Earlier this year, my partner started playing “The Long Dark,” a post-apocalyptic survival game set in the Canadian Arctic. I began watching him play, and was quickly drawn in by how beautiful and thoughtful the game is.
I’m easily frustrated and stressed out by video games; I don’t like it when there’s a short time limit or you’re constantly in danger. “The Long Dark,” at least in “story” mode, mostly isn’t like that. You have all the time you need to find what you’re looking for or get where you’re doing, as long as you can stay warm and reasonably well-fed and hydrated. The snowy, mountainous landscapes are gorgeous, and even the most run-down shacks where you might spend the night feel cozy. (Okay, possibly not the ones that have frozen corpses in them.) There are occasional attacks by wolves, moose and other animals, but the story is the main thing.
One aspect that drew me in was the use of real-world plant medicine. Oh, sure, the game warns you not to take anything in it as real survival advice, and some of the healing properties of the plants are beyond what their real-world counterparts can do. But with a little additional research, these plants can actually help us heal from common ailments and injuries.
Rose hips
Rose hips are a well-known and long-used plant medicine, both for their anti-inflammatory qualities as well as the fact that they’re rich in Vitamin C. The interior seeds are covered with irritating hairs, and should be scooped out before eating or cooking with rose hips.
In “The Long Dark,” rose hips (like most of the other plants in this game) also have to be prepared before using, and can be made into a tea that helps with pain, burns or broken ribs. I’m not sure if real-life rose hips can do any of those, except perhaps pain relief, but they can keep you from getting scurvy from your mostly-meat diet.
Reishi mushrooms
Researchers are looking into a variety of mushrooms for their potential healing benefits, and reishi is no exception. Like many mushrooms, they can help boost our immune systems and help us fight off viruses, infections and possibly even cancer. In “The Long Dark,” they function more like antibiotics, helping you recover from food poisoning, infections, dysentery and intestinal parasites. Hmm.
Birch bark
Birch and willow trees contain high levels of salicylates, which make up the principal anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving medicine in aspirin. (Willow’s latin name is salix.) Before medicinal companies began synthesizing aspirin, people the world over used birch and willow for pain relief. In “The Long Dark,” birch bark is pretty rare, and its main benefit is helping to “restore condition” by 5 percent, a perplexing and vague outcome.
Old man’s beard
Old man’s beard is a kind of long, stringy lichen in the usnea family, often found dangling from trees (Spanish moss is in the same family). All lichens have antibiotic and antimicrobial properties and have been used for millennia to treat wounds and infections. In “The Long Dark,” the function of this plant matches closely with real-world uses; your character turns it into bandages that reduce the risk of wounds becoming infected.
(If you’d like to see me preparing some usnea oil and other herbal items, check out my latest video on YouTube.)
Cattails
If you’ve read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s popular book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” you may recall her reverence for the cattail plant. On Facebook, she writes of its many, many uses: “Food from the roots, vegetable from the stalk, pollen for flour, edible flower stalks, seeds for tinder or diapers, leaves for cordage and mats and baskets, torches from seed heads, aloe-like medicine from the goo which looks slimy but feels great on bug bites … and more.” For this reason, I was especially excited to see cattails in “The Long Dark,” even if their usefulness is diminished. You can eat the stalks for a small amount of nourishment, and use the heads for tinder.
Unfortunately, the final chapter of “The Long Dark” isn’t out yet, so we won’t know how it ends until late 2023, and that’s if the ending comes out on schedule. Have you played it? What did you think?