748a Quirky Oslo; Last Empty Places; Herbal

19:33Rick Steves:and Peter's taking us into America's most rural and desolate stretches of land. Stark explores the uninhabited regions of the United States in his book, The Last Empty Places, a journey through blank spots on the American map, and he weaves in layers of regional history and theories from America's early natural philosophers. Peter's also written, Gallop Toward the Sun, Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation, and you can learn more about Peter's work at PeterStarkAuthor.com. Okay, Peter, let's head south to western Pennsylvania. And when I think of Pennsylvania, I think of a lot of people, but it actually made a slot in your book as one of the vast dark spots at night.

20:17Rick Steves:What about the wild lands of western Pennsylvania? The wild lands of western Pennsylvania, indeed. Yeah, that was a real surprise to me. After studying hours of looking at that satellite photo, I kept coming back to this chunk in the east and you know i would kind of like triangulate it it was like between okay there's pittsburgh and there's detroit and then there's that's cincinnati and philadelphia and you know and i realized i kept coming back that's pennsylvania why isn't there anybody living in pennsylvania well that part of pennsylvania it's the the allegheny mountains and so it's rocky as we were just saying that you go back to the soil so the soil couldn't really sustain a lot of people And why would you struggle there?

21:00Rick Steves:It's like the most difficult places in Europe ended up being the places with the greatest emigration to the United States, driven by the quality of the soil. And when they got to the United States, why would they go for land that was unworkable from a farming point of view? Well, actually, they had to go for some of that land because the soldiers in the Revolutionary War, the American soldiers were, you know, Congress didn't have any money. So they were promising these soldiers land after they got out. And a bunch of that land was out in western Pennsylvania. I got a nice stretch of land for you out in beautiful western Pennsylvania.

21:33Exactly. So part of the revolution was won on the basis of rocky land in western Pennsylvania. Promises of rocky land.

21:40Rick Steves:You know, it's interesting that you literally got these NASA satellite images at night, and you looked at the lower 48, and you just go, oh, what's that darkness doing there? Let's check it out. Is that really what motored your choice of chapters? Totally. Totally, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I spent hours looking at it. I've always been, I mean, you're probably the same way. I can look at maps for hours and hours and hours and hours. You know, when I was a student, I remember that. I'd spend hours and hours studying at this one great library at the University of Washington. And for a break, I would go to the globe room, you know, the map room.

22:12Rick Steves:And it was just good for my soul to just spin that globe and look at it and imagine. And for you to look at the NASA satellite images after dark of the lower 48. And one big dark spot that you found was in southeast Oregon. This is the part of Oregon that wants to actually join Idaho. Right. And as part of, I mean, Nevada and California, they all kind of merge there. And it's, you know, it's kind of a no man's land, really. And not only no man's land in terms of people, but also in terms of what time zone it is. and when I was out there I was staying at this little inn way out in a complete you know hinterlands and a guest at the inn was I think from the University of Washington or Oregon had a page from the alumni magazine from the geography department at the university and it showed something like what places in the U.S.

23:06are more than 100 miles from a Walmart more than 100 miles from a Starbucks, and there was one other factor in there. And the only place was this little chunk of land near French Glen, Oregon, way out there. So it was like, that was it.

23:20Rick Steves:Well, imagine if you're on the Oregon Trail or an early settler, and you're going through all sorts of hardship to go west and find the promise of some place for your family to put down their stakes. And you've heard about Willamette Valley. I mean, that is the quintessence of fertility, Willamette Valley. Why would you stop 100 miles east of Willamette Valley? Well, in fact, if you did stop 100 miles east of Willamette Valley, as some people were forced to do, it was not a good thing because there was nothing to eat, nor was there water. And so they either moved on or they died, basically. Well, or it probably, I mean, there is a reason there are people living, you know, in these weird, quirky places.

