04/13/2026
Happy International Plant Appreciation Day! 🌿💚
Today, let's take a moment to celebrate our green companions... the plants.
Canada is home to over 5,300 species of native plants and trees. They not only beautify our world, but also sustain it by providing us oxygen, food, medicine, shade...and so much more!
Nature is a teacher, and every plant has a story.
Today I will share the legend of the Devil's Club, based on the book "How Devil's Club Came to Be" - author~ Miranda Rose Kaagwil Worl
"The story starts with a sickness in Raven’s village. The shaman they look to for healing is nowhere to be found. Raven discovers that a terrible giant with a spiked club is kidnapping shamans. He tells his people that he’ll stop the giant – but then falls ill himself. He tells his niece that she must take over for him.
Raven’s Niece does her best to defeat the giant, but her plan fails. To escape, she jumps off a cliff – and finds herself among the Thunderbird people. Like her people, they are ill and missing their shaman. Their leader says they will help her. He drapes his Chilkat robe around her shoulders. The robe turns her into a Thunderbird. She finds the giant, shreds his deadly club, and drops him into the ocean.
She then becomes ill, but the voice of the Thunderbird clan leader directs her back to where she destroyed the club. There she finds an unfamiliar, spiky plant. She chews the inner bark and feels strong enough to get back home. She shares the medicine with her people, and they are cured. The plant (called S’axt in Tlingit and devil’s club in English), still “helps heal and protect us.”
