Salmonberry.

 

I grew up eating salmonberries, as well as salal, and when lucky, huckleberries.  Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), a member of the rose family (Rosaceae),  is a deciduous shrub, with 3 leaflets, which flowers in early spring with berries are ripening by late spring - early summer, harvested til late July.The berries are a golden yellow which turn to orange then to red. It can grow to 12 feet, is perennial, and has thorns along the stems.  The flowers have stamens in the centre of 5 pink petals. 

Indigenous people along the coast ate both the berries and the new shoots, with the new shoots being picked in spring, peeled, and eaten raw or steamed. Central and Northern First Nations ate them with Goolichan grease or dried salmon spawn; and all ate them with salmon. The berries were usually eaten fresh as they are quite watery and don't keep well.

The Swainson's thrush is called the salmonberry bird in many languages, being associated with the ripening of the berries.

A Nuu-chah-nulth berry batch would be harvested only by the owner until they had enough for a great feast, then the berries could be harvested by all.

Salmonberries have been eaten in Alaska for thousands of years. They are used in a tradional  dish called akutaq which consists of animal oils, possibly ground fish, water or fallen snow, and whipped by hand til foamy. It was used as a food for travelling. 

Salmonberry leaves  and roots are astringent; the bark and leaves can be made into a poultice to treat sores and burns. Diarrhea and dysentery can be treated drinking as a tea, I am guessing this mean the leaves, but I am not quite sure.

Apparently a purple to blue dye may be obtained from the berry (I'm assuming when it it becomes overripe into a darker red/purple colour) and the shrub stems can be dried and used as pipes.

Sources:

Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples

Nancy J. Turner

Royal BC Museum

Most recent edition, 2010

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast

Pojar-MacKinnon

BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing

Most recent edition, 2004.

Plants for  a Future Database

https://pfaf.org/user/Default.aspx

https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Akutaq_EskimoIceCream.htm

This will likely be edited a couple times, allergies have been making me feel like rubbish so probably I'll add to this a bit when I feel better.

Photos are mine/and from the web, I will be replacing web ones with my own when able. I had some computer issues and lost a lot of photos so am starting from scratch somewhat.