23:58Rick Steves:And you wrote, you can still get lost here in southeastern Oregon. And people do, willingly or not. They get lost in a different way of life, a different rhythm, a different sense of boundaries and space. Once you've been there, it's easy to see why it attracted those who wish to live a life of adventure, those who did things their own way, and those who preferred, by their own sense of necessity or for the sheer thrill of it all, to live outside the conventional boundaries of the law. That paints a picture. Well, there you go. That still exists that way in some ways today. There was the rancher federal government dispute that happened in that very area.

24:37Rick Steves:That's right. And then a couple decades ago, do you remember the Boghwan Roshnishis? Yes, you're right. They were Eastern Oregon, right? Right there, Eastern Oregon. So there's a quirky mix of survivalists and hippies and environmentalists and rednecks, you know, in these kind of places. It's not just one kind of people. It's kind of extremes in all the different dimensions. It is. And there's something that strikes a passion in these individuals. And we're talking about people of such a variety of personalities who have this passion for wilderness, who are attracted to these empty places. So for some people, this desolate, arid corner of southeastern Oregon could be their Walden Pond.

25:23Precisely, yeah. And that's a really good way to put it. You know, I think when you talk about transcendentalism, you know, Thoreau and Emerson, I was sort of raised with that, that I grew up in Wisconsin. And John Muir was actually a Scottish immigrant who came to Wisconsin when he was a few years old. And his family were homesteaders in Wisconsin. Likewise, Aldo Leopold, another great natural philosopher who I write about in Last Empty Places, he spent much of his life in Wisconsin. What the transcendentalists in the early 1800s were trying to distill, part of it in their formulation was seeing God, seeing spirituality in every aspect of nature.

26:06And so there's this real ethic of land conservation and the importance of the natural world.

26:14Rick Steves:Adventure writer and historian Peter Starks joining us from his home in spacious Montana on Travel with Rick Steves. Peter explores America's most remote locales in his book The Last Empty Places, a journey through the blank spots on the American map. It's been reissued by Mountaineer's Books. He tackles the influence of the wilderness in his earlier books, Astoria and Young Washington. And he looks at how Ohio and Indiana were settled in Gallop Toward the Sun, Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's struggle for the destiny of a nation. Peter's latest work explores 300 years of indigenous resistance to the conquistadors and will be released in April.

26:52Rick Steves:It's called Lost Cities of El Norte, Coronado's Quest, the Unconquered West, and the Birth of American Indian Resistance. All right, Peter, just the last place we're going to visit before we call it an adventure, the high and haunted desert of New Mexico. I love it. Why? Well, again, it's like southeastern Oregon. It's unexpected. Yeah. And the place we chose was the Gila Wilderness Area. And I made a point of not going to national parks or wilderness areas for a reason, that they're in a way kind of too designated. But I really wanted to go to the Gila Wilderness Area because, one, it was very central to those early Puebloan civilizations, those early Indian cultures.

27:41and two, it was important in the life of Aldo Leopold, who was a young man who spent his time as a ranger in those forests that eventually became the Hilo Wilderness. And it was there that this concept of American wilderness in Aldo Leopold's mind was really kind of formalized. And so I wanted to trace that arc.

28:04Rick Steves:I would imagine when you're in these kind of places, you're struck by the light and the big sky, especially out in the desert. Any of these places, you don't have that light pollution. Was that an attractive part of being in this remote corner of New Mexico? Tell us about that. Oh, incredible, incredible. And it's also, I mean, it's not in the wilderness, but not so far away. They call it the, what do they call it, VLA, very large array. It's this enormous array of satellite dishes on the desert that are aiming in the depths of space to hear signals from the deepest depths of space. I didn't realize, so that's interesting, satellite dishes are attracted to the same thing you are, a place with no lights.

28:45A place with no lights, but these dishes are not looking for satellites. They're looking for signals from outer space. But they're big dishes. I mean, they'd look like a big TV satellite dish on the side of your house, but they're, you know, like 80 feet across, And there are, I think, 21 of them scattered across several miles of this desert, listening, listening to outer space.

