We relish warming spring days, meals on our deck once again pleasant. Here charcoal-grilled fillets of the year’s very first Copper River Sockeye Salmon served with gemelli pasta tossed in devil’s club bud pesto and topped with a wild spring mix of sautéed twisted stalk, devil’s club buds, fiddle heads and fireweed shoots… an evening ray of sun catching the left side of the plate.
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We’ve been waiting for it. And waiting. Day upon day, gray, cold rain. Buckets of the stuff. Birds late. Leaves late. Garden late. Everything late. And then a sudden two days of glorious sunshine and warmth, birds singing, plants waking up, all in agreement spring has officially sprung. Almost overnight lupine, fireweed, chocolate lily, iris and other flowering plants pushed through damp soil. Bursting buds on jostaberry and gooseberry bushes and cherry and apple trees we planted last year provided happy testimony that they had survived an especially cold winter.

Last summer’s berry season was on for the ages – salmonberries, blueberries, wine berries and wild strawberries in astonishing size and abundance. Of course, each summer is different. Here’s to hoping these spring blueberry flowers are a promise of summer fruit.
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Late spring, coinciding with the return of salmon to local rivers, marks the beginning of our foraging and gathering season. Thrush song and morning sunshine beckoned us out to a favorite trail that winds through a diversity of biomes from sopping wet muskeg to a dark, moss-covered mixed cedar, hemlock and spruce forest. In boggy areas tiny sun dew plants were beginning new cycles of growth while pinhead-sized magenta bog rosemary blooms called attention to some of the year’s very first flowers, Along the forest edge, we noticed salmonberry plants sprouting new leaves and blueberry bushes covered with a promising profusion of delicate pink blooms. Here and there groggy bumblebees buzzed in and out of foliage.

Still tender and thornless, a devil’s club bud perfect for the kitchen. Note the thorns at the base.

Deeper into the forest the songs and trills of Varied Thrushes, Hermit Thrushes, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Pacific Wrens filled the air. Suddenly we were happily startled by the eerie but unmistakable too-too-too-too call of a male Saw-whet Owl! A territorial call, we didn’t have to say anything to know that each of us was rooting for a nest of North America’s cutest owl. What a morning!

To celebrate, we collected a few greens to go along with a fillet of the year’s first Copper River Sockeye Salmon. Fireweed shoots (sometimes referred to as Alaska Asparagus), tender young twisted stalk, fiddle heads and delicately flavored devil’s club buds. Some people harvest these items, blanch them, and keep them in their freezer for later. It has been our tradition to harvest enough for the first celebratory meal and serve them sautéed with the first wild-caught salmon of the year. Every bite of this meal is in celebration and gratitude for the season to come.

A toast to the spring view from the deck. Still plenty of snow to on the mountains to ensure our rivers flow cool and full for returning salmon.
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