Kamana Program

The Kamana Program is something I've been working on for nearly three years now. It has been very rewarding and very educational. Half of the program is book work, researching plants, mammals, herps, natural hazards etc. The other half is awareness training in nature and cultural training.

For example, my current research project is to list all of the valuable non-woody plants within 100 miles of where I live. By a "valuable" plant I mean that it is either edible, medicinal, poisonous, an ecological indicator, craft value or ethnobotanical uses. This project is comparable to a masters program in botany. It was a lot of work.

This is my current awareness assignment, along with sit spots and field inventories. It's to create an introduction of myself and where I'm from in a Native way, being sure to hit on several main points and fluff it up with lots of imagery. Here it is so far:

Greetings,
I lean against this glacially dropped boulder of mica-granite, reminded of the power that the Laurentide Ice Sheet brought with it as it carved out huge ridges, polished mountain tops and left behind lakes and boulders like this one. Slowly the bare soil of glacial till gave way to wind dispersed plants later to be succeeded by Hemlock, White Pine, Birch, Oak, Hickory, Beech, Elm and American Chestnuts. Over time and Native American influence these trees grew to amazing heights of more than 200 feet and 8 feet diameters. Since then these giants have fallen to ax or disease and what remains is a different denser landscape of younger trees, shrubs and swamps.

I visit this boulder every morning. It sits in a line of boulders, left behind when the glacier melted just behind my house. North of my house is Swain’s lake, also left behind by the glacier. South of my house is an intensely diverse patch of woods and Cedar Swamps. Deep in this forest lives the Majestic Moose. Someday I will see this massive herbivore wading through the morning fog that rises from the swamps.

This place I call home sits in the center of the Salmon falls - Piscataqua Watershed which drains directly into the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the water seen under our bridges here will not freeze even in the coldest weeks of January. Although it is miles from the ocean, this water is tidal and fully brackish.

To the West lie the Great Lakes of the United States and Canada. These lakes to our left coupled with the Ocean to our right form a landscape humidifier and provide us with much rain and snow. Large amounts of water are needed to support the lives of thousands of species of plants, hundreds of birds, and dozens of mammals. Mammals like the Moose, Otter and Porcupine who fall asleep at night to the eerie call of the Loon and celebrate the morning to the music of Song Sparrows, Chestnut-sided Warblers, and Black-capped Chickadees.

The plant world in this forest supports all other life and holds a quiet power that is best not disrespected. A mere lick of the stalk of the Water Hemlock can bring death while the mysterious, nutritious, Stinging Nettle is being used to fight prostate cancer.

Only when you are up close do these beings look separate. Inevitably comes the realization that all parts are working together like cells in my own body to create this whole, unique piece of the Earth. And if I am still, the chipmunks and squirrels carry on with their chores around me and the hermit thrush flies in to land near my feet as if to tell me that I’m not separate either, just one of the many interesting pieces making up this landscape.