Chanterelles and Canned Salmon

August 23rd (Friday)

Although it did get windy last night, we were anchored in a good spot and did not get anywhere near the full winds of the forecasted 40 knots. We all slept well.  We had a relaxing rainy morning with the fire going, sorting pictures and reading.  We had a delicious early lunch of caviar on toast. Yummy!

After lunch we all hiked to the lake where Jason had been yesterday afternoon and had seen lots of mushrooms that he thought were Chanterelles. He had since done a lot of reading in our Audubon mushroom book, and we took it with us to accurately identify them. J and I spent a while looking at the many mushrooms and reading the book, and came to the confidant conclusion that one type of them were indeed Chanterelles.  Yay. They were growing in the sand up at the edge of the bank under the deciduous trees and there were a whole bunch of them.  We picked a good-sized bag and washed off the sand and dirt in the lake. 

Chanterelle mushrooms growing in the wild along the beach and forest line.

Chanterelle mushrooms drying.

After enjoying looking at all of the wild flowers and little frogs, and just enjoying the beauty of the place we headed home. 

Walking back along the sandy beach we spotted some very large bear prints, and we wondered as to when the bear had walked there, as we had not noticed the prints on our walk up along the beach, but they also didn’t look that fresh. We imagined that they were the prints of a grizzly, given that they were so big. 

It was also amazing how much lower the water was this time, compared to last time Jason and I had been at Codville Lagoon and hiked up to the lake with our kayaks.  The sandy beach was even bigger now.  

Back home my parents went out kayaking, and J and I stayed home. I made chocolate, chocolate-chip, huckleberry muffins, and put on a batch of bread to rise over night.  The last time I made bread we wanted to make a second loaf so as to maximise cooking time with the propane, and also to have more bread since my parents were here.  We only have one cast-iron pot, so we tried the second loaf in a regular bread pan with tin foil over the top so as to create the same steaming effect as is created inside the pot with the lid on.  Apart from the bread partially sticking to the bottom of the tin foil, because I did not tent it up above the top of the pan, it turned out perfectly.  We actually like it a bit more than in the pot, partially just because of the consistent size of the slices.  This time I am making a triple batch, and will cook them all in regular bread pans tomorrow.  

For dinner we had salmon wraps with homemade tartar sauce, onions, cabbage, and cheese, with pan fried freshly picked Chanterelle mushrooms. Delicious!

Chanterelles beginning to fry.

Chanterelles finished frying.

August 24th (Saturday)

Today was an awesome day of gathering.  Jason and I headed out in the morning, and did some salmon fishing.  We caught one on the first pass along the rocky cliffs where we have had our most luck, and a second one on the way back.  They were both nice sized Coho Salmon, one was 27” and the other 28”. 

When we were dealing with the salmon on shore we threw the parts of the carcasses that we did not want out onto the shore, and an eagle spotted us and came swooping down.  He tried grabbing the salmon head and missed, and landed on shore a little way along.  We threw him some pieces, and he slowly stepped and flapped his way towards us, stopping every step or two to cock his head and look at us and then back at the fish. 

When he reached the pieces, he tried dragging them backwards with his talons, but struggled to get the load over the rocks, using his beak to help he made more progress, and then took off with the pieces in his talons, and flew away.  A little while later he was back and landed in a tree above us.  After watching us for a bit he swooped down, and this time succeeded in grabbing the fish head on his first try, and flew off.  We had a couple of ravens watching us as well, and we left them the fish skin pieces, which they eagerly collected when we left. 

Back home we started the long process of canning salmon. First we had to sterilize everything and all of our working surfaces, we washed all of the jars, cut up the meat and soaked it in a salt brine for one hour, packed the jars, cleaned the rims with vinegar, put on the lids, and put the jars in the pressure cooker.  Once the cooker had come to a boil and steam had been allowed to exhaust for 10 minutes we closed the valve, brought the pressure up to 10 lbs, and maintained that pressure for 1 hour and 40 minutes.  We found that the pressure did not remain constant at any temperature setting so we had to keep a constant eye on it, and keep adjusting the heat hotter to cooler to keep the pressure as close as possible without ever letting it drop below 10 lbs.

Beginning the process of filling the jars with salmon for canning.

During the timing for the first batch I went out with Mom and Dad to pull up our traps.  Unfortunately, although we actually did get four Dungeness crabs, they were in our prawn trap and much too small to keep.  

Female Dungeness crab in Sheya's right hand, and male in her left hand. 

We did, however get four prawns so at least we each got one with dinner.  

The carcass in our crab trap had been picked clean, and curiously there was a new carcass inside, one that we did not put in the trap.  It was much too eaten to tell what type of fish it may have been, but it was at least 14” long.  The only hint we were given as to what may have eaten the carcasses was one large hairy snail.  Last time we put our prawn trap out in the same area as our crab trap this time, we pulled up a trap full of hermit crabs so we are wondering if it was them who picked the carcass so amazingly clean and yet were able to slip through the netting of the trap, and so not be pulled up for us to see them.  

My parents then hiked back up to the lake, and picked us another bag of beautiful Chanterelle mushrooms, while Jason and I put on the second batch of jars of salmon.  In total we did 16 half-pint jars; canning about one and three quarter salmon.  

Since it was already late when we finished the canning process, instead of making a big dinner we made up a quick udon, and J made a delicious miso, dashi, mirin stock for our carrots, onions, cabbage, fresh Chanterelle mushrooms, salmon, and prawns (one each).  It was so yummy, and then we had a chocolate, chocolate-chip, huckleberry cupcake for dessert.