Western Serviceberry

“This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are—along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain, gathering in the towers of cumulonimbi. You could call them natural resources or ecosystem services, but the Robins and I know them as gifts. We both sing gratitude with our mouths full.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

The month of June not only brings us warm and vibrant weather; it also provides us with the rich scarlet berries of the Western Serviceberry, or Amelanchier alnifolia, tree. Also known as Juneberries or Saskatoon serviceberries, the delicious tart fruits of these trees are perfect for picking in June. They can be eaten by the handful, mashed into jams and jellies, or baked into cakes and other sweet treats. Many Prairie Indians use the berries in a native dish called pemmican. This staple food is comprised of dried meat and animal fat, most often bison, and dried serviceberries, which creates a food rich in fat, calories, and safe from spoiling. While often hard to stomach raw, pemmican can be added to stew or fried with vegetables for added flavor.

The Corps of Discovery wrote about their first taste of pemmican during a feast with the Lakota Sioux on September 26, 1804. The feast served as a means to cut tensions after a standoff occurred between the Corps and some tribal members during a misunderstanding between the two groups. Captain William Clark wrote about this experience, with paraphrases from Expedition journal editor Nicholas Biddle, as follows:

“We smoked, and he again harangued his people, after which the repast was served up to us. It consisted of the dog which they had just been cooking, this being a great dish among the Sioux, and used on all festivals; to this were added, pemitigon [pemmican], a dish made of buffalo meat, dried or jerked, and then pounded and mixed raw with grease and a kind of ground potato, dressed like the preparation of Indian corn called hominy, to which it is little inferior. Of all these luxuries which were place before us in platters with horn spoons, we took the pemitigon and the potato, which we found good, but we could as yet partake but sparingly of the dog.” - Captain William Clark, September 26, 1804

Visit the Native Garden at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Headquarters Visitor Center in Omaha, Nebraska to view our own beautiful Western Serviceberry trees. However, we can’t promise they’ll be any berries left; the robins are swooping in for berry snack breaks as much as they can before the fruiting season’s over!

To learn more about the Western Serviceberry and try a fun craft, check out this Fridays with a Ranger video: Fridays with a Ranger: Serviceberries, and How to Paint Them - YouTube

Taste your skills at making your very own pemmican: Making Pemmican | Discovering Lewis & Clark ® (lewis-clark.org)

Read the full journal entry from September 26, 1804: September 26, 1804 | Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (unl.edu)

Check out Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful essay about serviceberries here: The Serviceberry – Emergence Magazine