<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sitka Conservation Society’s annual Wild Foods Potluck took place on Nov. 16 at Harrigan Centennial Hall. (KCAW/McKenney)  </figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-audio"></figure>

Eleven-year-old Thomas Montion wanders down the aisle between two long tables covered in dishes of herring egg pasta, tandoori salmon bites, octopus and potatoes, and bull kelp pickles. Two hundred Sitkans line up in the hall, anticipating the many dishes they’ll try at this year’s feast.

They’re here for Sitka Conservation Society’s annual wild foods potluck, where locals share dishes featuring ingredients fished, foraged, hunted, or cultivated in Southeast Alaska. 

“All of this stuff looks so good. I’m going to get some of these black bear enchiladas…black bears don’t live here, so they must have hunted this somewhere else,” Thomas says, as he places a spoonful on his plate. “I’m going to get some of these salmon cakes. Venison, mushroom, meatballs? That sounds good. I’m gonna get one of these. I love deer.”

Thomas is joined by his mom, dad, three siblings, and friend Luke. 

“I’m really excited just to see what different types of food they have that I’ve never heard about before,” Thomas says. 

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">(KCAW/McKenney)</figcaption></figure>

Thomas’s dad is in the U.S. Coast Guard, and moved with his family from Oregon to Sitka in June. Since then, Thomas started a Youtube channel called “The Wild Tom & Chuck Show,” where he and his brother make videos about “fishing, exploring and messing around outside.” Tonight, he’s using his GoPro to film his experience at the annual potluck.

“Oregon was sort of like here, just not quite as big of a salmon run,” Thomas said. “It used to be really big along the Columbia River, but kind of was overfished and dammed. We had some seafood, but not quite as much as here. So it’s been a really cool experience to have all this wild food.”

Kathleen Montion, Thomas’ mom, says Thomas is known for his adventurous palate.

“We have really good eaters,” she says. “We do a lot of foraging and hunting and fishing. We’re not super good at it, but we try, and they love finding chicken of the woods and all different sorts of things. They’re always up for trying anything.”

Kathleen says Sitka has been extremely welcoming to her family, and she wants her four kids to understand how lucky they are to live in such an abundant environment as the Tongass. 

“I want them to know just what a unique experience that is, and how we’re so blessed to have all of these foods available to us, and definitely how important it is to make sure that the food sources are protected so that we can continue to do this in the future as well,” she says.

SCS has hosted this potluck for about two decades. Deputy Director Katie Riley says this year, the gathering is a celebration of the many ways we connect with the public lands and waters that sustain us — through the foods we harvest, the cultures we practice, the places we explore, and the communities we build together. She says the theme is especially important in light of the Trump administration’s recent efforts to develop and reduce protections for public lands.

Riley says the event is the conservation society’s chance to say thank you to the community, and celebrate all of the effort that everyone puts into protecting this place and caring about their neighbors. And sharing food, she says, is such a great way to do that.

“One of the things that’s so unique about Sitka and about Southeast Alaska is that food is really one of the core reasons that people have been able to thrive here for so long. Like these healthy, abundant salmon runs that provided for Indigenous people to really be able to flourish in this place,” Riley says. “So when I think about food, I think about my connection to place, land. I think about sharing all of these values that we want to instill in current and future generations about how to take care of a place. It’s really how we can take care of the place that nourishes us and provides us with so much.”

Riley says every year, community members bring a variety of dishes to the event, and usually there are a couple of really exciting, novel things that people might not get a chance to try in their everyday lives. One that stood out to her this year? The black bear enchiladas.

“This black bear was harvested this spring in 2025 and we made sure to save enough for the wild foods potluck,” says Jordan Tanguay, who, along with her partner, harvested the bear near Juneau, where they used to live.

This is their second year participating in the potluck.

“It’s great to see the community come together,” Tanguay says. “And understanding what it means to be a conservation society, I think that theme came through really strongly last year. This year, we’re talking about being connected to the land and why it matters to us. And I think during this time, I find myself really finding that joy of being outside, and a lot of our recreation in not only the state of Alaska, but elsewhere, is really based on things like this.”

Wrapping back around to Thomas towards the end of the potluck, I ask him what his favorite dish was, and the answer is no surprise.

“I think my favorite food was probably the bear enchiladas. Black bear enchiladas. That was very good,” he says. “I think it had some sort of jalapeno pepper in there, very spicy, and I loved it.”

But what’s even better than the bear enchiladas, he says, is the community. 

“It’s so fun that everybody showed up, like everybody’s here, almost everybody from around the island,” Thomas says. “A lot of people showed up. So it’s really fun.”

And, he says, he looks forward to trying even more local foods at next year’s event.