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Reweaving Culture into a Creek

The Tending and Gathering Garden began as Shannon Brawley’s idea for a senior project three years ago at UC Davis. Since then, it has evolved not only into her graduate work in geography, but also into a unique, community-driven effort to restore a two-acre site in Yolo County's Cache Creek Nature Preserve. The site had been altered by decades of gravel mining, but is now being restored and will be maintained using traditional Native American land management techniques, such as burning, coppicing (pruning plants to the ground) selective pruning, weeding and replanting. Located on land donated by a gravel-mining company, the Garden is a gallery of local riparian plants that Native Americans have used for centuries—and continue to use—for fiber, basketry, food, watercraft and medicine. Brawley’s idea tapped a wellspring of need, as Native American basket weavers, cultural practitioners and educators statewide struggle to find pesticide-free materials and permission to collect and manage them using traditional techniques.

The garden, planted along two acres of wetlands adjacent to the Cache Creek riparian corridor, east of the Capay Valley, is in its early stages. Twenty-nine native species—among them, willow, dogbane, redbud, purple needlegrass, yarrow and cottonwood—grow on the graded slope of a former gravel-mining pit. Brawley, who envisions many more species in the future, points to white root sedge as an example of how Native American basket weavers combine the harvesting of materials, such as roots, with land management. "Digging up roots helps aerate the soil," Brawley explains, tracing a mature plant’s root to the base of a baby plant. "The root is broken off, and the baby plant is replanted somewhere else, so there’s reseeding while harvesting."

Although most of its plants are not yet mature enough to be harvested (except for the prolific willow), the Garden will eventually supply basket weavers and educators, such as Kathy Wallace, with materials for their crafts. Wallace, a member of the Karuk, Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, is a professor of basketry at D-Q University in Davis and a board member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association (CIBA). She brings her students to the garden, teaching them to identify plants and describing how basket weavers traditionally harvested them.

"After people gather plants, they look at a place and the Earth differently. They begin to have a relationship with the plants, and they become part of the landscape," Wallace says.

Over the past 11 years, CIBA has watched the number of California basket weavers grow from 250 to 650. It is difficult for weavers to gain access to land where traditional native species grow and to find plants that haven’t been heavily treated with pesticides (weavers come into close physical contact with the materials, sometimes holding twigs in their mouths, for example, as they weave).

As members of the Garden’s predominantly Native American steering committee, Wallace and her colleagues have been central to the Garden's development. But for Wallace, athe most significant aspect of the project is the inclusion of Native Americans. "Shannon and the Cache Creek Conservancy have included us in the decision making from the beginning," she says. "They haven’t told us what they’re going to do for us. We have as much of a stake in the project as they do."

Jan Lowrey, executive director of the Conservancy, which hosts the Garden and manages the surrounding 130-acre mosaic of wetland restoration projects, historic farmland and heritage oaks along the creek, concurs. "The process is the project. We ask for the steering committee’s input every step of the way and offer to compensate them for their expertise," he says.

Native Americans from tribes throughout the state advise Brawley and the Conservancy on traditional land management techniques and help piece together the Garden’s unique palette of plants by consulting elders and researching their own past. But the process does not stop there. The group also gathers input from local farmers, the gravel industry, Yolo County policy makers and members of the UC Davis Environmental Design department on how to best restore the land.

"First and foremost, this is a community-oriented project," says Brawley. "It is an ongoing experiment in how all interested parties can work together around common, important issues like the environment, education, restoration and stewardship."

Part of the Conservancy’s mission is to rid the area of invasives, such as tamarisk and Arundo donax, or giant reed. These problem species aggravate silting and mercury pollution in the creek. "These are long-term problems that aren’t going away," Brawley says, "and good examples of why committed community stewardship and tending to native species are so important."

Contact: Shannon Brawley or Jan Lowrey (530) 661-1070 or www.cachecreekconservancy.org VS

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