Fiddlehead ferns are now being marketed in northern Alberta by Fiddlehead Farms located at Driftpile, in the Lesser Slave Lake area.
                Fiddlehead Farms is part of an enterprise known as Home Grown Products which was established by six people who are interested in promoting natural foods. They sell wild teas, such as mint, yarrow, rose-hips, and other herbs.
                There are some hundred thousand species of so-called non­flowering plants, that is plants that reproduce without bearing flowers. These range from microscopic bacteria to the largest of trees ~ the redwood, and include various groups of algae and fungi, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, ferns and their allies, cycads, conifers, and scores of smaller, rarer groups.
                The fiddlehead fern, though, is especially. sought by certain connoiseurs fqr it delectability. The ostrich-fern (Matteuccia pensylvanica) is properly known by that name, but many other ferns have edible fronds that are shaped like the curled ends of violins.
                A similar type of fern (M. struthiopteris) is gathered in New Brunswick with such enthusiasm that about half-a-million pounds are picked each year, of which more than 100,000 pounds are trozen for export.
                Some of the partners in Home Grown Products are employed full-time in small-scale farming. Another partner is buildilig a thriving wooden toy manufacturing business: Terry Anderson of Joussard makes all the toys himself, while his wife, Kerry, makes a large variety of stuffed dolls. All the products are known as "Fun Farm Toys."
                A sixth partner, Dale Rogers, is in the process of setting up a herbage and tree nursery. He plans to experiment with various tree varieties that he thinks can be adapted to growing conditions in northern Alberta.
                Dale is a native of Prince Edward Island who came west several years ago. He received a bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Alberta, and then moved to Driftpile where he has spent the last four years. Being a Maritimer he knows all about the fiddleheads because they are considered a delicacy in the Atlantic provinces.
                In 1975, their first year of operation, Dale and his partners picked about 100 pounds of fiddleheads and marketed them through the farmers market in the nearby town of High Prairie for one dollar a pound. So great was the demand that a few minutes after the fiddleheads appeared on the counter, people were being turned away empty-handed.
                "The main production period for fiddlehead ferns is from the beginning of May to the end of the month. Yields vary according to environ mental conditions and, for this reason, it is difficult to assess yield in terms of pounds per acre," said Dale.
                However, the more you pick them, the more they produce, and they like shady, moist conditions.
                The species pensylvanicaf ranges rom Virginia to the Arctic Circle, from Newfoundland to British Col­umbia, and grows in swamps and moist open woods where it can reach a height of five feet. Its abundance often gives an impression of tropical rainforests to wanderers in the Lesser Slave Lake area bush, where it is very cornmon.
                Since it is the first green plant to appear in the spring, it has always been in great demand by local residents at the end of a long, cold winter. Early in the spring, before they straighten out, when the young shoots are snipped off and lightly boiled in water, they make a fine vegetable with a sweet nutty flavor.
                Fiddlehead Farms hopes to sell their fiddleheads to wholesale and retail outlets in Edmonton. At the present Alberta imports this delicacy fcom New Brunswick.
                A fiddlehead recipe book is distributed, at one dollar a copy, through the High Prairie farmers' market" and to anybody else who wants it.