[SENĆOŦEN introduction] My name is Sarah Jim. I'm from W̱SÁNEĆ, from the Tseycum village. I introduced my parents. My dad's name's [SENĆOŦEN] or his English name is David. We're Coast Salish and Mexican. My mom is Wendy. We're English and Russian Jewish. And I am happy to be here. And just HÍSW̱ḴE to the organizers. And to everyone for the songs and dance. It was [SENĆOŦEN] and it felt like really good to know that the plants that we planted, what is it last week or two weeks ago, are hearing those songs and hearing the drums and being told like it's okay to wake up, like it's safe.

I also work with PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW̱. My colleagues, Kyle and Earl Claxton, Jr, and my mom, Wendy are here representing PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW̱, and that's SENĆOŦEN for "blossoming place". We have a native plant and garden nursery at the Tribal School in Brentwood. And we teach the kids how to garden with native plants and like vegetables, and we teach them SENĆOŦEN and a really land based, holistic way of learning. You know, like it's being called an ethnobotany garden, but I really want to emphasize that's kind of like an anthropocentric way of looking at plants. Plants are really like our relatives, and we should be in relation with them. And you don't... I don't talk about my partner being like, he drives me there, he cooks for me, he does all these things for me. Like, you don't only talk about the uses, you talk about, like, he's funny and beautiful and smart. And so I really want to emphasize like plants are not to be seen as like, what can they do for me, but what can I do for them kind of thing. So my intentions behind planting that garden was... yes, it is good, obviously to have access to our foods and medicines, but for the pollinators and the animals and the birds to have access to those medicines as well. Because that creates a healthy ecosystem.

But I guess I should talk about my art that we all just saw. It's a triptych of three panels. There's the water, the land, and the sky. So the water is represented by the SĆÁÁNEW which is salmon. And all the plants surrounding it are wetland or water loving plants. So you saw cattail, skunk cabbage, Devil's club. Next is the WEXES, which is the frog. And I wanted to... I just love frogs and I wanted them to represent the land aspect. But they also rely on the water as well. So they kind of need both ecosystems. And those plants that surround it are terrestrial like land plants. Off the top of my head, there was I think thimbleberry, trailing Blackberry. The next panel was the yellow one with the dragonfly, the ŦEMŦEMXEYO,ES, which is a dragonfly, and that one I've been taught has like compound eyes. And so it has multiple ways of viewing things. So it has lots of perspectives. And it dominates the sky. Dragonflies are actually like the number one predator on Earth, they have like a 90% efficacy at hunting, so they're cool creatures. And I wanted to add that one to represent like insects and pollinating and our sky relatives. And so on that panel, there's more berries and flowers, because that's what insects rely on.

But essentially, I make art to advocate for the land, because visual art is a really accessible way to start these dialogues and to kind of have a touchstone on the starting conversation about restoration, why restoring the land is important and why native plants are important. It was really lovely to be here and thank you so much for the food and it's nice to see everybody and I always feel really welcomed on SḴŦAḴ. And I'm excited to come back in the spring and see all the flowers and berries and things can come to life, because right now it's kind of just sticks, so it's a little bit anticlimactic. But it'll be really beautiful to see these plants over the seasons. And that's how you really learn who they are is to just like see them throughout their lifecycle. So with that, I just want to say HÍSW̱ḴE, thank you for having me, and enjoy cake.

My name is Jack Ryder. I'm the gardener that's worked on the project. I wasn't scheduled to give a speech today. Rob Underhill, the biologist that works for the Mayne Island Conservancy, he had prepared a speech and he's kind of emailed his words over to me, so excuse me as I'll be reading from my phone up here. So the plants for are garden are all native to the region, and all occurred naturally on Mayne with the exception of Devil's Club. Most plants were grown here on Mayne locally, from seeds and cuttings. A big thank you to Rob Underhill and everyone at the Conservancy for all of the work with the collecting the seeds and growing the plants from cuttings. We did source plants from other places which I'll get to in a moment.

Some species such as the ones in the wettest part of the garden — hard-stemmed bullrush, common cattail, slough sedge, and small flowered bullrush were transplanted from a large wetland restoration project on Mayne, where they have been increasing in abundance since the wetland was reflooded and fenced from deer. So big thank you to Peter and Christine who I don't think can hear right now. Hedgerow Farm, they allowed us, me and Rob to go in and to salvage some wetland plants. That was quite an experience. I've never dug up plants that are, you know, three, four feet underwater. So you know putting your hands down and almost holding your breath to get down to the roots. Some of the plants were purchased from Satinflower Nursery in Saanich, and some from NATS Nursery in Vancouver.

The site contains a gradient of soil moisture and sun exposure conditions which allowed us to include a diversity of species. There are currently 42 species in the garden, which were collected for their suitability to the site and for their ethnobotanical values. One key moment as a gardener that was quite a special thing to witness once we put the plants down on the ground. I could just see birds coming along, wildlife kind of coming into the garden. And that was lovely because they weren't even planted at that point. They were just in their pots. The depression area which is the wettest spot where the skunk cabbages are, seeing birds coming in and just bathing in the water. I just thought wow, you know, to actually witness essentially a man-made lawn and the impact of creating a kind of habitat. That was really special.