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Native students learn about trees as part of summer cultural program 

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POLSON –  More culturally-inspired outreach is the goal of the summer native arts and culture program.

   Polson Middle School special services teacher Amy Williams said the idea sprouted from Polson Schools’ parent and Indian education committees.

Meetings are held Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Polson Middle School or Cherry Valley Elementary. 

   Last week 27 students learned about nine different native trees and other topics in an outdoor classroom. 

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Department of Forestry and state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation staff were on hand to give students information about their environment in a give-and-take format. 

   Students were shown nine examples of tree species native to northwest Montana, including western larch, hemlock, lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, Engelmann Spruce, ponderosa pine, western red cedar, western white pine and whitebark pine. 

   Tribal forestry department employees James Snow and Roian Matt told the students about a whitebark pine project that began last year to help save the threatened species. 

   The project involves several Bureau of Land Management employees who place mesh cages around whitebark pine cones in the early summer and then return in the fall to remove the cones after the seeds within them have grown. 

   “We extract the seed and send it to a greenhouse (run by the U.S. Forest Service in Coeur d’Alene), and they’re growing and eventually inoculating” the seeds, Snow said. The goal is to develop a seed that is resistant to blister rust. 

   The cages protect the cones from Clark’s nutcrackers and red squirrels, which would eat the seeds, Matt said. 

   She noted that the whitebark pine grows only near timberline above 5,000 feet and said the tree has been susceptible to damage from mountain pine beetles too. 

The whitebark pine project is scheduled to run five years. The project was born of the efforts of the tribes’ climate change adaptation committee, Matt said. 

   “We grow the trees for three years and expose them to blister rust for two years,” she said. “Then we’ll know if we have blister rust resistant seed stock.” 

   The goal is to eventually establish a whitebark pine plantation similar to one the Forest Service has in Plains, she said. 

   Tribes historically have roasted and eaten whitebark pine seeds, which are high in fat, she said. 

The program is working in conjunction with the summer lunch program so students eat a meal while learning. 

Future topics include: native art, June 28, July 12; traditional tools, July 19; science and culture, Aug. 2; and drum making and native crafts, Aug. 9.    

A family night consisting of singing and drumming, tipi construction and native games will be held at 5 p.m. July 26 at Cherry Valley Elementary. For more information, call Williams at 406-883-6335, ext. 327.

 

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