Kimmerer describes the process of picking the berries of a serviceberry—a type of fruit tree (also known as Amelanchier, shadbush, shadwood or shadblow, juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild plum, or chuckley pear) native to the northeastern United States.

Over many centuries, the serviceberry has provided local peoples with many benefits—its fruit can be used as medicine, it feeds deer and other animals (which can be hunted), it offers pollen to insects and homes to birds, and it can be used to make pemmican—a cake of pressed, dried meat and melted fat—which is used in food items such as energy bars. The serviceberry is also useful as a sign of the changing seasons.

The Potawatomi people, an Indigenous North American nation, use the word “bozakmin” for the serviceberry—a word that etymologically refers to both berries and gifts (6). Kimmerer cites this word as symbolically significant because serviceberries are a gift of the natural world. Like many of the other natural gifts, the serviceberry helps to sustain life. Through a series of exchanges—in which nutrients, minerals, energy, and functions are swapped—the serviceberry is assembled by the natural ecosystem of its environment. In many Indigenous cultures, these gifts are revered as part of a natural cycle that should be honored, furthering the cycle of “sharing, respect, reciprocity, and gratitude” (9).