With the heat index sweating over 100 degrees, running the food dehydrator in the house was contributing too much heat. Grumbling, I hefted the big box out to the garage. I set it up and then hurried indoors to fetch trays of cut fresh peppers. Over the next few hours the pepper juices would be driven off leaving me tiny red and yellow bell pepper fragments.

 

Today, the temperatures are much better but taking no chances, the garage remains a food drying center.  I am declaring mission accomplished when todays trays of dried sliced mushrooms and chunked chicken breast are pulled out.

They will join bags of dried wild and domestic mushrooms, dried tomato pasta sauce, sweet potatoes, onions, venison burger, shrimp, peas, corn, cooked basmati rice bananas and blueberries that are staged in a big box awaiting to be assigned to the proper meal bag.

A highlight of any lengthy camping excursion to a remote area includes careful food planning. Carbohydrates and calories are necessary. Spices sparkle the mundane. Sweets, even a mere taste, are savored, and for me, essential.

A good Yukon friend once shared two great tips for camp and domestic meals. One is to provide as quick squeeze or spritz of citric on any dish just before serving. And listen closely as your collective of tastes buds exclaim joyous surprise. The second tips is to put something a little spicy hot beneath a meat serving. Listen again as the taste buds sing praises of Diablo. (At home adding a gentle pillow of yogurt with the heat is a sensorial treat.)

Whether it is paddling in the flow of a remote river, along a chain of lakes, backpacking a range of mountains or cycling across longitudes, food becomes an obsession. I can’t tell you how many hours I have paddled discussing the upcoming camp meal with my paddling partner. Another foodie favorite topic is to make a case for the first meal I am going to treat myself to when we get back to civilization. It often includes ice cream or a cold beer.

Expeditions have tragically failed with poor food planning. Food is fuel and without it the trip can break down quickly with morale sinking and physical strength weakening.

Paired with the unplanned, such as sudden harsh weather (i.e. blizzard), equipment breakdown (i.e. crumpled canoe) food stores can be tragically compromised.

British polar explorer John Franklin on his first arctic expedition, known as the Coppermine Expedition was an overland trek that spanned the years 1819-1822. The expedition carried minimal food expecting to find plenty of game. In the second year of their trek, they were forced to overwinter. The voyageurs were not good hunters and caribou and other game was scarce. They were forced to boil and eat, lichens, their buffalo sleeping robes and even leather boots. Ten men died. And from that low point on, Franklin was often referred to as the “man who ate his boots.”

Think of the Donner wagon train party heading to California in 1847. They got caught in an early snowstorm high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and had to build a crude winter quarters. Of the overwintering 87 folks only 48 survived to reach California. And they survived only by eating the flesh of the dead.

One of my heroes is the stout Scotsman Sir John Rae, who singlehandedly mapped much of the north shore of North America along the Arctic Sea. He snowshoed thousands of miles with little extra equipment. He was the first European to adopt the ways of the northern aboriginals and dress in warm layers of furs and hunt for food as he traveled. He knew such methods would not work with a large expedition force so he usually traveled alone or in small groups, almost always with native guides.

While we will have our collection of dried meals, we will begin our sea kayaking trip off the coast of British Columbia with some fresh food for a day or two. We will carry fishing gear for salmon, rockfish and lingcod. We are contemplating adding a crab trap to trap Dungeness crabs. This country is rich in foods.

As I work hard to complete a manuscript deadline for a guidebook on foraging for wild edible plants, I am trying to focus on some northwest coast species that can augment our meals and keep scurvy at bay.

And it wouldn’t hurt to pack a pair of softened leather boots. Like I said a squeeze of citric spritz can work wonders.

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