Medicinal Knowledge

You may have noticed that the vast majority of settlements in Newfoundland are along the coast. This is because early settlers were focused almost exclusively on the fishery, and successive colonial governments saw the interior as infertile, barren, and not worth developing. By contrast, the Mi’kmaw, whose primary communities lie on the South and West coasts of the island, knew the interior very well. For centuries, they used bark canoes and skin boats to navigate the island’s waterways, and to this day Mi’kmaq on the island trap, hunt, fish, and gather plants and berries with a mix of traditional and modern methods. This expertise about the natural world and knowledge of the interior saw Mi’kmaw individuals act as guides and surveyors throughout Newfoundland history, including surveying the terrestrial telegraph lines that linked the island of Newfoundland to the mainland and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Settlers, too, came to know the interior, using it to obtain firewood, materials for construction, and food.  

Mi’kmaq in Miawpukek and Qalipu First Nations have worked hard to keep their cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge alive across generations. This expertise has included gathering a range of important plants of the boreal forest to make a medicine called ‘the seven sorts.’ Seven is a significant number in Mi’kmaw culture, and it emphasizes the importance of acting and being in the world with seven generations of the future in mind. Learn about each plant from Geopark display panels at the site. How many of these plants can you spot on your walk along the trail? And what might thinking seven generations into the future mean to you?