By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
For the fourth year running, the U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Tribe of Alaska will team up Wednesday to plant Tlingit Potatoes and celebrate Earth Day.
In years past, the Forest Service and STA have assembled a group of volunteers on Earth Day to plant the potatoes at the Forest Service office on Halibut Point Road, but the global pandemic has forced the project to go online this year.
The collaborative project can be viewed on Microsoft Teams, instead of in-person.
With Microsoft Teams, a videoconference program, anyone with a computer and a wi-fi hookup can watch the potato planting as it takes place, starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“I will be talking a little bit about horticulture, how to grow these plants in particular,” said Michelle Putz, who works at the Sitka Ranger District office. “I’ll be reading some of the science about where these came from, as well as historical cultural aspects of them.”
Michelle Putz prepares to plant potatoes outside the Sitka Ranger District office on Halibut Point Road in 2019. This year’s event will take place online. (Sentinel File Photo)
Tribal citizens will show how to grow Tlingit potatoes, and share the biology, history, and cultural aspects of these interesting potatoes, the Forest Service office said in announcement of the program.
Because of the restraints on group gatherings now in effect, Pultz said she and her husband, District Ranger Perry Edwards, will plant the potatoes “just to get them in the ground.”
“This is a tough year,” she said of the coronavirus lockdown. She hopes that by harvest time in the fall “we’ll be able to get together a little bit easier.”
Pultz said that Tlingit Potatoes, also known as Maria’s Potatoes, are not native to Alaska, but rather traveled all the way from Meso or South America.
“They probably came from Mexico and Chile, but the scientists know that they are not related to western or European potatoes. They definitely came up through South America” Putz said.
The potatoes seem to have arrived on Baranof Island around the year 1800 via trade routes, she said.
At the time, Mexico and Peru were Spanish colonies, known respectively as Nueva Espana and Nueva Castilla.
With social gatherings banned for now, Pultz lamented that the young people who normally help will not have that opportunity this Earth Day.
“Normally, we would have the Pacific High School students helping to plant, so I’m a little bit sad we can’t have the gardening class there,” she said.
Pultz said now more than ever, the Tlingit potato garden represents possibilities for food security in Southeast Alaska. “Growing food is important anyway, but now it’s even more important And it’s something people can do to keep their food secured,” she said.
The Earth Day potato planting can be viewed by signing on to https://tinyurl.com/tlingitpotatoes from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.
