you walk through a field of dry camas, the seeds in the pods make a rattling noise almost as if to alert to you they are there, and the seeds are jet black and almost shiny. I also really enjoyed collecting bottle brush squirrel tail or Elymus elymoides, a native grass that has long puffy awns that resemble a bottle brush or a squirrel's tail. I had the hardest time with identifying grasses, I found that there are a lot of look-a-like grasses usually a large number of which are invasive. Luckily there are a few tricks and books to help you figure it out. Fun fact: Some Danthonia grass species have a hidden seed in the lower part of the stem, which can help you identify the grass species when compared to others.
During the heat of the summer, plants go through the seeding process and start to dry out. As a seed collector sometimes you have to be quick when it comes to seeds. If you go too early the plant may still be green or flowering and the seeds will not be ready, however, if you wait too long a lot of the seeds will fall to the ground, get eaten, or blow away in the wind. Some plants have a larger span of time to be able to collect seeds and others you have to plan it within a matter of days. The location also makes a huge difference in the timing, if the elevation is higher the seeds might not be ready until later in the season compared to plants on the valley floor.
At the end of the collection season, we have to gather all the seeds we have collected and clean them of any plant chaff or debris. Similarly to collecting, seed cleaning can be different depending on each plant and seed type. Some seeds are “dirtier” and take a lot longer to remove all the extra plant parts. Some seeds you have to clean by hand while others you have to use wind or a machine or a combination of them all. Seed cleaning can be very satisfying work to watch big bags of plant parts be processed down to smaller bags of pure clean native plant seeds. I enjoyed running my hands through the different styles of seeds and feeling all the textures. I often joked about making ASMR seed-cleaning videos because it was very visually and audibly satisfying.
I got to do many special things during my internship but one day that stuck out to me was when I was able to do Huckleberry monitoring with TUI and some people from the Cow Creek band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians. There were a couple plots of huckleberries that were planted after a fire and each year the group had been going back to monitor the growth of the plants. When I went I learned how to measure and monitor a plot based on a percentage of different types of plants within the plot, as well as the height and number of the huckleberry plants themselves. I was able to snag some fresh huckleberries and raspberries to snack on along the trail which kept my spirits up as I had forgotten my water bottle that day, luckily I have wonderful co-workers who share. I was also able to get some TEK (traditional ecological knowledge) on Beargrass and other native plants while we were up there together which was really meaningful for me.
Another big part of my internship was working on event planning, volunteer coordination, and organizational logistics. I was able to gain more practice and confidence with sending professional-sounding emails and overall organization skills, as well as proposing group discussion questions and group activities. In order to get hands-on with these skills and have an opportunity to create something of my own, I had the opportunity to create my own volunteer/event day with Vesper Meadow. I ended up doing two events from concept to completion. The first one was Beading and Seeding, an evening where I was going to lead an activity on beaded earrings and then collect seeds around the meadow. The evening ended up going a little differently than planned, however, it was nice to be able to sit outside with fellow Native folk and talk and laugh while we each worked on our own beading projects. We ended the evening with a walk around the meadow as the sun set where I excitedly pointed out all the plants I could identify as well as all the ones I couldn't.
The second event was called DAMmnn day, a day for Native queer and 2-spirit people to come out on the land and connect through restoration work. I wanted the day to be specifically for Native queer and 2-spirit folks because there are not many spaces that are meant for us, and theres not many times when people with these identities can really get together in a formal way. As a queer Native-identifying person, I think it's important to make time and space for sharing, healing and just being with other queer native folks. This day we worked on beaver-based restoration structures that are in the creek. The goal with these structures is a couple of things, to raise the level of the creek bed, to turn the sides from a steep drop-off to gradual slopes, and the structures themselves will all help retain water which will flow into the meadow. The meadow is naturally a semi-wet and marshy meadow in certain seasons and we are trying to restore that. All of this work to restore a more ‘natural’ creek will encourage more native plants like willow and one day possibly more native animals will return to the creek, like the beavers. Planning both of these events with the help of Stasie, as well as helping with some of Vesper's other events, I gained a lot of skills and practice in event planning. Crucial skills and confidence that I can see myself using as I finish school and navigate my way through the world.
Over the course of the summer, I met some amazing people and was able to connect with some great organizations and groups throughout the valley. Some of these connections include Maia Black with the Selberg Institute, the amazing people at Pollinator Project Rogue Valley, Lomakatsi youth crews, the folks at Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, and many more. Through this internship, I was also able to attend the Intertribal Nursery Council Conference put on by the Western Forestry and Conservation Association where I got to hear about conservation and native nursery projects across the United States and into Canada. At the conference, I was able to connect with people working on similar projects that I have been through the summer and got many new ideas for projects in my future.
I'm proud of the knowledge and skills I gained in many areas like event planning, plant identification, and more. My time spent outside on the land this summer was beneficial to me in many ways. There were a couple of days that I took a couple of hours driving home because I stopped along the forested roads and collected berries or looked for cool rocks every 2 miles. There were days I put on clips of my mom and I singing, while I drove up the mountain and sang my heart out along to the tapes. Days I was able to walk along in the woods and meadows and let my mind wander, or be able to shut it off completely and be content in that very moment with the sun on my face and my feet on the ground. These moments were just as important to me in this internship as the skills I gained. I started this internship with a few goals in mind, get my hands dirty, learn anything and everything I could, and get outside and connect with the land. I believe The Healing Landscapes internship, checked all those boxes.
I wanted to say kus kus umsu (Thank you) to a couple of lovely women who guided me along the way. Kathryn, thank you for being so dang excited about seeds! Your passion is tangible, you have so much knowledge and I am so glad you shared some of that superpower with me this summer. Tuula, thank you for being a great carpooling and seed-collecting friend. I appreciated your easygoing mindset and all the times I asked “Hey Tuula what is this plant called?” in the field. Jeanine, thank you for putting so much thought and work into Vesper, it is beautiful and I cannot wait to continue to visit and volunteer in the future. I appreciate your knowledge, guidance, and kindness this summer. Last but not least, Stasie. I want to thank you first of all for introducing me to this internship and also for all the opportunities this summer has created for me. I want to thank you for having my back and supporting me and my ideas as an intern as well as a Native woman. I appreciate all the stories, laughter, and knowledge you shared with me over the summer. Thank you most of all, for always cracking open a bubbly water with me after a field day, aunties always know what's best.
Kus kus umsu (Thank you)
Aiyanna Brown - Healing Landscapes Intern 2024
