This article is part of
Wilderness Way
VOLUME 12, ISSUE 2.
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Where The Wild Woman Roams
Meet Vickie Shufer
by Matt Kull
My home state of Virginia is also home to a widely renowned wild plant expert: Vicki Shufer…
Because I am interested in wild edibles, I signed up for one of her classes that she teaches at False Cape State Park in the Outer banks of Virginia for a weekend of foraging wild.
I knew the course would be extraordinary, because the park is a mile-wide patch of land between Back Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the last undisturbed natural areas on the East Coast with four different ecological zones.
Vickie was born near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky and has been sub-merged in nature her whole life. She spent all of her childhood outdoors, primarily with her grandfather, who was a fisherman. Because of her love of the outdoors, she went to the University of Louisville and majored in Outdoor Recreation with concentrations in nature studies and botany. She really found her calling of ethnobotany after taking a class in Poisonous and Edible Plants.
In the 30+ years since she started studying wild plants and herbs, Vickie has developed an extensive knowledge and expertise, much from studying under the tutelage of famed ethno-botanist Dr. James Duke. She has attended many professional courses and seminars with him.
Since 1994, she has been the editor/publisher of The Wild Foods Forum newsletter, and has written and co-authored half-a-dozen books.
Currently, Vickie lives in Virginia Beach with her husband Paul, living in an old-style country house next to a large farm. There, she runs a small nursery, where she grows indigenous native Virginian plants, and has an all natural wildfoods garden (except for tomatoes).
Meeting Ms. Shufer
I met for the class on the
outskirts of the False Cape Park on a Friday afternoon. A
big yellow school bus pulled up. The driver—a 5 foot woman
with bright, beaming blue eyes and curly shoulder-length
brown hair, wearing rugged, tan, earth-tone outdoor
gear—opened the door, stuck out her head, and said (with a
slight Southern accent), “You must be Matt.” It was Ms.
Shufer, who would be our guide, host, teacher, and driver
for the weekend.
After 30 minutes or so, the bus—packed full with 20 foraging students, 3 professional trackers (Roy Hutchinson, Kevin Brewer, and Kim “Curly” Jenson from the Wilderness Discovery School), and an array of gear—zoomed down a raised, sandy road through a marshy area.
The road quickly careened left from the boggy area into a dense pine forest. The road continued, and the trees formed a narrow pathway through a maze of massive, majestic sand dunes. At one point, a student looking out a window let out a slight, suppressed gasp, while she observed a pine tree whizzing closely by.
“That was close,” she exclaimed in a somewhat silent manner. But Vickie heard her.
Her head whipped around and she greeted her audience with her piecing blue eyes and a devilish grin. “Yeah, but only by a few inches,” Vickie replied. “Wait until you see the really narrow section.”
We realized that we were in for an extraordinary weekend, with an extremely unordinary wildfoods instructor.
When we arrived at an educational nature center right on the edge of the bay, everyone was hungry. Vickie said “I want to get dinner fixed fast so we can get going on a night hike. I’ll need volunteers.”
After a hearty dinner of pasta and a homemade desert of persimmon cake (one of Vickie’s specialties), we ventured off into the night for an awareness exercise. Vickie did not allow any lights.
With a small, silver sliver of a boomerang-shaped moon floating on the horizon, we trekked down a sandy road and into the labyrinth of hilly dunes. At first, the students were a little disoriented, but after several minutes our eyes adjusted. The sand took on a white, ghoulish glow and we could see fine. Vickie stopped us on top of a large dune, as we encircled her.
“This ecosystem is home to many night creatures, like owls. The dominate species here is the Screech owl. I’ll try to call one now.”
She cupped her hands, put them up to her mouth, and blew, creating a unique, high-pitched “WHHOO!” sound.After several attempts, we patiently waited in an airy silence, but no owls came. The only sounds heard were the waves crashing in the distance and a crisp, powerful wind whipping through the dunes and the pines.
The next morning, the group woke up
and anxiously waited for the day’s events to commence. While
the coffee brewed, the three trackers found some fresh
tracks of a raccoon, which had walked in the soft sand on
the shore the previous night. Then, they taught some ways to
interpret animal signs and even did a demonstration of how
to take a cast of a print using PVC piping and dental stone.
We had breakfast that consisted of serviceberry muffins and scrambled eggs with poke (all harvested from Vickie’s personal wildfoods garden).
As we ate, Vickie told us “We’ll forage and harvest a lot for tonight’s dinner.”
Before we had even gotten 100 yards on the day’s walk, Vickie jumped in a marshy area with reeds and cattails, while extracting her sharp Gerber lock-blade knife. With a quick flip of her wrist, the blade popped open, and she was diving, pulling, and cutting at the base of a cattail plant.
“This is narrow-leaf cattail,” she explained. “That over there,” pointing to her left with her knife blade, “is regular cattail.” She showed the starchy root and began cutting it up for the class. I took a bite, and it tasted just like a fresh cucumber.
We moved along down the path, observing, eating, and gathering various plants, while listening to Vickie’s in-depth descriptions of Pennywort (for salad), Yellow Thistle (edible inner core), and Greenbrier, whose young tips tasted like green beans.
We collected abundant amounts, but
heeded Vickie’s gathering rules:
1. Leave the first plant for the animals.
2. Leave the second plant for the seeds.
3. Leave the third plant for other foragers to identify.
4. Gather from the fourth plant.
Vickie became ecstatic because of all of the different wild edibles, particularly the trees. She dug up small sassafras shoots, with lush, edible leaves and roots that brew a soothing, hot beverage. Then, we gathered leaves from the Yaupon Holly that makes an energizing morning drink, though the berries are poisonous.
By the end of our tour through the forest, we had also been exposed to Black Willow, a source of aspirin, and Live Oak trees with acorns left over from the fall. Because these acorns had low tannin content, we ate the acorns without leaching.
While we walked, the trackers got busy, because it was the perfect place to see tracks. They showed us many different patterns—such as raccoon, deer, and opossum. We even tracked crabs and a beetle larva as it moved across the sands.
When we got to the beautiful ocean,
the wind howled, the surf was fierce, and not a soul was on
the shore.Vickie immediately went into action, showing the
group a whole new batch of plants: sea rocket, which is in
the mustard family; life everlasting, a.k.a. rabbit tobacco;
and wild lettuce.
As we approached a marsh, she pulled out her Gerber and exclaimed, “Man, I love an excuse to jump into the water.” She grabbed a plant, which was all around her, and started a lecture.
“This is Sweet Flag, whose roots help with sore throats and indigestion. The Native Americans use it to strengthen the vocal chords; they believed that it made one sing better. The elders were passing this out as a means to purify the body at their sweat lodge.”
During the slow stroll back, Vickie concluded, “I’ve been studying plants my whole life, and they have great nutritional and medicinal values. Remember, all the plants have secrets, and you have to find them.”
