When Chris McCandless, immortalized in Into the Wild, headed into the Alaska wilderness, one of the books he took with him was Tanaina Plantlore, which he used to identify edible plants. While the book and subsequent movie has brought attention to the book for more than a decade, it draws on a thousand of years of knowledge. The Dena’ina (also called the Tanaina) Athabascan peoples in southcentral Alaska have made use of the varied plant life that grows in interior Alaska for generations and Tanaina Plantlore collects this extensve knowledge, giving phsycial and environmental descriptions with photographs to aid in identification.

This book is the culmination of more than a decade of ethnobotanical study and provides accounts of the traditional lore associated with these plants based on a wealth of interviews with Dena’ina people. This new edition includes new graphical content consolidating practical plant information and traditional uses.