Harvest season time to forage for wild food and gather seeds for saving

As leaves change and the days grow shorter, fall is a time for the last harvest of the year before the long winter months begin. 

"This is the time to gather food because this is when food is gatherable," said Caleb Musgrave. 

Musgrave, who is from Hiawatha First Nation about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, is the owner and operator of Canadian Bushcraft, which teaches wilderness skills, and a self-professed acorn picker. 

But acorns aren't the only wild food that Musgrave is foraging for. 

He said ever since he was a child, he's been interested in edible wild foods, whether while out hunting or fishing with his father or just spending time in the woods. 

He tried to have his household eat an at least 50 per cent wild diet that consists of edible plants foraged through the warmer months and wild meats like moose, duck and even squirrel. 

He said over the last three to four years he's noticed an uptick in people foraging for their food, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and especially with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"The pandemic put fuel on the fire, people are in survival mode and thinking they need to prepare for the end days," he said. 

"Amongst Indigenous communities you were seeing this return to traditional food ideology that was basically trying to decolonize our diet."

He pointed to establishments like Toronto's Pow Wow Cafe and Ku-Kum Indigenous Kitchen that are bringing wild food in to serve restaurant patrons. 

For Musgrave, having a more traditional diet based around wild food is important because much of his family is affected by diseases with dietary factors, like diabetes and heart problems. 

He also said the connection to Indigenous identity through food is critical.

"Connecting us more to our traditional diet helps connect us more to our traditional ways," he said.

This time of year is when the last few berries and fruit will be ripe, acorns are ripe and tuber plants like sunchokes are at their prime. 

"It's cool out, it's beautiful out, the leaves are changing, everything is good now," said Musgrave. 

"This is a good time to be out in the woods."

Seed saving for future generations 

Janice Brant has always been around seeds that have been grown in her community of Tyendinaga, about 180 kilometres south of Ottawa. 

"As I got older and started growing my own gardens, people would seek me out and give me our heirloom seeds that needed safety or protection or regeneration," she said. 

Brant is now a Ratinenhayén:thos co-chair with the Kenhte:ke Seed Sanctuary and Learning Centre (KSSLC).

The KSSLC is the first Indigenous seed sanctuary in Canada and has the goal of preserving heirloom and heritage seed varieties to ensure their availability for future generations. 

"Food diversity has decreased so much," said Brant.

"There's so many beautiful colourful foods that our people ate and enjoyed that we might not even know about today because of the lack of ... people growing these traditional crops and harvesting them."

She said they hope to educate people about the need for seed keeping in communities and the need for strong local adapted varieties that are able to withstand climate change. 

Currently the seed sanctuary has around 300 different heirloom seeds, and approximately 75 per cent of them are Indigenous to North America. 

"The plants that we're growing have been in a relationship with human beings and they don't grow wild right there, we replant them, they rely on us to grow them," said Cate Henderson, who the seed sanctuary employees as a gardener. 

Henderson said there is an urgency to the work of seed saving that's going on at the sanctuary because of the loss of knowledge around how to do it, combined with the changing climate. 

"It's important to keep that relationship going long into the future," she said.