Natural Relations

By Amy Gulick, Safina Center Fellow

Photo: In the Tongass National Forest of Alaska, a Native Tlingit woman weaves a basket using spruce roots from the forest. The Tongass contains one-third of the world’s remaining old-growth coastal temperate rain forest. ©AmyGulick

Stroking a thick white mountain goat hide placed next to a loom, I watch master weaver Teri Rofkar create a traditional robe made from the animal’s wool. Next to the hide are strips of spruce root, raw material for her exquisite woven baskets also on display. Teri tells stories about her Indigenous Tlingit ancestors as her expert fingers weave a beautiful design.

“With such plentiful resources in your homeland, it’s easy to see how your people have been able to thrive,” I say.

“Resources?” she replies. “Mountain goats and trees aren’t resources. We have relationships with the goat and the tree.”

Since time immemorial, Teri tells me, the Tlingit have lived along the forested coast of what is today southeast Alaska, rich with spruce and cedar trees, mountain goats, salmon, bears, ravens, and eagles. To make robes, they knew the optimal time of year to hunt the mountain goat, so the animal’s coat was in the best condition. In addition to the wool, they also used the hide, horns, and meat. To make baskets using spruce root and cedar bark, they carefully harvested the roots and bark so that the trees could continue to live; today, weavers still use the same harvesting techniques. I wonder how Teri’s ancestors thousands of years ago had the foresight to harvest bark or roots in a way that did not kill the trees. The forests must have seemed endless and in a constant state of regeneration in the soggy climate. 

This mindfulness speaks to the difference between resources and relationships. When people live with deep connections to the land, water, animals, and plants that sustain them, it’s impossible not to respect and develop relationships with everything. Resources, on the other hand, tend to refer to end products—commodities. It’s tough to have a relationship with lumber, copper tubing, or frozen fish sticks without knowing the forest, earth, or water from which they came.

Photo: In Bristol Bay, Alaska, a Native Dena’ina woman dries wild Pacific sockeye salmon in her smokehouse. Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest run of wild sockeye salmon. ©AmyGulick

Ever since my conversation with Teri, I have eliminated the word “resources” from my vocabulary and have replaced it with “relationships.” What a difference a word makes. Everything I eat, drink, breathe, touch, use, and discard comes from our shared Earth home. When I stopped using the word “resources,” I started thanking everything. Thank you dirt for growing food. Thank you forests for creating oxygen. Thank you climate for allowing me to exist. 

Seeing the world in terms of relationships encourages me to question what I use, where it comes from, how it’s made, and who makes it. Asking myself why I need something leads to making better choices and being less wasteful. Maybe it leads to a relationship with a local farmer or fisherman. Maybe it leads to a conversation like the one I had with Teri, the one that shifted my thinking from mindless to mindful.

Amy Gulick is a photographer/author and Safina Center Fellow. Her award-winning books include: The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind and Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest. Visit www.amygulick.com.