Berries
If there is one natural food crop that flourishes in the Hoopa reservation and at the base of the Go Road it is berries. The bushes can be seen from almost any point in the valley while Looking at the valley floor. Many of the bushes easily reach 8-9 feet high and I0-15 feet wide. They line some roads and creeks and act as property lines to some residences. Some of
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This is a view across Highway 96 just south of Hoopa looking onto one of the many dirt roads that are lined by huge berry bushes.
the local residents do pick the berries, but many stay on the vine until a bear or Bigfoot gets a grip on them.
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have never been in any region of the country that has such a proliferat ion of w ild berry bushes. One summer while I was working in Hoopa l was wa l king along a dirt road adjacent to the Trinity River. 1was notic
ing a large amount of fresh bear scat among the berry bushes
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was standing adjacent to. As J walked around a corner l came within 25 feet of a 300-pound black bear that was calmly eating berries. He paid very little atten tion to me and I quickly took some back steps and l eft the area. The berries are an obvious source of nutrition for the bears. Once you com plete reading the sightings section of the book you w ill understand that the berries are also a large part of the Bigfoot diet.
Matsutake Mushrooms
Duri ng the time period from late November until as late as January 31, matsutake mushrooms grow throughout the lower elevations of Hoopa . Matsutake are a delicacy in Japan and their buyers will travel to Hoopa dming harvest time and pay as much as $50 per pound for fully developed mushrooms . Many of the locals make several thousand dollars every year picking the mushrooms and selling to buyers.
During my time in Hoopa I had heard many stories about how to find, pick and harvest wi ld mushrooms. Many of the stories sounded a bit far
fetched and it sometimes sounded a little too easy. On a clear and cold day in early winter I convinced Tnker McCovey and Ed Masten to take me to the upper reaches of Mill Creek (outside the reservation) and explain how they find their mushrooms and take me through the steps in harvesting.
Since there are severa l occasions noted in the sightings section where wit
nesses have seen Bigfoot whi le hunting for mushrooms , information on how it is done may be helpfu l in w1dersta nding the sighting.
Inker and Ed ftrst explained that it takes moisture, lots ofleaves and fil
tered sunlight to get qua lity mushrooms. They told me that after the ftrst heavy rains of the season tbe mushroom wi ll start to form. There needs to be a period of sunlight after lhe rains to allow the mushrooms to fully devel
op. Duri ng this su nl ight period, the mushrooms will grow rapi dly.
Matsutake tend to grow in bunches . Ifyou find one, be slow and methodi c in your search because there are probab l y others in the i mmed iate area. You need lots of leaves to protect the mushroom in its infancy and also to pro
tect it from snow that will hit the area dming these months. While we were on our mush room hunt there was snow in some of the areas we searched and the l eaves did act as a buffer between the mushroom and the elements.
Searching for matsutake is definitely a skill that takes time to devel
op. After following lnker and Ed for 30 minutes I started to get a feeling for the type of fi l tered sunlight the mushrooms need. It was also easier to understand the elevation requirement and the type of trees in the immedi
ate area that the mushrooms need- lots of oak trees- and this is why the Natives call the mushrooms "tan oaks." The process of finding the mushroom can take a long time, moving a l ot of dirt very carefully. If you move the dirt too fast, you break the mushroom and decrease its va lue.
A matsutake that is protruding from the ground and is partially covered by snow and dirt can be seen in the middle of the photo.
Once an area or matsutake mushrooms is found , the snow is very slowly moved aside and it usually has leaves frozen to it. As you are mov
ing these aside, small tan spots anywhere fi·om one to three inches in diameter appea r and you will notice the mushroom shape. Most people u se a small fork-shaped hoe and then wedge the mushroom out of the ground. ln an area that is 15 feet in diameter you may be able to find as many as 10 mushroom s. Inker explained that the mushrooms sometimes run in vei n s across the hillside. Once you find one patch and collect everything around the original area, don't give up. You want to keep col
lecting in angles out of that area until you l ose any sign of matsutake.