29:06Rick Steves:Peter Stark, this has been so fun to just pick up on your enthusiasm for these last empty places. The name of your book, by the way, Last Empty Places, a journey through the blank spots on the American map. But let's just, I want to know kind of what the takeaway is. I mean, maybe it's just an opportunity to travel to places with quirky people and bright stars at night. Or maybe we learn something about America, about ourselves. What's the takeaway that you would like people to have from this experience? I mean, you've done it. You've written about it. We can do it. Why? One of the things that really attracted me to doing this is I start feeling I get depressed that the world's a homogenized place.

29:50And American culture is homogenous. It's all the same. and by randomly going to these blank spots. I mean, actually, the times I've randomly chosen to go a place on the map and you go there and it's just amazing how cool it is and what a depth of culture there is in terms of the natural world, in terms of indigenous culture, in terms of history, in terms of settlement, in terms of what's going on there today. There's this incredible richness that you don't pick up on, I think, if you go to sort of the well-known places or, you know, if you follow the interstates, of course, and stay in the interchanges.

30:24But just choosing a place at random, those have always been the best travel experiences for me.

30:30Rick Steves:You know, when you think of black spaces on the map at night, is it fair to say these are also red spaces on the political map of the United States? That's a really good question. Yeah. I mean, certainly southeastern Oregon is. I would say, yeah, I think you could make that generalization. I don't know about Northern Maine, but it's, yeah, it's a very much a rural lifestyle. And at least in this political climate. So just don't tread on me. Yeah, it's a don't tread on me mentality. And when your next neighbor is five miles away, you don't even have to put that flag up. Well, but also the people really, there's a tightness to them, too, to those communities, even though they're scattered, that you've got to help each other out or you all die.

31:11Rick Steves:Peter Stark, thank you so much for basically shining a light on an otherwise very dark dimension of that map of the United States at night. What a fascinating book. Best wishes, Peter. Thank you for having me, Rick.

31:29Rick Steves:You'll find links to articles Peter's written for Outside Magazine on his website, peterstarkauthor.com. You can discover another world in your own backyard as you learn to identify and cultivate plants from the world's healing traditions. Herbal ethnobotanist Mimi Prunella-Hernandez explains next on Travel with Rick Steves. Something is shifting in our society. People are going back to their roots and seeking traditional, natural forms of healing and connection with the land. Last year, the global market for herbal medicine reached over$125 billion. But herbalism extends beyond supplements and what you can find in the garden.

32:11Rick Steves:The practice dates beyond written history, with early recordings of plants for medicinal use going back to ancient Chinese and Egyptian times, 3 ,000 B.C. With this renewed interest in a more natural way of being, herbalists like Mimi Prunella Hernandez are more sought after than ever. In her book, National Geographic Herbal, 100 Herbs from the World's Healing Traditions, Mimi takes us on a journey through the culinary, medicinal, and natural world of herbs, practices rooted in ancient cultures all around the world. Mimi, thanks for being here. Hi, Rick. Thanks for having me. This is so much fun to be here and talk about herbs with you and your fellow travelers.

32:53Rick Steves:You are a registered herbalist and the executive director of the American Herbalist Guild. Clearly, you're evangelical about the importance of medicinal plants and their use. Tell us about the American Herbalists Guild. I am evangelical in spreading the good word about herbs and their uses. You know, from a young age, I have studied herbal medicine and I found that it was really hard to find good schools, good mentors, clinicians to apprentice with. So, you know, becoming an herbalist can be challenging for a lot of people, especially if they'd like to do it vocationally. And so I really had to piece together, you know, education to prepare me to become a clinical herbalist.

33:40And along the way, I thought it was just a wonderful opportunity to align with the American Herbalist Guild to support emerging professionals in the herbal world and to give them the tools and help the communities who are looking for a high standard of herbal education and to help, you know, some of the herb schools and academic programs around the country with providing some criteria for clinical herbs. herbalists who wish to pursue study of herbalism.

