Springtime was for gathering seagull eggs; autumn for berries

Part 3 of 4

Cordovans said bon voyage to one of our dearest community members this month as Virginia Lacy set her sights on Shelton, Washington to be closer to her son Michael Noonan and other family members.

For those of you who may not know about Virginia’s rich and exciting history in Cordova here’s a little background pulled from her own writings and presentations that she made at various occasions for the Cordova Historical Society and the Alaska Historical Society. Now we continue her story …

From her paper: “More Than Subsistence:”

In the spring there would be an expedition to the Egg Islands near Boswell Bay to get seagull eggs. It was the custom never to empty a nest but to leave one or two eggs. They were mostly used for baking and were preserved by putting them down in small kegs in waterglass. It is actually sodium silicate dissolved in water and I understand it is still used in some areas as a preservative.

When my grandmother made custard pies from the eggs, I had my own small pie plate and made my pie from pigeon eggs. My grandmother or my mother baked bread every other day and made wonderful cinnamon rolls and fry bread. They also made many loaves of frosted Easter bread for us to enjoy and give to friends.

They saved empty cans, washed them thoroughly, and had assorted sizes from tall coffee cans to small baking powder cans. There was always a pot of sourdough going and we had hotcakes almost every other morning. They were topped with blueberry syrup or home-made maple syrup, made by boiling sugar and water and adding a flavoring called, “Mapleine.”  Visitors always went away with a Mason jar of the sourdough starter.

One time after we had planes coming into Cordova, a friend hand-carried a jar of the starter on the plane – no TSA rules back then. I don’t know if the starter got too warm or the altitude caused it, but the lid blew off the jar and splashed clear out of the bag. You can imagine the aroma in the cabin.

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We had many wild berries. Every fall we picked blueberries, lowbush and highbush cranberries, nagoonberries, currants, salmonberries, and cloudberries. There were lots of seedy crowberries in the meadows too and they were sometimes mixed with blueberries when making a pie. We made jams, jellies and syrups and preserved blueberries in a waterpack so they could be enjoyed all winter.

There were also beach greens, goosetongue, dandelion greens, and fiddlehead ferns that were picked when they first came out, the brown coating washed off, and sautéed in bacon grease.  I still have a favorite patch and every year it is a rite of spring to enjoy the first cutting and put some in the freezer all cleaned and ready to cook. I think the variety of foods we ate must have provided adequate vitamins and minerals as we were a healthy family.

Even though we moved from the country to the big city of Cordova, my father continued to be a hunter and my mother was a gatherer. No one could pick berries faster than Mother and no one could strip salmon for salting or canning more precisely. My grandmother used an ulu made from a saw blade but Mother had a very sharp knife that no one was allowed to touch.

She worked at local salmon, crab and shrimp canneries and was always the one who put up the ‘special packs’ of salmon and crab. There was a time when a worker either worked by the hour or by piece work. Of course, Mother chose piece work as she had such fast hands. One cannery thought she was making too much money and wanted to change her pay to hourly rate. She said she would quit first and they kept her on as they didn’t want to lose her perfectly packed cans.

My father was one of the first Cordova hunters to take his boat to Shuyak Island near Kodiak and harvest one of the moose that had been planted there. His deckhand, known as “Sunshine” was with him when they went ashore and saw the first huge moose. He almost swallowed his cigarette and as soon as he could talk again said, “Pete, that’s the biggest darn deer I ever saw.” We ate well that winter.

At Christmas time, we always had Japanese oranges which were shipped in on Alaska Steamship Company and had to go through Customs before they were sold.

My grandfather enjoyed his beer and it was a real production to make home brew. The U.S. Marshal was a friend and a frequent visitor so the beer was kept behind some sliding doors on the second floor of the Alice Cove house. My brother liked root beer and was the expert in that department. He did have one small problem though. Someone told him that a few raisins in each bottle would give it a little ‘kick.’ I think he over-did it as he had his special pack on his closet floor and several bottles exploded and thoroughly drenched all of his clothes. Needless to say, my mother was less than happy and banned the further use of raisins!

OK – We’ll make it a four part series! Next week:  Virginia shares thoughts about the depression and her own hunt for a Dall Sheep in the Chehotna River Valley.

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