Species Spotlight- Wapato

Photo credit: Greg Archuleta 

Wapato is the name derived from the Chinuk Wawa trade language for the plant Sagittaria latifolia.  Wapato is probably the most frequently used common name for this plant in the Pacific Northwest today.  It is also known as arrowhead, duck potato, and water potato.  Indeed, wapato is much like a potato plant in that it produces a starchy, highly nutritious tuber.  However, unlike potatoes, wapato plants are emergent wetland plants, which means they grow in areas of standing water or very wet marsh soils.  Wapato is native to northwest Oregon, western Washington and southwest British Columbia, growing especially well in shallow backwater areas and ponds along the Lower Willamette and Lower Columbia Rivers. 

Historically, Native American Tribes from all over the Pacific Northwest and beyond prized wapato tubers as a valuable source of starch in their diets; they were a major trade item along the Columbia River.  In his journal from the Corps of Discovery in 1806, Meriwether Lewis noted of the Tribes living near Wappato (Sauvie) Island:  "they had also an abundance of sturgeon and wappetoe [sic];  the latter they take in great quantities from the neighbouring ponds, which are numerous and extensive in the river bottoms and islands.  the wappetoe furnishes the principal article of traffic with these people which they dispose of to the nations below in exchange for beads cloth and various articles.  the natives of the Sea coast and lower part of the river will dispose of their most valuable articles to obtain this [tuber]."   Some tribes tell stories of a time when the world as we know it today was still being prepared for human habitation, and during this time (before Salmon's arrival) wapato was the main food in existence.  Many Tribes regard wapato highly as a traditional food to this day, and their members harvest and eat cooked wapato in First Foods and other ceremonies.

Humans are not alone in enjoying wapato; ducks, geese, muskrats and other wetland herbivores have been seen diving for and eating wapato tubers.  Wapato has important wetland functions other than food, too:  one example is wapato's efficiency in moving nutrients from the soil or sediment into the biota (living community) where they are more available to living creatures.  In fact, wapato plants are such efficient "chemical movers" that they are often used in bioremediation for removing harmful chemical contamination from soils and sediments.  This trait makes wapato desirable for planting in restoration or remediation projects, but it also makes some Native Americans reluctant to harvest wapato in areas known or believed to have contaminated soils, including traditional gathering areas that go back thousands of years.  Besides toxic contamination, other potential threats to wapato and its traditional use include loss of habitat due to development or climate change, competition from invasive plant species, and restricted access to places where wapato may be gathered.

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