Seeds

On the hike down, I began thinking about what was next.  The trail had been built.  The mine had been cleaned out.  I was ready.  But I had no idea how I would go about collecting the seeds.  To have a serious seed bank, I’d need seeds from six continents, and as many of the 200 or so countries on our planet as practical.  

I made the six hour drive to Anchorage.  Home of the University of Alaska.  I figured my best bet was to pester the folks in the Biology department.  They were smart and were bound to know a lot about seeds.  I got lucky.  The chairman of the department, Dr. Fowlkers, already knew who I needed to talk to.   

He told me about seed exchanges.  Organizations that facilitate communication and the transfer of seeds between interested parties.  I joined the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership.

Millennium would sell seeds to me.  But money was running tight.  I wouldn’t be able to buy my way to a proper seed bank.  The other option was seed exchange.  I didn’t get it at first.  Dr. Fowlkers had to explain.  I’d been focused on seeds used for agriculture.  Important, for sure, but that represents a tiny fraction of all of the seeds of our planet’s vegetation.  

Morton’s Folly is located in a rugged, sparsely populated area.  Despite the frigid temperatures in the winter, and the year-round cold at high elevations, southern Alaska comes alive in the summer.  

According to Dr. Fowlkers, plants such as snowberry, Alaskan cedar, sedum, and fern, among others, are common in the valleys and lower elevations near Morton’s Folly.  Many of the varieties are only found in Arctic climates.  The kinds of places where gathering seeds is difficult and time consuming.  It would be easy for me.

I returned to Chitina with a list of plants to look for, and a stack of photographs.  I spread everything out in the lobby of the hotel.  Sivoy nodded his head.  “Yes.  I can show you where many of these plants grow.  Some are plentiful.”  

     

By mid-April the snow was gone from the lowlands and things were turning green.  Sivoy and I hiked the trails in the area.  I drew maps and noted the location of the plants I was looking for.  As the season progressed, I began to collect seeds.

I developed a routine.  I’d drop off envelopes filled with the seeds I’d gathered at the Chitina post office, and pick up the packages Millennium had sent me.  Once a week I’d make the hike up to Morton’s Folly.  My seed collection began to grow.

Things had fallen into place.  But I still had one worry.  Money.  My savings was nearly gone.  Any welding work I could get would be at least a hundred miles away.  Working and traveling would seriously cut into my seed collecting time.

That was when being considered crazy became an advantage.  I’d been in Chitina for two years.  Everyone in the area knew me.  Tourists began to approach me and ask “Are you the Morton’s Folly guy?”  People would buy me drinks just to hear my stories.

When a pair of college students offered me $40 to take them on a hike to the mine, I realized how to solve my financial problem.  Anyone could apply for a guide’s license and give tours if they were accepted.  My tour wasn’t for everyone.  It was a long, steep climb.  But Morton’s Folly was the newest and most unusual thing to see in the park.  

Sivoy teases me for turning the seed bank into a tourist attraction.  The visitors have to go through the gift shop twice, once to get in, once to get out.  You’d be surprised how many ice cold Coca Colas you can sell at 9600 feet.  At any rate, I don’t listen when Sivoy gives me grief.  I’ve noticed he likes to wear the Morton’s Folly tee shirts I gave him.

I’ve been collecting for three years now.  I’ve got over 100,000 samples of seeds.  I have hundreds of varieties of corn, rice, wheat and sorghum, from every continent and most countries where they are cultivated.  I have seeds for exotic plants few Americans have ever seen.  

I’ve filled about 12% of the mine.  I won’t be able to collect forever.  But I won’t live forever either.  I haven’t figured out what will happen after I am gone.  I hope one day a young person will share my passion for seeds and take over from me.  I will figure it out when I get there.

I saw the image of the old woman one more time.  But not as a hallucination.  You could say it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sivoy suggested we put the seed bank to use immediately, and grow a vegetable garden at the hotel.  The samples had a thousand seeds each and we wouldn’t put a dent in them.  

Mrs. Uukarn was happy to let us dig a plot behind the hotel, since the food would end up in her restaurant.  Even though the growing season is short in Alaska, crops like broccoli, carrots, peas, potatoes and lettuce do quite well. 

Sivoy and I did the digging.  Mrs. Uukarn even helped out.  I’d finished breaking up the soil in one row and decided to rest for a moment.  I turned.  

To see an old woman, on her knees in a garden.  She held seeds in the palm of one hand.  With the other hand, she carefully placed the seeds in a row of holes in the soil in front of her.

  

I just make stuff up but these people are science badasses:

https://www.croptrust.org/our-work/svalbard-global-seed-vault/