Ed explained that his tribe l oves to eat the mushrooms. He broke off a small piece and told me to smell it. The mushroom has a distinct smell of oak and it's one you will not forget. He said that the most common method for cooking the mushroom is to slice it thinly and fry it in a pan with butter; it's not healthy, but it's tasty.
Finding areas to collect the rnuslu-oom is not easy. U takes a special pennit from the United States Forest Service if you want to collect mush -
rooms in their forests. Only tribal members are allowed to collect mush
rooms on Hoopa reservation property and if a non-tribal member is found collecting on tribal property, they wil l be arrested and prosecuted.
Ed, Inker and J were at approximately 2,000 feet in elevation when we found our matsutakes . Whi l e they were patiently and quietly work ing the soil for the mushrooms I stood back and watched for much of the time. l wan ted to understand the circumstances of how Bigfoot would be seen wh ile others were collecting mushroom s.
l should remind you that th ere are several historical stori es indica ting that Bigfoot in the Hoopa area regularly eat matsutake mushrooms. Bears and deer also regularly eat the delicacy, and both are a lso found in abun
dance in the area. While we were hunting the musnrooms , lnker showed me where a deer had scratched the soil, foLLDd a mushroom and took one bite out of it. This was one way tnat lnker found Lh e area where the mush
rooms were growing. would definitely emit a significant
odor and that might possibly lure
the area where we found the mushrooms. It should be noted that the leaves in this area were 4-6 inches thick. Wben I wiped all of the leaves away 1 found rock-hard dirt and gravel. lt would not have mattered if it was leaves or dirt, Bigfoot tracks in this area would be nearly impossib le to fmd because the grow1d and its cover are like cement.
Acorns
A product of the oak trees is the acorn. It seems that almost anything liv
ing in and on the ground and flying through the air likes acorns. Squinels, bears, Bigfoot and birds are all in competition for the native nut. In the 1800s and earl y 1900s Nat i ve Americans accumu l ated the acorns, ground them into a fme powder and made them into an eatable part of their diet.
If you pick up and eat an acorn it will taste bitter. It takes some prepara
tion and lifestyle acclimation to appreciate the nutritional attributes of the acorn . The Hoopa reservation has thousands of oak trees, and a small search for the acorns revea l s many of them can be found on the ground.
Fish
At the center of d1e Hoopa reservation is the Tri ni ty Ri ver. The river delivers one of the main food sources for the tribe and also one of the pri
mary tourist attractions to the area -salmon and steelhead fishing. The coho and chinook
salmon
and the steelhead are not the only fish in the Trinity River, but they are considered at the top of the food chain for sport fishermen . The river a l so contains Lamprey eels, sturgeon , trout and suckers. 1 will concentrate on the most important fish in the river for the tribe members.The ch i nook salmon run the Trinity from April to September and are the biggest salmon on the Paci fic coast. The coho run the river from September to December, and are much smaller than the chinook.
The Pacific Lamprey is also a staple to the triba l members. They live
4-5 years in fresh water and then migrat e to the ocean, where they stay 6-18 months before returning to the river to spawn.
The green sturgeon is Lhe largest fish in the river. They migrate up the Trinity from February to July to spawn. They get as far upstream as Grays FaUs before their trip ends and they spawn out. In later years the sturgeon move to the lower Klamath River estuary before they go out to the ocean.
The biggest obstacle in recent times to the successful spawning and breeding of salmon and steeU1ead bas been low river flows on the Klamath. The salmon and steelbead need cold fresh water to get their eggs hatched and a Jow river flow means warmer water with Less area to Jay their eggs. The main reason for low flows on the Klamath bas been farmers upstream demanding more water for their crops. The U.S.
Department of Reclamation has been in many lawsuits in recent years between the various tribes and the farmers, as each group bas been demanding more water.