34:15Rick Steves:And, you know, when I read through your book, it has a personal dimension to it. It's beautifully illustrated, and it's almost like you're sharing a religion. You've got this understanding of the value of herbs. Where did that come from? Well, it's definitely a deep wisdom. You know, the study of ethnobotany, which I really engage with, is the study of different cultures associated with plants and how people interact with plants. You know, it comes from all of us. All of our ancestors practiced herbs for health. You know, I think it's just a common lineage amongst all people and all cultures have a legacy of practicing with herbs.

34:58And along the way, those wisdoms get lost as we modernize and as we westernize and as we become more digital and the internet and all this. So for me, it goes to my roots, my family roots, my grandmothers who are both Latin American. I had a Mexican grandmother and a Colombian grandmother, and both of them were really used to plants a lot in healing and in the kitchen. And so I think just watching them really just planted a seed in me. And I think lots of people watched their grandmothers play with herbs.

35:36Rick Steves:We can see that being lost in the modern world with all the commercialism and giant industries and corporate values and so on. When we travel, we encounter herbs. And this is a travel show. And as I was reading through your book, it occurred to me we travelers can incorporate an interest in herbs into our travel experience. What would your take be for a traveler who wanted to incorporate an awareness of herbs as they explore the world? I really love traveling and weaving the herbal experience into my travels. I think, you know, the first place I always start is at the markets, especially some countries like Mexico.

36:17or I've traveled a lot in Latin America where there's a lot of open their markets. And that's where the healers come together and they lay out their herbs on these colorful tapestries. And there's even herbalists out there ready to tend to your aches and your sprains and with liniments and herbs and spices. And so I really love going to the markets to see what is available. And then, of course, I love exploring nature and hitting the woods, whether it's guided trails in the Amazon or mountain journeys in Oaxaca. You know, I really love going into nature and seeing the different various plants in their respective habitats.

37:00And then, you know, learning from the local folks like the cacao farmers in Costa Rica or in Ecuador, or even, you know, I think my last trip was to New Zealand. I took my son and we had an experience with the indigenous communities there and learned about the herb kawakawa and the traditional beverage that they make there. So, you know, it's just like really fun to go in and explore from their perspective.

37:31Rick Steves:I like the way your book is designed, where you've got these chapters that are basically themes. And I'm going to go through kind of the chapter heads now, and we're just going to brainstorm about some focus on herbs that we might incorporate into our travels. You've got a chapter called Sensory, Our Senses Are Our Teachers. You comment on how, for instance, the residents of the hottest climates really appreciate the hottest spices, cayenne, for example. Talk a little bit about how our senses are our teachers when it comes to herbs. Well, I think that that is really how we get to know herbs. This is how herbalists really get to know the properties of herbs because their actions are inherent in their sensory stimulation.

38:19So we know that aromatics, by definition, help relax the nervous system and help relax smooth tissue. You know, they're good digestives. They help alleviate gassiness. We know that spicy herbs rev up the circulation system. We know that bitter herbs stimulate digestion. We know that slippery herbs are soothing. and so you know just through like that simple lens of the sensory experience we can we don't have to memorize every plant under the sun because there's so many it's more about assessing their qualities and their patterns.

39:00Rick Steves:This is Travel with Rick Steves we're talking with herbalist and author Mimi Prunella Hernandez and she's devoted her life's work to broadening the use of herbs in traditional and professional settings. Her book is National Geographic Herbal 100 Herbs from the world's healing traditions. You can learn more about Mimi and her work on her website, mimiprunellahernandez.com. Prunella is spelled with two L's, P-R-U-N-E-L-L-A. Mimi, the next chapter is Kitchen. Herbalism begins at home, whether you're a traveler or not. You mention in there a beautiful phrase, variety is the herb of life. Exposure to a wide spectrum of foods is healthy.

