Wilderness Medicine

 

ALASKA’S
WILDERNESS MEDICINES
Healthful Plants
of the Far North

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eleanor G. Viereck
Illustrated by Dominique Collet

About This Book

The purpose of this book is to acquaint people with Alaskan wild plants, native and introduced, which can be used to promote health and healing, for first-aid emergency care, or to maintain wellness.

I hope the book will be useful to persons in cities, on farms, and in the wilderness, whether they are in Alaska for recreation, hunting, fishing, or work. Others, inadvertently stranded as a result of accident or disaster, may find themselves in need of help from healing plants.

More than fifty plant species are described, with information on habitat and distribution and general information on how each one can be used as medicine.

There are some additional notes on history and folklore, poisonous species that might be confused with useful ones, and my own experiences with the plants. Information about the constituents of the plants is also presented.

This book is the first of its kind, as far as I know, integrating and combining Alaskan ethnobotanical lore with European and American herbal traditions to serve as a natural history guide to medicinal plants of Alaska and their uses.

It is far from complete in two important regards: First, it does not cover all of the medicinal plants of Alaska. There are lichens, seaweeds, and other herbaceous plants that may be very useful, but unfortunately I have not yet experimented with them and studied the uses of all of the species that may be of interest. And, there may well be plant cures not yet discovered. Second, I have deliberately omitted some plants because I consider them rare and endangered species and do not want to encourage their decimation by well-meaning gatherers.

And lastly, but most importantly, I wish to stress that this small natural history of a few of the Alaskan medicinal plants is not intended to serve the purpose of a self-care manual of medicine. I do not want any reader of this book to neglect a serious illness or injury that should have professional medical attention.

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Copyright © 1987 by Eleanor G. Viereck