Tribal citizens lined up outside the WCA carving shed on the sunny afternoon of May 2 to collect boxes of herring eggs from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
The Tlingit and Haida Traditional Food Security program purchased over 17,000 pounds from spawn-on-kelp fishery permit holders in the Craig and Klawock area, according to the Ketchikan Daily News. The eggs are being distributed in 21 designated communities, including Wrangell, which received 463 pounds of eggs in about 100 4.5-pound boxes for tribal citizens.
These tiny eggs have a large cultural and nutritional value. They are packed with protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, iron, zinc and other nutrients, not to mention the health benefits of the kelp they are harvested on.
When Pacific herring spawn, their adhesive eggs stick to whatever is nearby, since this increases the eggs’ chances of survival. Kelp is a common natural substrate; harvesters sometimes use hemlock branches as a man-made substrate.
Oral histories and archaeological research indicate the importance of herring roe in early Tlingit and Haida communities. Herring were abundant at occupied sites throughout coastal Alaska and the presence of herring played a role in the establishment of Sitka, Klawock, Juneau, Prince of Wales and Wrangell, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
“It’s been our traditional food for ever since the Tlingit first came down here,” said Sue Stevens, who represents Wrangell on the Tlingit and Haida Tribal Assembly. She’s eaten them her whole life and associates the food with springtime, since herring usually spawn around the end of March. “It’s so good,” she said. “It tastes like the ocean.”
Stevens likes to eat her herring eggs with a combination of soy sauce, hooligan oil and butter. “You blanche them,” she said. “You can’t let the eggs turn white. They’ll be like rubber then. You just warm them.” She also has a killer herring egg salad recipe that involves lettuce, tomato, cilantro, green onions and mayonnaise.
For others in line to collect their herring eggs, the food can be an acquired taste. Amber Wade and Janice Kalkins picked up boxes not for themselves but for their relatives, who are more enthusiastic than they are about the food’s slippery texture.
The flavor is “really hard to describe,” said Harry Churchill, holding the box he had just picked up from Tlingit and Haida. “A lot of people don’t like it. I don’t know why.” He has a taste for strong sea flavors, he explained, including seal oil, which he was introduced to while he was working up north for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He first tried herring eggs about 60 years ago. Like Stevens, he likes to eat them with soy sauce.
Tlingit and Haida serves over 35,000 members worldwide. Its Traditional Food Security team was established in 2021 in response to COVID-19. “Many of our communities are seeing food shortages like never before in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and ongoing issues with the Alaska Marine Highway system,” wrote President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson in a weekly update. The food security department was set up to “ensure we can protect, enhance and provide for our way of life for generations to come.”
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