39:38Rick Steves:Tell us about some of the hidden medicine we might find in the kitchen. Well, I think, you know, that quote really says a lot. And I'm glad you chose that because, you know, I think variety and also the variety of the colorful patterns that we put on our dish are so important. And it just exposes our body to kind of this buffet of natural components and phytochemicals, if you will, for the body to choose what it needs to assimilate, to stimulate various aspects of health. And when we get into a redundant simplicity of reductionism of foods that are selected for just sweetness. And, you know, if you look at the grocery store, most of our produce is like white potatoes, white corn, white bland lettuce.

40:32So, you know, over time, a lot of like fiber and color has been bred out of our food products.

40:40Rick Steves:Yeah, it is a trend. I got to admit, my shopping is pretty boring when it comes to visual. What kind of variety of colors am I stocking? and we can be mindful of that and inspired by that chapter. Another chapter is apothecary and it talks about folk remedies and you encounter this a lot in your travels. Teas, tinctures, concentrated liquid extracts, vinegars. When I was in the markets in Russia, each market had an army of maids who had honey and it was very highly thought of as a medicinal treat for people. Talk a little bit about the folk remedies we might encounter in our travels. I think a lot of folks really love infusing herbs in honey because you can make a very simple syrup by just taking herbs like lemon balm or basil or holy basil and just putting them in a jar and covering it with honey and then straining it out a couple weeks later.

41:39and you have this medicinal honey that's so easy to take. And the children like that. You can use it to sweeten your tea or your coffee and get some of the good stuff in that way.

41:51Rick Steves:And the honey itself had different characteristics. I mean, they had little paper samplers, little wound-up papers, just a humble little market. Every town had this in their market, and they wanted you to try this honey and that honey, and each one would, according to their folk remedies, have a different purpose. Another chapter you have is the garden, personal growth through gardening. I love the comment you made, the moment a seed is placed in the ground, a caregiver is born. Yes, it's so true. And I've experienced this recently in my own life because for the majority of my life, I'm a city dweller.

42:26And recently, I set down some roots out in the country in the foothills of North Carolina. And I've got land to steward now and gardens to take care of now. And it's just been such a profound experience to learn to tend to these plants the way they tend to me. You know, it's kind of this relationship building process. So, yeah, it's been such a beautiful journey.

42:55Rick Steves:One of my favorite chapters in your book, Mimi, was the one called Weedy. Wild and wondrous weeds. It's one person's woe is another person's wonder. And it is interesting to think that in our culture, certain things are weeds. They're just not wanted. But that is subjective, isn't it? Well, herbalists love weeds. We eat weeds. We pick weeds for remedies. And we also struggle with weeds ourselves. I know I tend to a lot of native habitat here, so I'm constantly pulling up honeysuckle so that it doesn't encroach on the native plants of the land. We use them. You know, there's a, especially people who work bioregionally, you know, we favor the plentiful plants.

43:40And so if there's a choice between something native or something invasive, we're going to take as much invasive remedies as possible.

43:48Rick Steves:I'll never forget. My pastor had some fun one Sunday with a sermon. And the topic was, if you have a perfect putting green lawn, there's no diversity in it. And he just said a lawn full of little weeds and flowers and color and variety is healthier and it's more fun and it's more fragrant and take it to an extreme. Maybe the grass is the unwanted weed. I mean, there's such a festival of diversity out there. And it's a frontier of wonder. Right. I don't know who doesn't want violets and dandelions and plantain and all these like interesting little plants in their lawn. It's pretty, I think. Yeah.

44:26Rick Steves:Well, I didn't realize until I read your book that dandelion, when you think about it, it's the tooth of the lion. Dandelion. And it's actually, you called it a liver-loving bitter. The whole thing's edible, huh? The entire plant of the dandelion is edible and usable. A little bitter with those greens, but, you know, I'm used to it. I love putting dandelion greens in my salads. You can also stir-fry them. And the flowers are good, infused in a little white wine. or you can make fritters from the flowers. Oh, man, you are freeing us up to all sorts of forbidden fruits. Mimi Hernandez helps us understand the variety of herbs and how they benefit us in her National Geographic book, Herbal, 100 Herbs from the World's Healing Traditions.

