Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
Subscription Form

Get notified of the best News

Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
22K Followers
25K Likes
5K Followers
1K Followers
Mountain Life
Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
  • Mountain Lifer

Undergrowth Underdog: Salal as Superfood & More

  • September 1, 2020
  • Ben Osborne
Total
24
Shares
24
0
0
0
0
0
Total
24
Shares
Share 24
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0
Salal random brush or cultural keystone boho beauty or superberry deer eating
An essential part of coastal forest ecosystems, salal (Gaultheria shallon) is a hardy evergreen shrub with bright green, waxy, lemon-shaped leaves, with berries harvested in summer and early fall.

words :: Carmen Kuntz.

The thick undergrowth of B.C.’s rainforest is seldom looked upon fondly. Devil’s club can tear skin (or a raincoat) and chest-high sword fern will turn any forest into a labyrinth. Don’t even start with the slash alder. Peaceful hiking can quickly become brutal bushwhacking with so many species stretching for the sun. But there is one friendly native plant that is so ubiquitous it is often stepped over—salal.

An essential part of coastal forest ecosystems, salal (Gaultheria shallon) is a hardy evergreen shrub with bright green, waxy, lemon-shaped leaves. Abundant throughout coastal BC, salal occupies the understory of coniferous forests as ground cover or small bushes. It can grow in thickets up to five metres high, forming a riparian shield buffering old-growth forests from the Pacific’s spray and storms.

Salal Berries: Punching Above Their Weight Class

But it isn’t the hearty stems, the sturdy leaves, or even the urn-like pinkish-white flowers that bloom in spring that allow salal to punch above its flora weight class. It’s the berries.

“Salal berries were a staple food of Indigenous people up and down the coast,” says Nancy Turner, ethnobotanist and professor emeritus at the University of Victoria. Turner has studied BC First Nations’ connection to coastal plants since the early 1980s and considers salal a “cultural keystone species.” This is a key feature of a community’s identity and a species that influences social systems and practices such as traditions, diet, medicines and material items.

“Salal berries were a staple food of Indigenous people up and down the coast.” —Nancy Turner

“Berries were harvested in summer through early fall,” she says. “They were eaten fresh but also cooked into a jam-like consistency and dried in the sun into cakes.” These cakes were then stored for winter, providing an important and vitamin-rich year-round food source. In other words, an abundant superfood.

Contemporary research has confirmed what songbirds, deer, bear and Indigenous people have known for millennia. Namely, these small berries are packed with nutrients. In fact, research shows salal berries contain roughly five times more tannin levels and three to four times greater antioxidant capacity than blueberries. Today, the salal berry is an ingredient in B.C. wines and spirits, and in homemade jellies and desserts.

Turner adds that the leathery salal leaves provided medicinal poultices and the tough branches rudimentary whisks. Traditional pit cooking utilized leafy branches to line the pit walls and also to separate layers of food, providing structure but also flavouring. Salal leaves and branches provided a grill and ‘bay leaf’ in one.

An Unsustainable Harvest?

While Coastal First Nations understand sustainable harvesting, the message hasn’t quite translated to contemporary colonialists. These days it’s not uncommon to see pick-up trucks parked on logging roads with cab-high piles of salal tarped down like a massive balloon. Salal is often illegally and unsustainably harvested for the floral industry. (Those hearty green leaves give a long shelf life as filler for bouquets and arrangements.) This has put salal at the forefront of a decade-long debate about the harvest and regulation of non-timber forestry products. Few realize that the foliage you bike or hike past on local trails may one day be wrenched from the earth to become another bohemian wedding bouquet.

Salal random brush or cultural keystone boho beauty or superberry bear poop
Bear superfood, your superfood. Photo: Adam Tavender

Superfood Struggles

Extreme seasonal weather changes create further challenges for salal. Last spring, UBC’s Faculty of Forestry received a flood of messages from local residents who observed the normally bright green leaves turning brown and brittle.

“It’s one thing for the older leaves to die, but when the whole shoot is dying off, including the young leaves, that’s really concerning,” says Turner. She adds that some scientists theorize a disease or fungus could be the culprit, while others point to climate—a dry winter or uncharacteristic warm spell followed by deep cold. Further research is underway to learn what a changing climate means for salal and other local species.

Turner is hopeful. “Nature is resilient. And salal is an amazing shrub that can spread through its seeds and sprout up from its roots. Even if there is just a little bit left in the ground, it can re-establish itself.”

Superfood, cultural keystone, wedding decoration or dessert ingredient, salal is more than just a plant to step over. It’s one of many reasons to slow down and take in the environment with a little more curiosity and consideration. To know your playground closely is to become a steward and protector of it. A little plant like salal is a reminder to not take any part of B.C.’s coastal ecosystem for granted. —ML

(N.B.: Never eat any wild forest berries until you consult a plant ID book like Pojar and Mackinnon’s Plants of Coastal B.C. or enrol in a wild edibles course.)

https://www.mountainlifemedia.ca/2015/11/hiking-canadas-longest-footpath-in-the-name-of-sustainable-sustenance/

Total
24
Shares
Share 24
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • BC
  • food
  • foraging
Ben Osborne

Previous Article
Rock stacks
  • The Great Outdoors

Unstack Them: Building Endless Rock Cairns Isn’t Cool

  • September 1, 2020
  • Ben Osborne
View Post
Next Article
  • Features
  • Annual

Polish Syndrome: Unsung Alpinists Conquer the Himalaya

  • September 2, 2020
  • Ben Osborne
View Post
You May Also Like
Bora-Boreal-Quebec-winter-cabin-stars
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Stay & Play

