Download Millennium Windows

Millennium Windows
Designed to commemorate the beginning of the 21st century, the Millennium Windows in
the Ballroom portray a botanical theme signifying the natural beauty of British Columbia
and the importance of the gardens to Government House.
British Columbia’s large size and complex landscapes support several distinct ecological
zones, each with characteristic and easy-to-recognize plants. The windows capture the
diversity of six major regions represented by 18 common plant species.
Wet Coast Forest
Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus)
Known also as swamp lantern or Skeena lily, it bears massive oval leaves
recalling tropical jungles rather than temperate climates. The leaves were widely
used by coastal aboriginal people to wrap around food, and to line berry baskets
and steaming pits. Ancient stories recall the importance of the roots as famine
food before the coming of spring salmon, but the leaves should never be eaten.
Salal (Gaultheria shallon)
Dense thickets of evergreen salal bushes dominate the understory of coastal
forests. Clusters of urn-shaped pinkish-white flowers appear in spring and early
summer against a background of shiny green leaves. Black-blue berries contrast
against bright red stalks. Coastal First Peoples gathered the juicy fruit in huge
quantities and ate them fresh, or dried in cakes for later use. Salal’s leafy stalks
are used around the world in flower arrangements.
Western Redcedar (Thuja plicata)
Tall and stately western redcedars reign over British Columbia’s damp coastal
forests. Spicy-scented, scaly branchlets swoop gracefully from curved branches.
Stringy bark clothes the trunk. Redcedar was the universal provider to British
Columbia’s coastal First Peoples. The inner bark was fashioned into clothing,
and branches, bark and roots into baskets. Easily split and rot resistant, the wood
was transformed into canoes, ceremonial poles, giant house planks, exquisite
carvings and boxes. Today, British Columbia honours redcedar as its Provincial
tree.
High Mountains
Lupin (Lupinus arcticus)
Masses of lupin bloom colour British Columbia’s high mountain meadows sky
blue. The pea-shaped flowers form tall clusters that sway above silvery fanshaped leaves. Bumble bees eagerly visit lupins to harvest nectar. Grizzly bears
enjoy digging and eating the large root crowns. Aboriginal people roasted in pits
the roots of some coastal species before eating them. Lupins naturally add
nitrogen to the cold soils of the north and mountains.
Dwarf and scrub birch (Betula nana, Betula pumila)
Dwarf and scrub birch thickets range widely across northern British Columbia,
especially at and above the tree line. Rounded leathery leaves, edged with small
even teeth, line the gland covered branches. Elongate green to brown catkins
poke out from among the leaves. In the fall, mountain sides and tundra glow deep
orange brown as the birch leaves turn. Several groups of First Peoples made tea
from the leaves and twigs.
Pink mountain–heather
(Phyllodoce empetriformis)
The pinkish-red haze of mountain heather flowers is familiar to many hikers in
British Columbia. The ankle- to knee-high shrubs bear numerous narrow leaves
and scramble over all but the wettest open spaces in the high country. Flowering
shoots tinkle with masses of pink bells and are a favourite food of high-mountain
marmots. Pink mountain-heather is now a popular ornamental plant among
gardeners.
Dry Coast
Camas (Camassia leichtlinii and Camassia quamash)
The strikingly beautiful camas lily grows to a metre tall from an onion-like bulb.
It paints the meadows and open rocky hillsides purple in spring. For thousands of
years, First Nations’ residents managed camas of the dry south coast and other
parts of western North America for food. In the early summer, they dug up
enormous quantities of bulbs using digging sticks, and then cooked them slowly
in huge roasting pits. The grounds around Government House seem to flow with
rivers of purple camas flowers in early spring.
Arbutus (Arbutus menziesii)
Red-stemmed arbutus trees lean from rocky shorelines and cluster on hill tops of
the dry east side of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. This broad-leaved
evergreen is a relative of blueberries, salal and other members of the heather
family. Masses of cream-coloured, honey-scented flowers adorn the branches in
spring, followed by brilliant red berries, a favourite food of Mourning doves and
Band-tailed pigeons. Coastal Salish people used arbutus bark in a medicinal
mixture.