45:14Rick Steves:She and her husband oversee the Ponderland Native Plant Sanctuary near Asheville, North Carolina. Mimi recently taught ethnobotany at Frostburg State University, where she helped local residents conserve the plants and culture of Appalachia. Her website is mimiprunelahernandez.com. Mimi, the next chapter that I just loved was Woodland. A stroll through the woods is a blissful antidote to the stress of modern life, and we have a lot of stress in our lives, and we have more reason than ever to do what I think the Japanese call forest bathing. Tell us a little bit about the value of forest bathing.

45:51Oh, it's so simple. I mean, the value of forest bathing is just going out and laying down, finding a nice little spot or taking a nice stroll through the woods and just sitting in silence and just listening. You know, here comes back to the senses again about listening to the leaves rustle or to the birds or to the little creek in the background. And just getting present with the moment is so, so good for your stress hormones and your adrenals and everything.

46:22Rick Steves:It's a blessing waiting to be experienced, to be harvested. You wrote, a healing heart tunes into the music of the forest. Truly. Oh, my goodness. And the final chapter I want to talk about is community. Herbs bring people together. And there's examples of that all around the world, isn't it? Talk a little bit about social cohesion and communing together and herbs that give us a sense of unity and peace. Right. I thought this chapter was important to point to the ways that herbs bring folks together. Herbs like kava, you know, that gather people in ceremony. And herbs like even cannabis and hops are in this chapter because they are so medicinal, yet also recreational in the way they bring people together.

47:11Rick Steves:Of course, cannabis can land you in jail in some countries, but it is therapeutic, relaxing, and mind-altering. and that's why it's even incorporated into religions around the world, isn't it? I mean, marijuana is a religious herb in India. Yeah, it is for a lot of people. Hops is for a lot of people a religious herb. And I was just in Morocco, and tea, the ritual around tea is just fascinating, and that is something that is certainly multinational. You'll find the importance of tea in many cultures. Talk a moment about tea. Right, and I do talk in that chapter about green tea because it's such a ceremonial experience for everything from selecting the tea to the utensils used to make that tea to the pottery to the setting of the table so centering and so special to host someone for tea and so it's just such an enriching experience and just the way that we tend to each other.

48:12I just love hosting tea parties myself and bringing people together.

48:17Rick Steves:It's sort of an excuse to take care of each other, to take a moment with each other, to focus, to relax. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We've been speaking with Mimi Pranella Hernandez. Her book is National Geographic Herbal, 100 Herbs from the World's Healing Traditions. Mimi, let's just wrap things up with some advice from you. If you could travel anywhere and have an herbal theme, where would it be? What destination would you focus on and what would you, how would that be just a field day for somebody like you who's into herbs? I think I would go to Peru and really experience the Andes and the maca plants that are there.

48:59The maca is in the book. It's the maca root. It's like a radish and it's the warrior plant, but really, you know, now being marketed for energy and vitality and reproduction. And I just love the little villages in the Andes mountains where the original folk tenders are still there. I also would love to visit Greece. I've never been there, but so many of the medicinal plants that I wrote about in the book have a history to the Mediterranean, including our most aromatic plants, rosemary and oregano and thyme and sage. All of these originate in the Mediterranean. And I would love to see this oasis of rosemary on the cliffs and growing wild and wild oregano.

49:51I can't even imagine these plants that we've used so long here in our kitchen and just having them wild, you know, as far as the eye can see.

50:00Rick Steves:My goodness, we can infuse our travels with herbs almost anywhere we venture. Mimi Pranella-Hernandez, thanks so much for joining us, and best wishes with your teaching and your book, National Geographic Herbal. Thanks, Rick. It was such a pleasure being here and spreading the good word about herbs with your community and your audience.

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