Winter Foraging in Alaska

Sitka, like many places it seems, is experiencing quite a mild winter this year compared to years past. I remember being sent out of the house as a child to go sledding on Thanksgiving day so my parents could cook without kids underfoot. This past November, however, sledding was only possible high up in the mountains surrounding Sitka.

In fact, we didn’t get our first snow at sea level until mid-December.

I was squished into the middle of the bench seat of Greg’s ancient pickup truck when the very first white clumps of wet snow swirled onto the windshield and began to coat the glass as well as the entire northern side of town. We were heading north, away from town, to go clamming. While spring and summer are busy harvest seasons for many plants, berries, and salmon, winter is prime weather for clams. So along we went, navigating the curvy road that traces a tiny portion of the outer shoreline of Baranof Island.

Heavy rain turns into the first heavy snow of the year.

Sitka’s downtown hosts four boat harbors, five schools, a public library, and a handful of local businesses, all in roughly a two-mile radius. Extending out from town in either direction are two roads: one heading north, the other south. Each road is dotted with homes that hug the coast for around 6 miles before the pavement turns to gravel and eventually stops altogether with a sign that simply says “End Road.”

Earlier that day I’d sent my family friend, Greg, a message about a minus tide and he’d sent back a message about high wind. And so, although we’d originally planned to go out in the boat, we decided to drive to collect our clams instead.

This was fine by me. I’d been out in the boat earlier that day to film a cooking class with Sitka Seafood Market Co-founder Marsh Skeele and was still drying out from the experience. Boating away from town towards Marsh’s house, located on a smaller island, the skiff surged through ocean water that seemed to rise with an intensity that was equaled by the rainwater pressing down. We were caught between these opposing forces, each one trying to outdo the other, and were quickly saturated in the process. Water flowed in and out of the boat plugs, into my eyelashes, and somehow up my sleeves, dripping down the branches of spruce trees, and rising high onto the shore between houses on the island. One island became many as water floated between us and around us in every direction.

Shucking clams before cleaning and freezing them.

Greg pulled over and parked along the road, making sure to avoid any small inclines that could strand his elderly truck overnight and us along with it. We hefted our five-gallon buckets and shovels from the bed of the truck and began clomping out across the newly exposed sand flats of G̱ájaa Héen. The snow spun heavily into our eyes and ran down our cheeks, melting on contact with our warm faces and rubber rain gear. Behind us lay an estuary spanning out alongside the ruins of a temporary Russian fur trade settlement from over two hundred years ago.

The flat expanse of white now made it hard to discern where the land ended and the water began as we squinted into the small halos of our headlamps. The sound of lapping of the water was dampened by the heavy snow. It struck us as funny to suddenly lose an entire ocean, but anyone who has been in a snowstorm will tell you that depth perception quickly becomes challenging. I can attest that this holds true for tidal flats at night.

Eventually, our boots touched snow that was melting quickly on the surface of the ocean. We had arrived.

We began to dig a few small holes no more than a foot deep. Each sandy pit swelled with brackish seawater as soon as it was dug. Our excavations revealed handfuls of clams — just a single clam or two could fill my entire palm — which shone brightly in our lights against the swirling sand and water. I raked my bare fingers through the muck feeling for the distinctive smoothness that distinguishes a large clam from a rock.

Retrieving a few and dropping them into the bucket, I was relieved — I hadn't dragged Greg out of his warm house on a hazardous snowy drive for no reason. Clams tend to put up less of a fight than a large king salmon, but hearing each of their shells thud heavily into the plastic bucket felt similarly gratifying.

When I was a kid I would often poke around at low tide to try to pry gumboots off rocks with my pocket knife. I could be quite determined and would eat most anything my parents said was edible as well as a few things they said were not (or which my stomach later did).

My older brother enjoyed fishing, but, unlike me, he didn’t become gleeful about limpets or bring home abalone and giant chitons like a cat displaying a prized mouse. My dad occasionally would make phone calls to a Lingít elder to ask for advice on how to prepare these tidal gifts.

I especially enjoyed it when my dad and his friend Greg would take me clamming at night as a kid. The big minus tides often occur at night (which in the winter is any time after 3 p.m.). For me, this gave clamming an added element of adventure, while for my brother it gave him the feeling he was doing something unlawful — which made him wary of participating.

Ocean water had washed away much of the snow by the following morning.

Greg stopped shoveling to turn his headlamp our way. “We should talk about how many clams you two can process.” Realizing how quickly we’d begun to fill the buckets, I lifted one to test the weight. We determined that in about 20 minutes, we’d gathered more than enough clams to keep us busy processing for the next few days.

We carried the now-heavy buckets back towards the snowy road and slowly, very slowly, drove back into town commenting on the beautiful spruce and hemlock trees that were newly laden with fresh snow.

As with any wild harvest, the actual gathering of the food is the first of many equally laborious steps: hauling sea water to keep them alive while they filter out the sand, shucking, cleaning, and finally freezing them to enjoy at our convenience. Alternatively, we’ve also celebrated a long day of harvesting by simply grilling an entire bucket of clams with friends. This year, our favorite meal was Grace’s recipe for Linguine with White Clam Sauce which we prepared with our "First Snow" clams.