Do you forage?

The area within 50 yards of a trail is minuscule compared to all the area of (at least western) national parks, monuments and forests so I suspect the effects of foraging is mostly on the success rate of other foragers, not on the larger ecosystem.

We’ll take day hikes on which we plan to pick crow-, blue- and low-bush cranberries, bring containers and sometimes berry pickers along.  Likewise with morels – it’s more about the gathering than the hiking.

While backpacking or kayak camping, I’ll nibble on rose hips and other edibles as I hike, but any substantial gathering is semi-planned.  Butter and garlic make most wild foods tastier, and we’ll use them on mussels if we’re camped on a beach at low tide or make fern fiddlehead pesto for use on pasta.

On Adak next week, I hope the meals later in the week contain caribou meat harvested earlier in the week.  Black bears we’ve encountered on mainland Alaska ended up as beer stew and hash the next day and I bring potatoes, onions and other vegetables in the hopes of supplementing with game on the trip.

Miners lettuce out west a bit away from any trail, or late June mesquite pods become sweet in the southwest (they may have some red inside .. if too hard spit them out like watermelon seeds).

Helpful to have a local botanist point these out in person.  As always be very careful with mushrooms.

Blueberries are good

Strawberries, salmonberries, thimbleberries are okay.

Blackberries are good near human habitation.

Berries are life here in Alaska. I’m always suspicious of people who live here who don’t forage for berries. Or people that prefer store bought blueberries, over Alaskan ones.

I don’t forage a lot while backpacking because there are miles to walk. But last year in Montana the huckleberries definitely slowed us down quite a bit.

Raspberries in these parts, lots and lots of raspberries.

I’m hiking La Cloche Silhouette again in early August so hoping for blueberries.

Morel foragers are causing conflict in the BC burn lands:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mushroom-picking-rush-bc-1.7229686

BC mushroom picking used to mean something else entirely!

The Eastern Europeans in Wa state are territorial with “their” fungi-picking areas in the Cascade Mountains.

I am a dedicated forager. The land we bought in 2018 provides enough I rarely forage anywhere else now, unless I am hiking.

I pick huckleberries  every few years. I have a favorite  spot a couple hours from home. I can pick a nearly clean 1.5 gallons before I get too tired to continue  that day. I used to get more chanterelles but my spots kept getting  shut off to the public.  Finally  found a reliable  area also a couple hours from home, last week.  It’s good to have a chanterelle spot again.

Kelly

Industrious market foraging can have bad vibes, I’ve seen this in places with Ginseng, and read about the issue with over poaching white sage etc.

But generally, when done in accordance with law and common sense ethics, foraging is a great way to gain an appreciation for the local ecology and provides a whole deeper layer of understanding of natural places.

I think the same goes for fishing, hunting, and warming by a fire — with the same risks and considerations.

I’ve had some conversation around the drawbacks LNT as a concept. While diminishing the quality of wild places out of ignorance or personal gain is problematic, so is seeing the landscape as a static thing that we’re fundamentally not a part of, that can only be appreciated for its aesthetics. I think there’s great value in learning to meet one’s physical needs with naturally occurring resources in the ecosystem, often this leads to a greater passion for protecting it.

Since this thread got resurrected, I’ll add in a few other tasty wild treats we enjoy in subarctic Alaska. Wild sorrel. That’s in abundance up here in damp areas, along streams, and it’s so delicious! Sour and tangy, I just pop it right in the mouth. Wild rhubarb is good too; you can eat the leaves unlike garden rhubarb. Strawberry spinach and pineapple weed grow in habitated places, I’ve tried them but don’t regularly pick and eat, not that exciting. Ditto for plantain and dandelion. Nagoon berries are more rare, but are also delicious; lots of people don’t like the seed inside. And cloudberries are meh if not perfectly ripe, but when just right, they spread easily on bread or are good on top of pudding or cheesecake,  a taste like no other. Some people hate them. I wish I felt comfortable trying wild mushrooms. Having known of 4 people, including a mycologist, who died or got terribly ill from eating them, I probably never will.

I hope it’s never so overcrowded here that I can’t keep enjoying these unique northern wild foods. So much more joyous than going to a store. Aren’t we lucky!

There was a family in the news a few years ago that ate wild mushrooms.

They all required liver transplants.  At least they didn’t die

A woman here in Oz fed the family of her divorced husband a meal containing Amanita mushrooms, of the type called ‘death cap’. Several died. Her husband did not attend the meal!
The woman was arrested, charged with deliberate murder, tried, found guilty, imprisoned for a long time.
Tricky things, mushrooms.
Cheers

How they got there.

The standard answer is that fish eggs stick to ducks’ feet. Reasonable, but I have no proof.

Cheers

Now that I have moved across the US, I am foraging for new items. I have endless acorns here. Only me and the squirrels (and my golden who loves them). Walnuts as well. Wild onions cover my land.

Big berry year. gallon of huckleberries from a 30 ft square, large grocery sack of elderberries off 1 tree.