Each April millions of herring meet in Sitka Sound to spawn. They lay a myriad of tiny white eggs on kelp and the submerged branches of shoreline evergreens. Long ago the Tlingits who first settled the area learned to submerge hemlock branches into these waters to form herring nurseries so they could harvest the delicious eggs.

In years past volunteers in the Sitka Native Community would carefully prepare thousands of pounds of this herring roe so it could be carried by a fishing boat to other Native communities in Southeast Alaska where it was enjoyed as one of the first natural gifts of Spring.

This year, due to federal legal restrictions, the herring roe boat couldn’t sail. Someone pointed out that while he is Tlingit, the boat’s captain lives in Seattle and therefore can not legally take part in the subsistence harvest. It does not matter that he did it without expectation of payment or that his family had been harvesting roe this way since before there was a federal government.

Today a Tlingit friend showed me a small plastic bag of herring roe that a friend had given her after an aunt had sent it from their home village. Tonight she is sharing it with her grand children so they will know the taste of spring.