ALASKA—Some things never change. The need for food and connection with each other and the land, and the need to teach the next generations how to maintain and sustain those connections—these things never change. And in the fourth year of the Sitka Ranger District/Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tlingit potato garden, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project did not change either. In 2020, the potato garden continued to provide healthy, locally grown, culturally important food to the Sitka Tribe while connecting people to the history and horticulture of this traditional food.

But some things are ever-changing. In the past, students from the Pacific High School gardening class, staff and volunteers from the tribe, and the community would all come together at the Sitka Ranger district office for two in-person events—a planting day in the spring and a harvest day in the fall. Education about horticulture and history, storytelling by Tlingit story-teller David Kanosh and personal family stories by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s Tammy Young were seamlessly mixed in with hands full of dirt covering or uncovering potatoes by a small hoard of volunteers.

“We were really proud of our shared garden space, which combines food security, sustainability, cultural knowledge and the valuable relationships forged through these efforts in years past,” said Sitka District Ranger Perry Edwards. “But this year, we couldn’t do it the same way as we had in the past three years. Because of COVID-19, we had to change how we did both the education and the gardening parts of this project.”

To align with state and local mandates for the safety of the public, the district quickly pivoted to online learning for the educational parts of the program. They held Microsoft TEAMS meetings in the spring and fall to educated attendees about Tlingit (sometimes called Maria’s) potatoes and how to plant, harvest, store and sustain them.

Sitka Tlingit Potato Garden - Harvest Class.

“The web meetings worked great,” said Edwards. “We had about 30 participants on each of the web meetings this April and October, from all over Southeast Alaska from Yakutat to Ketchikan,” continued Edwards. “Some even came from as far away as Girdwood, Alaska, and Olympia, Washington!”

Planting, however, did not go as smoothly. This year, Edwards and Michelle Putz, the project’s long-time coordinator and NEPA planner for the Tongass National Forest, planted all the seed potatoes themselves in the pouring rain.

Planting Tlingit Potatoes.

Nonetheless, the potato plants did well, and the fall harvest was conducted in person with a smaller, socially distanced and masked group of volunteers from the gardening class students and Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s Tammy Young. The 2020 harvest produced about 110 pounds of potatoes, which were provided to and distributed through the tribe’s Traditional Foods Program and Social Services Department.

Why grow—or teach people about—Tlingit potatoes? Tlingit potatoes have been present in Tlingit gardens for over 200 years. They are well-adapted to Southeast Alaska and easy to grow. The potatoes originate from Mexico or Chile and were a trade item in Southeast Alaska in the early 1800s.