Ahh, camas lily season. From California up to southern British Columbia—where we’re located here at Terralingua—the Garry oak meadows are awash in waves of beautiful purple-blue flowers. Not just another pretty bloom, the camas holds a place of special significance to the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The plant’s edible bulbs were a

Story by SX̱EDŦELISIYE (Renee Sampson, W̱SÁNEĆ, age 37), with an introduction by Luisa Maffi, Editor of Langscape Magazine, Co-founder and Director, Terralingua . Luisa Maffi, 2019 It was one of those stubbornly-not-yet-summer early June days on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada, eight years ago. The sky was overcast and

by Daniel Kirkpatrick Florence James smiled and said the word again, a little more slowly: “Shle’muxun.” The fifty or so people in the audience quietly rolled the sound across their tongues, trying it out. A helper took a marker and wrote out the word on butcher paper, checked the spelling with Florence, and posted the

by Alice Meyers in conversation with Earl Claxton Jr. (Thuh-thay-tun Kapilano) This is the story of my friendship with Earl Claxton Jr., a SȾÁ,UTW̱ (Tsawout) Elder and respected botanical knowledge holder from the W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) Coast Salish First Nation on the territory known as Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Anglicized from his SENĆOŦEN language, his

by Kelly Bannister and George Nicholas It is Fall 2014. At the Musqueam Cultural Centre near Vancouver in coastal British Columbia (BC), a meeting is taking place of an international team of cultural heritage scholars, professionals, and Indigenous community experts. The group is holding its final gathering to conclude a seven-year, multimillion-dollar university-based research initiative