This is a question to the Portland dwellers out there. Does anyone have any eperience with wapato?
I read today that the area around Portland was central to gathering it.
Also, that Sauvie island was formerly called Wapato Island. If anybody can offer info on gathering, or would be interested in doing so, get in touch!
Shadrach
some good info can be found at this site too, in relation to oregon:
Read the “Highlights from The World of the Kalapuya” post!
Let’s go foraging in January when I am there for 6 days!
-emily
ok, so I don’t know if I would be down to wade in the freezing water to find the wapato, with my hypothyroidism & low body temperature and all… but you can do it, and I will watch, hehe…
if we get a canoe we can go in shallow water and stir them up with stick…?
I don’t know where any field are other than the ones on Sauvie Island (called Wapato Island by Lewis and Clark).
But I don’t know how to get to that one either. I want to transplant some of the bulbs to my moms wetlands.
can’t you just recognize the plants by the leaves above water, or are they gone by this time of year? If they are gone, maybe some sort of waterproof socks/boots… i dunno…
Also, can you just go into the wetlands and forage? Is there any type of permit required, or something? I know there is a permit required to go into Forest Park to forage/harvest…?
I was talking to Shadrach (woodwose) the other day on the phone about wapato gathering, and he was saying the reason why the women waded barefoot in the water to gather the wapato is because they could feel them with their feet in the mud, like the cranes and other wetland birds find them… so if the leaves are gone, it may be hard to find them, unless you watch for the birds gathering them…
-emily
here we go, all the info needed:
http://www.wwmag.net/wapato.htm
it appears that the foliage does die back…
I’ve been researching making “Glass Noodles” from that and cannus root. Not satisfied yet. If I get real results will post in Wiki.
in The Forager’s Harvest by samuel thayer (really good book by the way) he says:
-wapato can be harvested beginning in late summer although they will not be fully grown until the plants begin to die back
-he prefers to harvest in late sept and early october (he lives in wisconsin)
-in areas where the water doesn’t freeze you can harvest all winter
-when he was first harvesting it he waded into the water and dug at the bottom with shovel and the wapato floated to the top
-later he used a method recommended in Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which was to put on waders and rake the mud with a potato hook
-now he uses a technique recommended by john kallas, it’s a “stomping” technique: on a warm fall day wear some old shoes, get in the water and start stomping around, occasionally flailing and kicking your legs. this loosens the mud and allows the wapato to float up. also, moving so much keeps you warmer than if you were just standing there.