Vivian Faith Prescott

The rural Alaskan island life is often featured in my writing. The island I’m living on is shaped like a snow-goose flying to the Stikine River flats—Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. I was born and raised on this island in Lingít Aaní, also called the Tongass National Forest. My children’s and grandchildren’s ancestors have been here on this land for more than ten thousand years. My relatives only arrived in the early 1900s, coming from a similar landscape in Sápmi (traditional Sámi land), so they felt at home among the muskeg, forest, and ocean. 

This small forested and boggy island is all that I know, and it sustains me and my family at our fishcamp along the Inside Passage of the Alexander Archipelago. At my fishcamp, we are nourished by what we harvest from the forest and sea and we teach this knowledge to our younger generations. My eldest daughter is a traditional foods and medicine specialist, so she’s shown me the traditional uses of many of our local plants. 

The stories I tell through prose or poetry are about relationships to the land and sea. I cannot walk around the island and be separate from it. I am the white blossoms on the tea blooming in the muskeg. I am the scent of yellow cedar. I am the sway of old-man’s-beard moss on the big spruce tree. I am the taste of salty popweed and spruce tips. 

To know myself, my family, and my community, I must listen to our plant relatives because we want to continue to survive and thrive on this island. When the skunk cabbage pokes up through the warm spring muck, we watch for awakening bears. When the popweed blooms on the beach, it’s time to watch for the herring’s return. Every blossom, shoot, or sprout tells us something about the coming year. These are the cycles I live with. 

Every poem or story I write about a plant that I harvest or live among is a ritual of body and mind. The plants exist in the images I bring to the mind of the reader. There’s power in that. Just as my writing is a meaningful artistic practice, we have simple but meaningful practices that we do before harvesting plants. First, we thank the plant, out loud. In the Lingít language of my children we say, “Gunalchéesh.” In my ancestors’ language we say, “Giitu.” We also follow protocols like limiting harvesting from each area and we always share with Elders. We believe the plant or animal gives itself to you so you can live. And so it is with my writing, I gift it to my readers.