Pycnogenol ® has been hailed as the most potent, natural antioxidant compound ever "discovered" by science, considered by many health experts to be the nutritional breakthrough of this century!  Maritime Pine Plus® is the name of the patented extract of the bark of the Maritime Pine tree, Pinus maritima that grows along the Atlantic Coast in the Bordeaux region of France.  But its origins go back to the "New World" and to the First People who first discovered the miracle of the pines and then shared their wisdom with a bedraggled crew of Frenchmen who were dying the ugly death we now call scurvy.

The Anishinabeg who originally lived along the Atlantic coast began a westward migration along the St. Lawrence River in about 900 AD.  They were searching for "an island in the shape of a turtle" and the "food that grows on water" described by one of the Seven Prophets.   Some traveled far ahead and might have founded new tribes or were absorbed into other tribes along with their knowledge.  Still others chose to stop along the way and founded villages along the St. Lawrence River.  As a result the people were scattered from the Atlantic, along the St. Lawrence River, around the Great Lakes, north to Hudson Bay, into the prairies of the West, and into the Rocky Mountains.

Six hundred years later King Francis I of France commissioned Jacques Cartier to explore this area to determine if there were exploitable resources to add to the wealth of France. During his second voyage to the New World in 1535, Cartier's ship became trapped in the ice of the St. Lawrence River near what is now Quebec.  His crew of 110 men ran out of fresh provisions and became very ill with scurvy.  Twenty-five men died before the local natives, probably the descendants of the Anishinabeg (see The Seventh Fire) came to their aid.  Amazed that the light-skinned men in the big boat did not know how to maintain their health, they served the men a brew extracted from needles and bark of the Canadian pine trees.  Twenty five men had already died and the rest of the crew, too weak to bury them, had tossed them overboard into the snow and ice that held the ship fast.  Fearful of its contents and skeptical that the savage could know more than they, the healthier crewmembers refused to drink the concoction.  Only those near death tried the herbal tea and within days they were well.  Then all of the crew drank of the miraculous potion and regained their health.  Even other chronic maladies were healed.  Cartier described the incident in his book about the voyage, Voyage aux Canada.   This, the second discovery of the miracle of the pines, lay dormant and unrecognized by the professors and doctors of Western Civilization for over four hundred years. 

In the 1950's, Jacques Masquelier, a French biochemist on an assignment as Visiting Professor at the University of Quebec, discovered Cartier's amazing account and recognized that the medicine of the native people must have been rich in  bioflavonoids.  Professor Masquelier began a search for the active ingredients, proanthocyanidins. and found a rich source in the bark of the French maritime pine tree along the Atlantic Ocean from Bordeaux to the Spanish border.

In 1969, Professor Masquelier began working for Horphag Research Ltd. to document its amazing health-giving qualities and non-toxicity, and to find safe methods of extraction.  The US Patent office granted Horphag Research Patent No. 4,698,360 in 1987 for Pycnogenol as a therapeutic agent that acts as a scavenger of free radicals.

The traditional knowledge remains among some of the original people who had first discovered the miracle of the pine.  In 1996, a holy man of the Cree in Saskatchewan told me of the secret his grandfather had told him.  It was to be used to bring health to the people who had diabetes and other diseases.  The secret medicine was made of a tea brewed from pine needles.  The first discoverers had not entirely forgotten.  Perhaps it will be remembered, that the miracle of the pines was a gift to all people and it was discovered by the First Nations, the Native American people, probably the Anishinabeg, known today as the Ojibwe, Pottawatomie, and Ottawa. 

Now you can purchase Pycnogenol from Spring Wellness (see ad at right).

Another herbal remedy from the Ojibwe is Essiac tea. Read more on Rene Caisse and Essiac

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