Cree Nation

I was fooling around with Google maps and sketched in the two key blocks to illustrate my posts on the buffalo Commons and also what I will call the Cree nation.

Link:

<http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117314320894484997064.0004596ba0c24a95902a3&ll=51.718029,-87.890625&spn=34.374113,74.003906&z=4>

The Cree nation block is that part of the boreal forest that is likely prospective for the development of an extensive cattail based horticultural protocol. I do not think it will be particularly easy, but I do think it is at least possible. It will be necessary to build out paddies in the extensive wetlands that exist throughout the boreal forest.

The creation of such a system will also promote exploitation of additional resources, the most obvious been the already present wildlife that can be tightly managed to maximize yield. This includes the beaver and moose particularly. Other plant species should also be open to direct exploitation in and around the wetland paddies. And the extensive lake system permits fish husbandry.

Such general husbandry has always needed a viable economic base that was tied directly to a patch of land or swamp that could be owned and managed. Operating cattail paddies does just that and provides the platform to do the rest. Europe surely had it easiest. All that was needed was to burn off a forest patch to grow hay and then capture a wild calf or two. Then you were in business.

The boreal forest is faced with near non existent soils and forests good mostly for pulp. There is no way there to provide a base crop. This is where the extensive wetlands can be tamed and turned into cattail paddies.

It may even be possible to generate floating paddies for the cattails to grow on. Fortunately most of the hard work has already been done by the indigenous beaver. Just taking advantage of his efforts will produce most of the early and easiest gains. The trick is to actually accommodate the beaver while this is been done.

It is not well known, but the husbandry of the beaver is a viable business on its own and needs to be supported. Beside the fur, which is superior, meat and musk can be harvested and marketed. Breeding will produce a larger more productive animal and a range of natural colors including white. Once a herd size is optimized in terms of a given paddy operation, a lot of surplus animals will be produced.

Moose husbandry is just as compelling. The animal is huge and easily collected and managed right after the autumn rut. It is unlikely to interfere much with the cattails, but would have no impact even if they ate cattails exclusively. They do not form large herds.

It is possible to organize a classic agricultural operation with these inputs alone. Adding cattle to the mix allows the harvesting and use of the cattail stalks as fodder.

We can have successful agricultural biome that produces cattle and starch for food and ethanol as well as a large fresh water seasonal fishery, with a range of secondary products derived from managing the local wildlife properly. It just needs a few well funded pioneers to show everyone how to do it and a bit of help from the equipment manufacturers.

Terraforming the Boreal Forest with Cattail Paddies

I have introduced readers to the astounding productivity of the wild cattail. This is possible because it is a wetland plant that never lacks water and is a sponge for dissolved nutrients. It produces a biomass an order of magnitude greater than the most prolific field crop and much of that are starch rich rhizomes.

I am revisiting it because its natural range takes it deep into the boreal forests of both Canada and Eurasia. This is the single largest woodland wilderness in existence and has always resisted human agricultural methods. The soils, derived from pine forests if they have any depth at all, resist cropping and are best left undisturbed. Much of that is from the actual recent nature of these soils from the end of the Ice Age.

Yet in Canada in particular vast wetlands remain as well as multitudes of interconnected lakes. The actual plant life is well adapted but with minimal speciation throughout. You see the same handful of species. Some of this is perhaps also a result of the Ice age and the limited time for local speciation.

The cattail prospers in most of this range. It does not seem to go all the way to the tree line, but then neither do the trees except as stunted remnants. The one range map that I am able to use shows coverage throughout the lands south of a latitude running through James Bay. I suspect that I will be hearing of its presence much further north.

What this means is that land greater in area than the Great Plains can possibly be farmed using a cattail paddy culture. One can even envisage using beaver ponds as the natural cattail field.

Farm preparation will require the leveling and grading of large swathes of wetlands and setting up a system of fall drainage to accommodate pre winter harvesting.

This also means that direct management of the adjacent wildlife becomes possible. Deeper waters are natural fish farms easily isolated for management purposes because of the general slow movement of water through these lands. Non migratory sturgeon are particularly promising.

More obvious is the moose that will naturally graze these lands and can be harvested in the fall. In fact it is perhaps reasonable to store the chopped reeds as winter fodder for the herds of moose. The same may also applicable to the other ruminants but the moose is surely best source of commercial meat.

Once the paddy culture is established and the moose husbandry integrated, many other options will become practical. The beaver, in particular is eminently domesticatible and readily adapted to this culture. In fact, both these animals will be around anyway and one may as well maximize their value. Actual beaver harvesting will take place in the winter when the pelt is at its best. The meat also is of value.

Note that so far I have made sure that harvesting takes place in the late fall and winter. The first reason for this is that the insect burden during the summer is prohibitive. The second reason is that the animal and fish populations must be hugely reduced before full winter kicks in and their food supplies disappear.

In any event we have yet another model farm concept that can work and put boots on the ground everywhere throughout the boreal forest.

Curiously, the Cree whose ancestral lands these are likely survived the onslaught of Europeans best of all indigenous peoples. They are well positioned to develop this new form of agriculture and provide an economic base that once seemed improbable.

We have discovered it is possible to turn the boreal forest to agricultural advantage and thus terraform one of the largest biomes on Earth.