We packed a lunch, we packed the baby’s things, and we packed the baby into his stroller on a hot summer’s day. Off we went to show our little man his first forest. Until now we had only been able to take him to the city park and, though beautiful and full of trees, it is no wild wood. I told him he would love it. I knew he would from how he can endlessly gaze at the leaves of one tree without getting bored. It was so hot and humid, but the shady vibrant green forest was cool and breezy. A couple minutes down the dirt path and the baby grinned. The further we went and the taller the trees and denser the greenmantle became, the bigger and bigger his toothless grin became until he was laughing too.
We three stopped to picnic off the path under a western hemlock tree next to a the massive hollowed out stump of an ancient cedar tree with a fairy tunnel just big enough for the baby to crawl through. I twirled him around under the canopy of evergreen trees and he giggled with glee. I brought him down close to the earth and stood him up with his little feet in the soft moss. He wiggled his toes happily.
The Poisoner and I don’t have plans to teach him religion, but we want to teach him a love and respect for nature as well as pass on our knowledge of the local wilds to him. It is through our children that our attitude towards nature will change, but only if we teach them to love it. Below is a photo my mother sent me with a handwritten letter of me trying to catch up with my dad in the forests of Northern Vancouver Island. My parents tried to bring my sister and I into wild nature as much as they could. We went to provincial parks every weekend and during the week if possible and every summer we went camping in every corner of British Columbia. It is thanks to my parents that I love my province as much as I do and I also owe them my deep love of nature and my animistic beliefs.
There were red huckleberry bushes everywhere decorated with early, bright vermillion berries. They are my favourite wild berry – I prefer them to the black and blue huckleberries that people rave about. I picked handful after handful, filling my mouth with their tart juice tasting of sour blueberries and lemon. The Poisoner patiently waited for me along the path as I picked them, pointing out the best bushes to me and eating the odd handful himself.
We plan to return in a week with containers to pick some to take home. Why not turn them into a liqueur, a beer, a mead? There are a few craft breweries in the Pacific Northwest who make huckleberry beer and it is a tasty summer treat. I’ve made mead with huckleberry and devil’s club before and it was divine! A wild mead I used for ritual offerings.
Huckleberries are full of magic and medicine. They are an excellent plant for dream walkers and dream diviners. Supposedly if you ask a question and place huckleberry wood or leaves under your mattress or pillow – you will dream your answer. To make a wish come true, burn the leaves in your room before you go to bed. In rootwork, the leaves are carried for luck and they are also put into sachets or burned to break curses. They would also work in a curse-breaking bath or as a curse-breaking tea. In local mythology huckleberries belong to Basket Woman, or Asin, an ogress who eats people and some Native tribes used to avoid them believing they would get lost in the woods and eaten by her. In folk medicine the leaves are believed to even out blood sugar levels and are used by those with hypoglycemia and diabetes.
We saw beautiful tiger swallowtail butterflies with their yellow wings circle in the sunlight of forest clearings. We saw massive black and white dragonflies and the tiniest metallic blue dragonflies. We saw the tiniest, fuzziest baby ducklings huddled together in the sunlight. We saw wild baby geese the size of fat chickens follow their parents into the muddy waters in the forest to feast on greens growing next to cattails and calamus. We saw many a crow peering down at us from the branches of fir trees. We saw towering douglas fir trees dripping with fragrant resin, shining brightly in the sunlight.
A scrawny little female chickadee landed on my hand and was none to pleased to see it empty of seeds. This tells me people who visit this forest have been a little too naughty in their feeding of the wildlife. We had a squirrel army surround us when we sat on a bench for a snack before heading home. It was more than a bit creepy. Apparently we’d sat at a bench where someone regularly fed them peanuts judging from all the empty shells. We didn’t share our food and the Poisoner said he’d have nightmares that night of squirrels coming after him.
Don’t feed the wildlife folks and don’t teach your kids to do it — no matter how cute it is to see them take it from your hands. Most of the food people try to give wildlife isn’t in their normal diet and usually isn’t good for them and can often be harmful. You’re taming them and teaching them to depend on people instead of their own foraging skills. Plus creepy squirrel army is creepy.
I hope you get a chance to enjoy your own forest wanderings soon. May the coolness of the green shade soothe your soul on the hot summer days to come. May the season be full of magic and enough boldness to go on the adventures that call you!