Everything about this article appealed to me, starting with the water potato that I had never heard of and the tribal elder in Idaho who had said what the watershed needed was BEAVERS,’
The tiny potato at the heart of one tribe’s fight against climate change
Last October, Aiyana James attended her first water potato harvest on the reservation of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in northwestern Idaho. The weather was unusually cold, but she was determined to harvest her first water potatoes, a small wetland tuber that’s one of the tribe’s key traditional foods.
After their land in northwest Idaho was carved up by 1909 federal allotment policies, Western agriculture, and logging thatback persists on some level today, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe lost a massive amount of acreage and, with it, their ability to manage the land and maintain balance between environmental protection and economic development. Salmon and trout disappeared from the streams. Fires became more frequent and powerful. Water potatoes and other key plants like camas, once staple foods for tribal members, started to disappear.
Now, extreme drought is making the situation even worse.
All of this is part of a reinforcing cycle of land degradation and climate change that the Coeur d’Alene Tribe has been fighting for decades. It’s a fight that James has now joined as one of the tribe’s first climate resilience coordinators.
No I had never heard about this little water potato either. But when it was described as a tuber it made me think of the cattail root that beavers eat. I have heard that it can even be made into flour for humans. So that wasn’t completely mysterious but you’d be surprised how many pictures of water potatoes there are NOT on the internet.
The tribe is bringing back beavers and salmon, restoring native grasses, and repairing stream channels. Collectively, those efforts are designed to restore balance to the landscape, make it more resilient to future climate change by fostering interconnected ecosystems, and, tribal members hope, one day allow them to rely again on important ancestral foods like the water potato.
In the summer of 2022, an adult salmon swam in Hangman Creek for the first time in around 100 years. Two years after the tribe released juvenile salmon into the creek, and after an arduous journey out to the Pacific Ocean and back, the tribe welcomed salmon back to the creek for the first time in generations.
For Ralph Allan Jr., the tribe’s fish and wildlife program manager, it was the culmination of 20 years of work that began with long days of fieldwork like planting trees. Now, he’s leading the department as it prepares to bring salmon back to the reservation.
Yes bringing back the salmon is a mighty fine goal to achieve. Congratulations. But guess what;s an even better one?
The beaver dams also support clean, cold-water habitats for salmon, but to do that, they need trees. Since 2019, the tribe’s environmental programs department has planted over 18,000 trees from about a dozen different species, and plans to plant another 4,000 by 2025.
The tribe has used beaver dam analogs — man-made approximations — to encourage beavers to return and posts to reinforce existing beaver dams. Gerald Green, a wildlife biologist for the tribe, says they are currently supporting about seven beaver dams in the creek.
Trees, beavers, salmon, water — they’re all part of a cyclical, interdependent system the tribe is trying to restore and support. Cajetan Matheson, natural resource director and a tribal council member, says that addressing climate impacts or restoration goals one by one will not work. “Everything is really related to each other,” Matheson said. “You can’t just clear-cut a mountain and say, ‘Oh, now we’ve defeated the fire problem.’ There’s way more to it than that.”
Wow now that’s truly getting the big picture. Plant trees, make food and shelter for beavers, who in turn make homes for juvenile salmon clean the water and sustain all kinds of wildlife. I think this is going to work!
Almost everyone I talked to in the Natural Resources Department credits that perspective to Felix Aripa, a tribal elder who died in 2016. He is seen as instrumental in setting the tone for the tribe’s restoration work.
He was an early proponent of using beavers as a restoration partner and helped with things as straightforward as pointing out where a stream used to flow so that the technicians could use that as a guideline to restore the course rather than starting from scratch or guesswork. “The ultimate goal for anybody that works here in the Fish and Wildlife Program is to leave a legacy e way that Felix Aripa left his legacy and his mark on the program,” Allan said.
Before he passed away, Aripa helped Matheson and others put the tribe’s traditional seasonal calendar on paper. The calendar, which is based on seasonal indicators like tree sap rather than months and days, includes detailed information about foods, ecosystems, plants, animals, and human activities. “As we’re thinking broadly about how we approach restoration, it’s the framework that we can use,” Laura Laumatia, the tribe’s environmental programs manager, said. “It represents millennia of knowledge.”
Wow. I am always interested in stories about early advocates for beavers. Whether they are tribal or not. Felix intrigues me but there are too few stories of him on the internet. I did find one video which i will share. But we should always assume that somewhere in the background there is always a wise voice saying, YOU need to bring back the BEAVERS!
Just one question. Do beavers eat water potatoes?
Bonus points? The article comes with an awesome new video that is the best visual for hypoheic exchange at a beaver dam I’ve seen. Enjoy and share,
