2024 Planked trout dinner

On Saturday, August 17, 2024, around 100 people gathered to enjoy good food, community, and to learn about a unique but historic way of cooking fish.

Planked-fish cooking has been around for centuries and has been documented along the North Shore as far back as the late 1800s. Historians widely accept that the first records of planked fish came from the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, where they would attach salmon to cedar planks and cook by a fire. European colonizers quickly adopted the practice, incorporating it into their own culinary traditions. As westward expansion brought more people into contact with abundant freshwater fisheries, planked trout dinners became a staple of outdoor gatherings and celebrations. These communal meals fostered a sense of community and shared heritage. It is not uncommon to find cookbooks from the 18th century that include recipes for planked fish, and George Washington held planked shad cookouts at Mount Vernon (shad is a type of fish).

In more recent years, it’s traditional in this area to use whitefish or lake trout for planked dinner as attendees saw at the event.

Lake trout plankers/cookers and fire tenders Duane Ege, Tom Nelson, Jake Jacobsen, Greg Olson, Matthew Brown, Doug Andrus, and Gene Erickson spent much of the afternoon attaching the fish to the planks, seasoning the fish, and then slow-cooking the filets around the fire. Each filet took around 45-50 minutes to cook. When asked how he knew when the fish was done, Nelson laughed and said “the eye knows better than any timer”. The fire had to remain very hot throughout the entire cooking time in order to achieve even and thorough cooking.

This historic method of cooking drew in not only those who registered for the event, but also those who happened to be in the area and wanted to see what was going on.

Kitchen crew Patty Nelson, Aliya Marxen, Heidi Jacobsen, Lois Clay, Salle Dawson, Katie Clark, and Ann Sullivan prepped the food, washed dishes, prepared dessert, and served the meal to hungry guests.

Bakers and volunteer heroes Barb Backlund, Myron Bursheim, Kathy Cardoza, Margaret Hedstrom, Jen Lee, Laurie Spry, Lyle Spry, Dennis Waldrop, Teresa Bragg, Katie Clark, and Philis Anderson helped wherever it was needed, including but not limited to taking reservations and checking people in, running errands, cleaning, and much, much more.

We are also grateful to WTIP's Chuck Olsen and M Baxley for stopping in to cover the event, which you can find here.

A HUGE thank you to each and every one of our volunteers, staff, member supporters, and everyone who came to the event for helping to create such a fun evening!