The Richness of Las Vegas

"THE FERTILE LOWLANDS"

[Nyerges is the author of such books as "Foraging California," "Testing Your Outdoor Survival Skills," "How to Survive Anywhere," "Extreme Simplicity," and others.  He has been leading survival skills classes since 1974.  He can be reached at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com. ]

Back in the late 1990s, when everyone knew the world was about to end in the Y2K meltdown, I spoke at many survival and preparedness conventions, including a few in Las Vegas.  My first such visit to Las Vegas was in March of 1996, where I was invited to the Preparedness Expo in North Las Vegas to promote my books, and give talks about the many practical reasons to learn about wild foods.

I gave talks from the stage and was at my booth all day talking with people.  Interestingly, most of the people I spoke with were residents of the Las Vegas area who expressed skepticism with my message. They told me that they didn't believe any wild foods could be found in the large desert flatland which made up their city, pointing  out that I’d brought all the plants that I talked about with me from my home in the Los Angeles area. I explained that in the few times I'd driven around the outskirts of their town, I'd seen at least a dozen common wild foods from my car. Cattails, for example, were very common in shallow waterways, and there are at least six good foods that can be prepared from cattails.

Still, these local residents didn't think they could survive in the wild outskirts of Las Vegas if that was their only food source. I agreed with that sentiment, because the desert alone doesn’t provide enough for today’s burgeoning population.  Before I ever visited Las Vegas, I'd read that the Indians who once lived throughout what is now modern Las Vegas survived eating such things as white sage leaves and seeds, grasshoppers, yuccas, cacti, creosote bush, willows, acorns, many seeds and nuts, and countless other desert foods. They hunted too, and their numbers were significantly less than today’s population.

I didn't meet a single Las Vegas resident who knew the meaning of "Las Vegas" in English. The fact that it means the "fertile lowlands" indicates that this sprawling valley has long been a very special desert locale where native people once found their entire sustenance.

One man who I spoke to still wasn't convinced that I had anything meaningful to share. He went home, collected a large bag of all the wild plants in his backyard and neighborhood, and brought them back for me to identify on the following day.

As I emptied the bag and identified each plant and told of its uses, a small crowd gathered to hear about each plant. He had collected sow thistle, a dandelion relative whose leaves are edible raw or cooked, and whose root can be made into a coffee substitute. He found filaree, a common desert plant that somewhat resembles carrot tops. The leaves and stems of filaree are sweet and tasty in salads, juices, and soups. The plant is sometimes called heron's bill or scissors plant. The man had found hedge mustard, a relative of our common mustard, but with a tangier flavor somewhat like horseradish. Several people stepped forward to taste the hedge mustard leaves after I ate a few and declared them delicious. He had also found desert dandelion, two wild buckwheats, pepper grass, and two or three plants which I didn't recognize. The man and his companions were convinced that food was abundant, even in that most unlikely desert city of glitter, lights and gambling.

I was aware of the Indian traditions of the Las Vegas area, and so I knew that there were resources to be found. Given enough time, I'm convinced I could have found  at least some of my food along the canyons and waterways that surround the flat valley where Las Vegas sits.

One man told me that he was certain I could not survive in the "wilds" of the hills and canyons surrounding Las Vegas. "There's no water around here," he told me. I had to agree with him that the current population is far too large for the desert to provide all the needed water -- which is why water is piped in today. Still, there is a lot of water in and around Las Vegas. This Las Vegas man did not know that Las Vegas was originally an Indian village, where they had springs and a few streams for water.

"But how would you get water today if you were out in the wilds around here?" he insisted. I explained that if I lived in Las Vegas like he did, I would have found out long ago where all the natural sources of water are located.  Later, I learned that Las Vegas gets approximately 40% of its water from its own underground sources. That’s not bad when you compare it to a place like Los Angeles, which gets only 26% of its water locally.   Plus, I told the man that the abundant prickly pear cactus would provide me with water, and the young cattails would provide me with needed moisture. If I could find cattails, I'd know that water would be found by digging not too deep. I also explained that in the desert you stay in the shade during the day and come out when it's cooler. I then explained how it was possible to collect dew from rocks, to set up catchments for the rain, and to dig and construct a solar still.

We had a lively conversation before I finally left his desert home and drove back to my home in the City of Angels.  As in most cases, resources from nature and from other people are everywhere, and it is only our pride and our ignorance which keeps us impoverished.