Ethnobotany

Rhodiola (golden root) to the rescue for Inuit

Unless you’re an experienced gardener, you might think golden root (Rhodiola rosea) was a plant like any other, except for the fact that it’s found only in remote regions. The stalk rises from a rhizome that rather resembles a ginger root, the leaves are arranged in tiered rows, and the pink flowers bloom in late summer. You might even take it for a weed.

But you’d be wrong – very wrong. In fact, Rhodiola is one of the rising stars of plant therapy. In infusion or gel capsule form, the plant sometimes called the “new ginseng” appears to protect the heart, prevent altitude sickness, improve moods, strengthen immune system activity, and more. “The plant was such a craze in Russia that it nearly disappeared,” says botanist Alain Cuerrier, a researcher with the Plant Biology Research Institute at the Université de Montréal.

Golden root, which elders from Kangiqsujuaq and other coastal villages had no trouble identifying when the researcher pointed it out to them, is well known for its stimulant properties, even in the far north. “The plant could be used in the treatment of diabetes. In any case, there’s strong market demand right now.”

For the Inuit, struggling to cope with serious social and economic problems, the plant could spell a promising business opportunity. “We should think about marketing the plant,” says Cuerrier. “Rather like the aboriginal essences in plant nurseries, golden root could be cultivated in nature. We would have to find ways of installing drying apparatus that could hold the crop. This would give local entrepreneurs an opportunity to occupy an original and potentially very lucrative niche – natural health products.”

But this would have to be handled carefully to avoid ill-considered exploitation, as happened with wild garlic in the 1970s. The victim of its own success, wild garlic nearly disappeared from Quebec because people were thoughtlessly harvesting the bulb, which meant it couldn’t reproduce.

Before discussing possibilities for marketing Rhodiola, the botanist had to make sure that the plant found on this continent possessed the same properties as the plant that’s so popular in Europe. He conducted a genetic analysis of seeds and seedlings harvested in Labrador, the Mingan Islands, and Inuit lands, and found that it was the same stock, as the genotype was identical to the plant coming from Russia and Norway.

In recent years, with the help of the Makivik Development Corporation, Cuerrier has made three trips to northern Quebec to tap the “botanical knowledge” of the Indian communities. His method takes a page from ethnology. With the help of an interpreter, he shows an elder plants harvested from around the village, then takes note of the elder’s comments. “When we present plants to an elder, most of them say nothing,” recounts the researcher. “But when he recognizes a plant that has special properties in the oral tradition, his eyes light up and he tells us everything he knows about it.”

One meeting Cuerrier recalls as being especially symbolic, since it involved a mythic figure in Quebec history, botanist and ethnologist Jacques Rousseau (1905-1970). “I showed a picture of Rousseau with an (unidentified) Inuit to one of my friends,  Moses Etok. He took me to his father, Tivi Etok, who told me about his meeting with Jacques Rousseau. He was the one in the picture.” Cuerrier has a great deal in common with the former student of Brother Marie-Victorin, founder of the Montreal Botanical Garden.  No wonder his botanist colleagues call him “the little Rousseau.”