On the role of peat bogs as components of Indigenous cultural landscapes in Northern North America

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores uses of peat bogs and associated plants and other resources by drawing on the published ethnobotanical and archeological literature pertaining to Indigenous groups that lived and continue to live on the Northwest Coast, the Interior/Plateau Regions, Northwestern Canada, the Central and Western Arctic, and the Far Northeast. We examine bog plants used as food and medicine, the relationships between people and bogs as documented through traditional ecological knowledge, and archeological evidence for bogs having been used as places to live and as sources of peat for use as building material. The aim is to bring attention to the fact that peat bogs were, and still are, very much a part of Indigenous cultural landscapes in North America. We suggest that greater attention should be paid to bogs and that a reassessment of their perceived marginality may be necessary to achieve a fuller understanding of past and present human–environment interactions in northern North America.