Stswecem’c Xget’tem Forest Gathering and Tending
Project Title: Stswecem’c Xget’tem Forest Gathering & Tending
Recipient: Stswecem’c Xget’tem Development Corporation (SXDC)
Region: Cariboo
Awarded Amount: $12,409
Project Period: 2025
Description: In recent decades, Stswecem’c Xget’tem First Nation (SXFN) members have lost access to gathering sites for foods and medicines near community due to forest ingress and encroachment. Members are currently travelling upwards of two hours to gather. This grant will support spatial data analysis, training, cursory data collection and community engagement on the location, health and productivity of forest food and medicine plants in the Territory’s forests. The project team hopes to support SXDC/SXFN staff learning on this important issue, and identify future opportunities for intensive projects (e.g., juvenile/commercial thinning), the development of best practices and long-term data collection (e.g., silviculture surveys).
Halfway Reporting:
The following is based on halfway reporting by the grantee.
August 27, 2025
Abundant Sxusem (Soapberry) Crop in SXFN Territory, July 2025 (Photo by Sonja Seher)
The SIP Capacity Building Grant supported the collaboration between SXDC forestry staff and SXFN land guardians to attend to the issue of understory food and medicine plants in Stswecem’c Xget’tem Traditional Territory. Community members have travelled further from home in recent years to harvest berries (specifically sxusem, the community’s superfood) and to gather medicines, and it’s suspected that forest harvest and forest ingress has contributed to this lack. To better understand the impacts and the solutions, SXDC in collaboration with SXFN worked to develop a simple data collection form to capture observations as our staff worked out on the land.
To date, we have come together to identify priority plants and places for our efforts, along with the questions we want to answer. We have visited sites that have previously been important locations for harvest, to see how the plants are faring after changes to land use and climate. We have tested and refined a method that captures data in a narrative way that is familiar to our members, on a platform that is both secure and shared by SXDC and SXFN.
Our ongoing work is collecting and synthesizing data for use by our SXFN Stewardship Team, SXDC’s Foresters and harvesters and gatherers from SXFN’s two communities: Canoe Creek and Dog Creek. SXDC will continue data collection work through the end of the project, working towards a baseline of information to support future planning, discussions and many, many berry harvests.
Green berries on Sxusem (Soapberry) on the Tinmusket Fuel Break Project, June 2025 (Photo by Sonja Seher)
MoF Vegetation Ecologist, Kristi Iverson, with SXFN Lead Guardian, Ike Boston, and Guardian Team, July 2025 (Photo by Sonja Seher)