Pacific Northwest Foraging

"Doug Deur invites us to discover the taste and history of the Northwest." -Spencer B. Beebe, author of Cache and founder of Ecotrust



The Pacific Northwest offers a veritable feast for foragers, and with Douglas Deur as your trusted guide you will learn how to safely find and identify an abundance of delicious wild plants. The plant profiles in Pacific Northwest Foraging include clear, color photographs, identification tips, guidance on how to ethically harvest, and suggestions for eating and preserving. A handy seasonal planner details which plants are available during every season. Thorough, comprehensive, and safe, this is a must-have for foragers in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Part of the Timber Press Regional Foraging book series, this is for foragers in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska. 
Douglas Deur has been gathering native plants his whole life. He serves as a cultural ecologist for Native peoples of the western United States and Canada, documenting enduring plant use practices as well as the rituals, values, and technologies that have shaped traditional resource harvests and traditional understandings of the land. He is an associate research professor in the department of anthropology at Portland State University. He has also served as a senior research scientist in the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit in the University of Washington's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and as an adjunct professor of environmental studies at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Much of his research is supported by the U.S. National Park Service and is used in the peaceful resolution of land-use disputes, as well as in land-use planning that serves to protect and restore culturally significant natural resources. Doug's writings have appeared in books, academic journals, and alternative newspapers. With Nancy Turner, he coedited Keeping It Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America, the first book-length treatment of Native American plant cultivation traditions in the Pacific Northwest. Preface

Growing up between Portland's exurban fringe and Oregon's wind-beaten north coast, I experienced a childhood that played out alongside the deep green backdrop of Northwestern native plants. My earliest memories involve crawling through patches of wild strawberries that my mother had transplanted and tended into a robust backyard groundcover. When, as a toddler, I needed to nap but resisted, my mother walked me through the Douglas-fir and cedar forest behind our home, asking me to identify each plant by name until fatigue set in and I drifted off to sleep, with visions of Oregon grape and wild lilies dancing in my head. We cut trails into the blackberry thicket tangles in summertime to find the biggest and juiciest berries. We scaled mountains, where we gathered wild onions and ate handfuls of huckleberries as we watched ravens and red-tailed hawks ride the thermals below. Academic confirmation of these landscape lessons came from unique venues: special wild food programs sponsored by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and other regional organizations, taught by retired professors and earnest hippy biologists. Cumulatively, these experiences were the cornerstones of my early education and gave me insights that I still draw from as a professor and researcher today. I sincerely hope that future generations of children will be so fortunate as to experience this kind of hands-on learning upon the land and, through that process, gain a profound love and understanding of this verdant home of ours. If this book helps a parent usher even one child along a similar journey, I will consider the entire writing project a great success.

    

As I entered adulthood, though, I was disappointed to learn that the landscapes and plants that I valued so much were seen as an anonymous tangle to many Northw