Oyster Farmers Alice & Van Helker with the Bona Fide
Off the beaten path, nestled between the Olympic National Forest and the sweeping shorelines of Hood Canal we find Set & Drift’s basecamp. Apart from the softly glowing string lights resting peacefully in the canopy of 200 year old trees, the early morning light serves as our trusty guide for our descent to the shoreline below.
Once on the sandy shore, Alice and Van Helker, co-owners of Set & Drift wave us over. If it was an early dawn morning, you wouldn't know it the way the two fjord oyster farmers climb aboard their oyster skiff, wading yards away as they begin strategically unclipping oyster bags. To an outsider the scene might appear like any ordinary day of harvesting, but there’s something special to be said about the blood, sweat, and tears they’ve shed to arrive at this place of routine.
The Perfect Shuck
After clearing a couple solid hours of sorting, Alice and Van round up some oysters for everyone to snack on. We prep the surface of a massive beach log to create a makeshift picnic table, as Alice tends to the fire pit a few feet away. Slipping on gloves, Alice lays down a handkerchief with a beautiful Fjordlux oyster in tow.
“How we grow our oysters is we tumble them, which forces them to grow more of a cup shape rather than just long and flat,” Alice says, motioning the knife’s tip around the oyster's silhouette. “There’s the hinge shuck method, which is more appropriate to open the size of the oyster we grow. So you insert your knife at about a forty-five degree angle here at the top, then carefully work it into the hinge to the point where the oyster can hang out on the knife on its own. Then just turn the knife about 90 degrees.”
POP. The oyster’s top shell neatly rises up, resting on the surface of Alice’s stainless steel blade.
“See this in the upper right? That’s the adductor muscle, “Alice points it out to us. “Really the only point of a perfect shuck is to nab the adductor muscle so that you get this really clean, beautiful shuck.”
Alice tosses it on the grill, then shucks more for us to consume raw. This time she uses the knife to neatly slice off the oyster off the bottom shell, making it easy to slurp straight from the shell. One by one we relish in the crisp salty goodness of the Fjordlux oysters, marveling at its intricate journey from the water to our tastebuds.
Oysters are filter feeders, which means that they eat the phytoplankton that passes by. Without filter feeders, algae blooms spike and use up all the oxygen in the area, which then leads to areas where nothing can live. Essentially, oysters keep nutrients in the waters balanced. Among other things, farming oysters brings this ecosystem service back, while not reducing wild populations.”
As the day winds down, Alice and Van’s three-year-old son Wayne joins us on the beach. Fearlessly exploring the sandy terrain, it’s clear just how much this environment has made an imprint on his adventurous spirit. There's a dawning realization how everything Alice and Van has thus poured into Set & Drift is finally moving full circle--how this special place offers a priceless return to the two farmers who continue to tenderly care for it.
Day after day, just being around natural processes that are so much older and bigger puts much of life into perspective,” Alice says. “Life can be hectic. At times full of worry. But the natural world on the macro scale just isn’t in comparison. Things happen slowly on this immense scale. And that’s calming to be around.”
