Ember & Grain · Field Notes · Wood · Nº 08
Alder Wood
the salmon wood
Willamette Falls, Oregon. A river of salmon, the people of the falls, and the clean smoke of the riverbank tree.
Where the Willamette River drops forty feet over a horseshoe of basalt, salmon and lamprey gather to climb. For countless generations the people of the falls fished here. Most of the fish the tribes ate, one historian writes, were smoked or wind-dried, and the wood used to smoke salmon at the falls was alder and vine maple.
A river of salmon, and the tree that grows where they run.
On the salt
In the Atlas, Alder Wood is paired with Gros Sel de Guérande.
Alder Wood · Field notes
| Also known as | Red alder · western alder |
| Tree | Alnus rubra, birch family |
| Native to | Pacific coast, Alaska to California |
| Home | Willamette Falls · 45°21′ N |
| Roots | Fix nitrogen, feed the soil |
| Smoke | Light, clean, sweet · 1 of 5 |
| On the salt | Gros Sel de Guérande · Vol. I, Nº 04 |
Continue in The Origins Atlas
The rest of this chapter lives in the book: the full story of the place, how the wood burns, the people who keep the tradition, and the hand-drawn map.
- The Place · the falls
- The Fire · clean and delicate
- The Catch
- The Taste · light and sweet
Sources: David G. Lewis, Quartux Journal; Wikipedia, “Willamette Falls,” “Alnus rubra”; UW Bothell; City of Bellingham. Imagery is illustrative and AI-generated.