OkaKnowledgy! Feb 19th: Bad Apples with Dr Emily Hull

Join us Wednesday, February 19th 6:30pm at the Okanogan PUD Auditorium for a presentation by Dr. Emily Hull on the lasting botanical imprint of homesteading in the American West. See a full description of the talk below.

This event is co-hosted with the Okanogan County Historical Society.

In keeping with the evening’s theme, apple pie, apple muffins and apple crisp will served! 

Bad Apples: The Homestead Act and Botanical Colonialism in North America. 

Apples have a long history in the human imagination, from Golden apples and apples of youth in European legend to figures of mythological stature such as Johnny Appleseed in North America. Originating in Eurasia, ancestral apple forests still dot the lines of the Silk Road in Kazakhstan and volunteer apples from cores cast out of train windows delineate now- deserted railway lines across the American West. Abandoned homesteads may now be identified only by venerable apple trees, remnants of colonial human settlements. These apple trees symbolize not only the hopes of disenfranchised homesteaders, but also trace the lines of colonial incursions into western North America. This work aims to look at the living apple trees in all their complexity, as both a symbol of hopeful futures, and the sign of colonialism and land theft, as well as exploring how these plants can remain as accessible, living histories to communities in the present.