The last thing I would have predicted would be a profusion of flowers in Alaska. But baskets, window boxes, barrels and cultivated gardens spilled over with color everywhere I went. That was in addition to the wildflowers, flowering grasses and berry bushes in the natural landscape.
With so much rainy weather and gray skies I could accept that residents might long to add color to their lives through flowering plants but that's not the whole story. When I remarked upon my surprise to a native Alaskan he explained that Alaska has great expanses of rain forest and greenery florishes here the same way it does it the tropics.
At a Native American Center I spent time with a guide who explained the uses of plants surrounding us as part of the native culture. From medicine to dyes to hallucinagins and windproofing homes the native plants of Alaska were needed for maintaining their way of life.