Bora Boréal: Frozen in Time and Ice

  • Mountain Life Media
  • March 14, 2023
Skiis-and-Biikes
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Ontario
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

Skiis & Biikes Looks to the Future

  • Mountain Life Media
  • March 6, 2023
A-Forest-Journey-Patagonia-cover-photo
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer

A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization

  • Ned Morgan
  • March 2, 2023
Nalaga-Avis-O_Brien
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Women

Bringer of Light: A Conversation with N’alaga

  • Editor
  • March 1, 2023
Nnormal-No-Lost-Shoes-film
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Videos

Friday Flick: No Lost Shoes

  • Editor
  • February 17, 2023
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • On The Trail
  • Photography
  • Stay & Play

Let It Roar

  • Sarah Bulford
  • February 9, 2023
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Trips & Expeditions
  • Videos

Arc’teryx Presents: Shaped by Wild

  • Sarah Bulford
  • February 8, 2023
knorthphotography.Beverly-Glenn Copeland-crop
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer

Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Finding the Universal Broadcast

  • Mountain Life Media
  • January 17, 2023

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Featured Posts
  • Mustang-Survival-WOMENS-HELIX-CCS 1
    Gear Shed: Our End-of-Winter Picks
    • March 23, 2023
  • natural-selection-Redbull 2
    Friday Flick: Natural Selection Tour Highlights
    • March 17, 2023
  • Powder-Highway-BC-ski 3
    Powder Highway Revisited
    • March 21, 2023
  • AleTrailsSouthernInterior_Vernon_MikeGamble_LookoutTrail_BenHaggarPhoto 4
    Ale Trails: Southern Interior Part 1, Vernon + Shuswap
    • March 20, 2023
  • Bora-Boreal-Quebec-winter-cabin-stars 5
    Bora Boréal: Frozen in Time and Ice
    • March 14, 2023
RECENT POSTS
  • Elements-Outfitters-Filson-cabin
    Elements Outfitters Partners with SALTS to Protect Alberta’s Incredible Landscapes
    • March 16, 2023
  • Uncertainty-mountains-Rockies
    Facing Uncertainty: The Role of Chance in Mountain Adventures
    • March 13, 2023
  • The-High-Route-Kaytlyn-Gerbin-Jenny-Abegg-North-Cascades-High-Route-glacier-hiking
    Friday Flick: Alpine Ultra-Run Sufferfest
    • March 10, 2023
Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
INSTAGRAM
mountainlifemedia
22K Followers
From The Gear Shed: Last Monday was the official start of spring, but we know there’s still some winter to be shredded. So ML staff and partners have picked the latest jackets, lanterns, bindings, mugs and drysuits for winter-spring.
Exploring the sights around beautiful Sutton, Quebec with ML creator @adv_bird ❄️🫶
Back on the road with three generations, dancing lifties, best-on-planet pizza and elusive-but-exquisite pow days.
Live It Up EP 24 is out now!
The Southern Interior region of BC holds an ecological cross-section of the province with alpine meadows, arid Douglas fir grasslands, damp cedar and hemlock forests of the Columbia Mountains and the warm expanse of Shuswap Lake.
Do Not Disturb mode activated ✅ #mountainlifer
Conceived by superhuman snowboarder @travisrice, the @naturalselection Tour highlights earth’s premier riders, from big-mountain mavens to Olympians, all competing on the most stoketastic—and unpredictable—terrain known to humankind.
Built upon a shared desire to enjoy, respect, and advocate for Alberta’s incredible landscapes, it was a natural fit for @elementsoutfitters to work with a local conservation organization @saltslandtrust to highlight the province’s rugged beauty and outdoor apparel to match.
THE UNINVITED INVITATIONAL April 13-16 @woodwardtahoe 😱 $40,000 cash prize purse and a whole lotta spotlight on a group of riders whose time has finally come!! Presented by @jess.kimura and @thenorthface and supported by @yeti @capitasupercorp @slushthemagazine @unionbindingco @smithoptics @sunbum @coalheadwear @fattire 🫡 watch the finals in person Saturday April 15 and join the crew + @btbounds for a public ride day Sunday April 16 @borealmtn. Time to make some history!!! #linkinbio to learn more!
Close your eyes and, for a moment, imagine yourself deep in the polar regions aboard an expedition ship stuck in the ice. The white pack-ice is dazzling, and the immobile vessel seems frozen in time and space. That experience piques your curiosity, doesn't it? Without having to go all the way to Antarctica, you can experience these icy sensations 30 minutes from Quebec City in one of Bora Boréal 's two floating cottages.
Follow

Subscribe

Subscribe now to our newsletter

From The Gear Shed: Last Monday was the official start of spring, but we know there’s still some winter to be shredded. So ML staff and partners have picked the latest jackets, lanterns, bindings, mugs and drysuits for winter-spring.
Exploring the sights around beautiful Sutton, Quebec with ML creator @adv_bird ❄️🫶
Back on the road with three generations, dancing lifties, best-on-planet pizza and elusive-but-exquisite pow days.
Live It Up EP 24 is out now!
The Southern Interior region of BC holds an ecological cross-section of the province with alpine meadows, arid Douglas fir grasslands, damp cedar and hemlock forests of the Columbia Mountains and the warm expanse of Shuswap Lake.
Do Not Disturb mode activated ✅ #mountainlifer
Mountain Life
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Advertising

Input your search keywords and press Enter.