The Many Shapes of Malus fusca
Known as qwa’up in Hul’q’umi’num’, kwu7úpay̓ in the Sḵwx̱ú7mesh sníchim (Squamish language), tsalxw in Kwak̓wala, Malus fusca in Latin botanical terms, and Pacific crabapple in English, this small, tart apple has a long and varied list of traditional uses for indigenous Coast Salish communities as well as nations in interior regions. Many of these uses have been lost in the physical and cultural displacement of First Nations communities by settlers, and others are preferred to be kept and passed down privately within families. Some traditional knowledge of this crabapple were shared with ethnobotanist Dr. Nancy Turner in the making of the book Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge, and this was the first place we learned about it.
Slender and slow-growing, this is an apple tree we have come across in boggy coastal places, on tiny, uninhabited islands, and sometimes (though less frequently) on the margins of the cedar and fir tree forests that dominate the place in which we live. It has a crunchy, sweet and sour taste that immediately gives away its kinship with Malus “domestica”. Dr. Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram of ḴEXMIN Field Station explains that there are different subspecies of the crabapple ranging from coastal to alpine, each with varying characteristics. On the coast, its fruit is sunny yellow or green with a deep red-purple blush where the sun hits it, and in the fall and winter its leaves turn a stunning crimson.
In this region, Pacific crabapple trees continue to be stewarded by people from the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh nations, and places like ḴEXMIN field station on Saltspring Island are ensuring that specific subspecies of the tree endure in the face of land permanently altered by the disruption and destruction of settlers. On the island where we live (S,DÁYES, Pender Island), swathes of forest were burned to the roots and others clear-cut by European settlers to create grazing land for imported livestock, as well as for planting the European-style apple orchards we harvest for food and cider. The areas in which the forests have regrown still lack the plant and tree diversity we see in small pockets of land where less development has occurred.
Photo of Pacific crabapples by Dr. Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
Nancy Turner’s two-volume book Ancient Pathways details many diverse past and current uses for the Pacific crabapple, along with countless other plants, fruits and trees, in collaboration with members of First Nations communities from coast to interior regions. The text contains a vast amount of important knowledge passed down through generations of different First Nations. The following quoted passages are used with Nancy Turner’s permission.
Preservation techniques of this apple vary from place to place, but two common mediums in the coastal region are water and oulachen grease. A traditional method was to harvest the crabapples before fully ripe and store them raw or partially-cooked, whether in clear water or a bit of grease. However, the most common method was for the apples to be “cooked slightly – in cedarwood boxes, large wooden or bark vessels, or more recently, large enamel pots – and preserved in water or in their own juice, to be kept in a cool place” until being used in a meal. Underground cache pits were common for raw storage, and the pits would be lined with bark or skunk-cabbage leaves. When used, the crabapples were “often cooked with their stems intact; these were removed after cooking or discarded by the person eating them.”
As an alternative to harvesting in the fall, the fruit can also be left on the trees past the first frost of winter for increased sweetness and flavour. Turner relays that “many elders recall enjoying them at this stage in particular”, as cold, freezing weather causes the fruit to “become soft, turn brown, and develop a unique flavour – similar to that of bletted medlars (Mespilus spp.) of European traditions”. After refined sugar became available through settlers, crabapples were often mixed with sugar in jam and canned or “dried into cakes and stored in baskets or boxes”, and more recently, “manufactured barrels – such as 5-gallon wooden molasses kegs” have been used for underground storage.
Medicinal uses are also an important aspect of the Pacific crabapple tree: one recorded in Turner’s text is an “infusion or decoction of the bark” for coughs and colds, but there are certainly more traditional uses unrecorded in text.
As with all food, the crabapple tree and its fruit are woven into the fabric of culture, spirituality and story for many communities. Dr. Brochu-Ingram explains that in some west coast traditions, “people see through crabapples in the world of the afterlife.” So the crabapple has deep meaning and value beyond the meal.
Traditionally, crabapple orchards were, and some still are, grown and tended by different First Nations families and clans, along with many other edible plants and berry bushes. Turner’s book describes how, for many hundreds of years at minimum, crabapple trees have been maintained through regular pruning in order to keep the fruit accessible for harvest—although this work has been historically unrecognized as active cultivation by European settlers.
Maintaining ownership and access to these crabapple orchards has been a political issue since the first European settlers arrived: one orchard dispute recorded in Turner’s book dates back to the 1890’s and the Canadian government’s imposition of the reserve system:
For the Haisla of Kitamaat, an important site of ‘Crab Apple Gardens’ owned by certain families in a small inlet near Kildala was omitted from commissioner Peter O’Reilly’s reserve assessment, and as a result, in a letter dated 10 November 1897, the Haisla petitioned the chief commissioner to add the crabapple (Malus fusca) grounds to their other reserves.
After much struggle, “More reserves were added, but again, many key areas that had been identified by the First Peoples as historically and economically important were still omitted”.
As settlers here, we’re starting to seed and plant new Pacific crabapple seedlings around the orchards we tend, and while tamping their roots into soil, the image of “crabapple eyes” returns to me again and again. The more we learn about native fruit trees and edible plants like the crabapple, the more we better understand the links between altered landscapes and the continued efforts of settlers to control land and food production. This apple’s history communicates the highly politicized role traditional foodlands and foodways have for Coast Salish communities here.
Written by Katie Selbee, illustration by Matthew Vasilev. First printed in our print edition of Cider Folk in 2018, copied here with some updates and revisions.