Oregon–Grape (Mahonia nervosa, Mahonia aquifolium)
Evergreen shrubs of two species of Oregon-grape inhabit openings and forests of
British Columbia’s south coast. Clusters or spikes of bright yellow flowers
appear in early spring then mature to sour dark blue berries. Coastal First Peoples
ate the sour berries raw or dried them with other fruits. The yellow inner bark of
stems and roots makes an excellent dye. Today people make a delicious jelly
from the fruit and grow Oregon-grape widely in gardens.
Mountain Forests
Western Larch (Larix occidentalis)
In the autumn, great golden towers highlight the mountain forests of southeast
British Columbia as western larches prepare to drop their needles for winter.
Small purplish red to reddish brown cones line the branches. Long ago First
Peoples made paint from powdered western larch resin. They also used resin,
leaves and branches for medicines. Some aboriginal people observed that, as the
needles turn yellow, pregnant female bears headed into their dens for the winter.
Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
The flexible woody stems of kinnikinnick trail over the open ground in the
mountains and plateaus of interior British Columbia. Small spoon-shaped,
evergreen leaves provide a backdrop to delicate pink blooms that mature into
shiny red berries, a well known food of bears and grouse. Aboriginal people
staved off winter starvation by collecting the berries from beneath the snow.
Rather dry when fresh, the fruit was cooked in soup or fried with animal fats.
Several aboriginal groups used kinnikinnick leaves to treat cold and flu.
Tiger Lily (Lilium columbianum)
Tall tiger lily stalks, decked out in dangling orange blooms, brighten open
woodlands, meadows and roadsides in southern British Columbia. Deep red to
purple spots mark the insides of the shining curled back petals. The pepperytasting, scaly white bulbs were widely harvested and eaten by First Peoples. The
bulbs were also added to foods such as Saskatoon berries and salmon eggs to
give them more flavour.
Dry Interior
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa)
Tall open-crowned Ponderosa pines command the savannah of southern British
Columbia’s dry zone. The long flexuous needles and striking, black-fissured
yellow bark are hallmarks of this species. Many aboriginal people once ate the
nutritious inner bark of the tree in spring and some ate the seeds. Today the wood
is highly prized for construction and the attractive spiny cones are widely used in
Christmas crafts.
Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia)
In spring tall Saskatoon shrubs erupt in bright white bloom throughout much of
British Columbia. Humans and wild creatures alike anticipate the midsummer
crop of delicious purple fruit. First Peoples ate the berries fresh or dried and
pressed them into cakes that they traded widely throughout the province. Today,
people grow domesticated varieties of Saskatoon and use the fruit for jellies, pies
and even winemaking.
Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)
Bright sunflower-like blooms rise knee-high above triangular silvery leaves as
spring sun warms the interior mountain slopes and valleys of British Columbia.
The First Peoples of the Thompson-Okanagan and Chilcotin regions harvested
roots, buds, leaves and seeds of this magnificent perennial. They dug up carrotsized roots in early spring and roasted them in massive earth pits in preparation
for feasts and processing for winter.
Northern Forests
Dwarf blueberry (Vaccinium caespitosum)
Scarcely reaching ankle height, dwarf blueberry grows almost everywhere in dry
to moist conifer forests, in meadows, and on rocky ridges and tundra. Masses of
bright pink bells erupt in late spring and early summer from a carpet of small
bright green leaves. Aboriginal people picked the berries and ate them fresh out
of hand. In late summer they used wooden combs to harvest great quantities of
fruit, then mashed and dried it into cakes for winter use.
Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides)
Aspens create breath-taking golden vistas as their leaves turn with fall frosts. The
soft trunks are home to countless woodpecker families and other cavity nesting
birds. Some First Peoples used the light wood to make drying racks and small
implements such as saddle frames. The bitter tasting bark was chewed or boiled
and widely used as a medicine to treat many ailments.
Cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum)
Tall stalks of cow parsnip bear flat-topped clusters of creamy white flowers, later
replaced by large winged seeds. Large scented leaves line the hollow stems and
sprout from the base. Cow parsnip grows along roadsides, streams and rivers, and
in moist meadows throughout northern British Columbia and further south too.
First Peoples throughout British Columbia peeled the young shoots and ate them
raw or roasted, a favourite spring food. Cow parsnip sap may blister skin exposed
to sunlight.