There was a huge crowd, and the first surprise was the number of vendors selling nettle for three to five dollars per bag. At first this looked like a get rich quick scheme: pick nettles for free, sell at profit! But I didn’t actually see any nettles being sold, so perhaps it was all for naught. There were lots of other nettle-based products on offer: dried nettle, powdered nettle, and stock sauce nettle broth to use in sauces and gravies. The Thirsty Camel people served samples of a soup that included nettle.

One vendor was selling sun-dried morel mushrooms, powdered mushrooms, and whatnot. There were bakers and sausage-makers offering samples, and then there was this amazing thing from chef Josh Massey of Page Point Bistro: spot prawns with stinging nettles and blackcap raspberry terrine. Oh MY it was good. After tasting this sample, you can bet that I’ll be making a special trip to check out the Page Point Bistro.

Somebody else was selling dried kelp: bull kelp, and winged kelp. (Yum.) That same person offers low-tide tours of what’s edible on the beach.

It’s a bit ironic that I left Gabriola to learn about plants that grow on Gabriola, but oh well. It was totally worthwhile, and I haven’t even told you about my favourite part. Maybe there’ll be time for that tomorrow.

Twine made from the bark of nettle stems was used extensively in the manufacture of items requiring strength through a firm, sturdy warp strand. Dried nettles were damped to make the bark sufficiently flexible, while the pith of the stem remained dry and brittle. By splitting the stem and rubbing it over a blunt edge, the bark would separate from the pith. This bark was then beaten and combed, or carded into a soft tissue which could be spun with the use of a spindle similar to the spinning of wool. Twine produced from nettle fiber was of great strength and utilized in the making of nets and fishing line, as well as for a warp in weaving.

Did you know the Salish weavers also made twine from milkweed fibre, and blankets from a mixture of milkweed fluff, dog hair, and wool from mountain goats? Such creative people, and I bet the objects they made from these materials were both beautiful and functional.

Remember that basket full of nettle? I dried those nettles, and this is what they look like now. Good news: easy to store, ready for more! Bad news: that whole basket of nettle amounted to only one cup of dried nettle.

This basket is perfect for collecting nettles, mushrooms, and whatnot. And also for bringing in veggies from the garden.

If you want to know more about nettle and what you can do with it, check out some of the previous blog entries about nettle.

If I’d been an organized forager, I would have had a recipe in mind when I brought the nettles home. But alas, not organized. This is what happens when I don’t get enough coffee in the morning. So I boiled all the nettles for a few minutes, then dried them in our food dehydrator, and now they’re crinkly little bits like some Japanese seaweed product. (I bet somebody could sell dried nettles at the Gabriola Farmers Market.) When dehydrated, a vast amount of nettles (enough to fill a sleeping-bag stuff sack) shrinks down to fit in a 14-ounce jar.

I’m going nettle-picking again today, and this time I think I’ll try making Cream of Nettle Soup. Nettle wine sounds like a fun thing to try, too, don’t you think? Both recipes are here.

Yesterday I met a woman on the trail above Whalebone, and look what she had: a whole basket full of nettle. It’s ready, she said. Ha! I’m ready, too. I’ll be out there soon, armed with rubber gloves and scissors.

The Gabriola Film Festival is showing a short film on nettle today. Here’s what the Film Gabriola website says about the film:

Did you know that Napolean’s armies wore uniforms spun from fibre of the nettle plant?

Tree hugger Gabriolan, David Boehm, and three fellow students enrolled in the "Activist Documentary Making Programme" at G.I.F.T.S, the Gulf Island Film Training School, on Galiano, strike green gold in this compelling first video effort. The film reveals some of the many nutritional and therapeutic uses of the humble stinging nettle and wonders why we have not exploited more fully this plant’s extraordinary potential benefits to humanity.

You’d like to see the film, but you didn’t make it to the Gabriola Film Festival? Youtube to the rescue:

The Salish used the same technique to spin all fibres. While spinning the spindle whorl is pointed upwards and the fibres are drawn down onto it. As the spindle rotates, it creates tension and a twist in the fibres, producing yarn. When the spindle is full, yarn is removed from the spindle and wound into a ball. Dog wool, nettles and mountain goat wool were the most common fibres. The disk, or whorl, was often made of a heaveier hardwood and actedas aa flyweel, smoothing the rotation of the spindle. A design was often incised into both surfaces.

Did you notice that bit about the nettles? I’m going to see what I can make out of nettle fibres this spring.

See also: Snuneymuxw dogs