Green gold

By DAVE SHERWOOD
Outdoors writer

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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	Staff photo by Dave Sherwood enlarge NATURE'S BOUNTY: John Dutil hoists a good load of fiddleheads, picked on Monday. Though harvesting fiddleheads is a rite of spring for Dutil, he notes that cleaning them afterwards can be a lot of work as well. But the reward is worth it, he says.
	Staff photo by Dave Sherwood enlarge These moist fiddleheads are ripe for the picking. Most serious fiddleheaders' prefer to pick their ferns when they're still low and close to the ground. This, says Dutil, is when they are freshest and most tender.

Don’t bother asking John Dutil where he picks his fiddleheads. He won’t tell you.

But if you’re lucky — and honest — he might take you there. “You’ll keep it quiet, right?” he’ll ask first, eyeing you suspiciously.

“Fiddleheads” are the coiled leaves of the ostrich fern. They’re considered a delicacy in Maine, and elsewhere. They typically grow in shady, fertile river valleys and flood plains — usually far from people — and roads.

Dutil has good reason to be wary. Spend a day in May with him in his “secret” spot, and you might think you’ve died and gone to fiddlehead heaven.

Dutil is a commercial picker — but it’s only recently that he’s begun to sell his harvest. He’s retired, and he and his wife now enjoy harvesting of all kinds — ferns, strawberries, blueberries, and in season, trout and deer.

He sells only part of what he picks.

“A lot of people I know can’t get out to pick them anymore, so I give a lot away,” he said.

He does it because he enjoys the ritual, and the peaceful time in the spring woods — it’s a tradition that he, his wife and family have enjoyed for more than 40 years.

“We just love the trip,” he said.

Getting to Dutil’s favorite patch of fiddleheads is half the fun — but it isn’t for everyone.

“It’s way back there, you’ll see,” he said.

OFF TO SECRET SPOT

When he arrived at the turnoff, he unloaded his canoe, paddles, life preservers and his old 3-horse outboard motor. He added two five-gallon buckets and a pair of huge onion bags to the pile of gear — storage for later, he said.

Ambitious?

“You just wait,” he laughed.

Dutil, 63, prefers not to go alone — he usually makes this trip with his wife.

“I’ve had heart surgery, you know,” he said.

As he motors upriver, it becomes obvious why competition is so scarce. Just 10 minutes into the journey, a falls blocks passage up the river.

Dutil unloads, then slings the canoe onto his shoulders. On the other side, he packs everything into the canoe again. Then it’s upriver again, for nearly an hour.

In high water, the channel is lost — all around us, tree trunks sit submerged in three feet of water, flooded from recent rains. Rocks, old beaver dams, feed piles and sunken logs threaten Dutil’s propeller, but years of memories guide him upriver safely.

From the flooded timber, wood ducks explode skyward in a shower of spray and cold water.

Mallards quack in the distance, and tree swallows dart for midges and black flies over open stretches.

Nearly an hour from the put in — a paddle, a portage and a long stretch of river later— the huge, overhanging swamp maples begin to close in.

Sprouts of skunk cabbage paint the forest floor a brilliant shade of chartreuse, and the smell of wild onion and chive taints the air.

Dutil smiles, then points to shore.

A closer look — beside old logs and cabbage leaves, reveals hundreds of half-dollar size fiddleheads.

RENEWABLE RESOURCE

Fiddleheads are unique — like vegetables from a garden, or raspberries from a bush, they’ve proven themselves a renewable resource.

Each year for generations, families have picked in the same spots, and each year, the fiddleheads are there.

“It’s just as good today as it was 40 years ago,” said Dutil. There are not many other outdoor sports, he points out, of which one could say the same thing.

According to Ann Gibbs, of the Department of Agriculture, there are no records kept of fiddlehead harvest, or sales.

“There’s no really good mechanism to keep track of the fiddlehead harvest. There’s no licensing process, and people have their own favorite spots,” she said.

It’s only recently that scientists have begun to study fiddleheads. Dave Fuller, a researcher with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, is investigating methods of fiddlehead harvesting, and their sustainability.

“There’s an assumption that the resource is entirely renewable, but is it? It’s a question worth investigating,” he said. He hopes to know more in the years to come, but until then, he says, the crop appears to be in good shape.

On Monday, high water had submerged the greenish brown heads of many ripe fiddleheads, leaving some out of reach, perhaps to survive as seed plants for the next year. All around Dutil, though, thousands of the rich green heads sat perched on dry humps, prime for the picking. The trick is in the timing.

Fiddleheads from ostrich ferns, in particular, are edible, and tasty, but only when still coiled tight and close to the ground. With warm weather and lengthening days, fiddleheads can unravel into adult ferns in a matter of hours. Then they are lost until next season.

FIELDS OF FIDDLEHEADS

When fiddleheads are prime and covering the forest floor, hours of picking can seem like minutes. It’s mesmerizing. You walk hunched over, pick a patch, then turn your head and see some more.

Then it’s off to the next patch, and the next.

Before Dutil it knew it, it was nearly noon, and he’d picked well over 15 gallons of greens.

“It’s a sickness, you know,” he said jokingly. The work doesn’t end in the field — fiddleheads carry a papery brown coating that needs to be rinsed after picking.

The reward is worth the effort. Eating fiddleheads is every bit as enjoyable picking them.

In central Maine, a thriving business exists: signs on country roads advertise “Fiddleheads for Sale,” and some commercial pickers sell to larger, mail-order companies, which then ship the vitamin-rich greens to restaurants and grocery stores in other states.

According to Fuller, from the University of Maine, some restaurants in New York City will pay as much as $10 a pound for the young ferns.

Butch Wells, of W.S. Wells and Sons in Wilton, sells upwards of 45,000 pounds of Maine-picked fiddleheads a year. His best customer, he says, is the Hannaford chain of grocery stores in Maine and New England. He also sells to restaurants as far away as Oregon, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.

“The fiddlehead business is growing. When we first started with fiddleheads, outside of New England no one knew what one was. After 30 years of educating them, they’re starting to catch on,” he said.

But for pickers like Dutil, who enjoy nothing more than a peaceful morning in Maine’s verdant spring woods, it will always be a secret.

Dave Sherwood 621-5648
dsherwood@centralmaine.com