Rose High Bear (Deg Hit’an Dine, Inupiaq) is Founder and Executive Director of Elderberry Wisdom Farm, the Native American 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Born and raised in a remote subarctic Athabascan village of McGrath on Alaska’s Kuskoquim River, her grandmother’s lineage is from the Yukon River and the 14,500-year-old traditional village of Anvik, Alaska. She moved as a young child to rural Coos County, Oregon where she went through public schools in Coquille, and then graduated from Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon (B.S.). Since 1993, she has founded and directed Native American nonprofit corporations to serve diverse local and regional communities.
In 2021, Rose formed Blue Elderberry Farm LLC in rural Marion County, Oregon. She is currently growing a crop of Sambucus nigra ssp. Cerulea, the elderberry plant species native to Oregon to produce a line of organic elderberry syrup, with plans to develop additional food and health care products. In 2021-2, its feasibility study and business, marketing and financial plan was developed to help the farm provide this value-added specialty product to today’s increasingly discriminating and health-conscious consumers.
As Founding Director of Elderberry Wisdom Farm, she created the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Workforce Project, a 5-year career pathway planning initiative in partnership with Chemeketa Community College. It continues to provide academic and experiential service-learning training for Native American and other students pursuing conservation, agricultural and horticultural career pathways. She developed the Native American Biodiversity Accelerator in 2022, the social and economic development initiative supported by eleven partners, resulting in several microenterprise businesses, and ongoing cohort development. In 2024, she created the Native American Climate Adaptation Partnership to help strengthen community resilience to climate impacts by integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge and indigenous practices for increasing ecosystem biodiversity with Mid-Willamette Valley restoration partners.
