Vanilla

A Travel Essay by Kerstin Schulz

Chasing fall colors in the North Cascades we find ourselves socked in by the smoke at White Pass. Early October, a little soon for color in the valley, our high hopes for foliage in the high country are dashed by the Goat Rocks wildfire. Even with the windows up and interior air circulating the smoke stings our eyes, taps at our lungs, the world suspended in a murky crystal ball. 

At Dog Lake just a few long curves past the pass, there is finally enough clarity to inhale. We take it easy on the path above the lake, breathing softly through the copper smoke holding the light hostage between patches of fir and cedar shadow. Dead needle char still tickles my throat when the first fugitive whiff of vanilla fingers my nose. I think, maybe, it’s on the lam from someone’s kitchen or maybe a vagrant tropical breeze. I ask H. if he can smell it, but all he gets is smoke. Intermittently, vanilla continues to whisper sweetly along the trail.

I speculate that it might be from a burning Jeffrey pine. One of those mature trees that envelope you in vanilla when you hold it in a tight embrace and stick your nose into the warm creases of its bark. But then I think we are probably too far north for Jeffrey pines.  Also, the trail is free of telltale ankle-twisting pinecones.

The groundcover on the slope above us is gold and buff. The shrubs in the wetland below are yawning yellow. I have found my color. Insects in the marsh emit the satisfying hum of a moonshine still, telling us that cougars and bears are off hunting elsewhere. Even the mosquitos are minding their manners and leave us alone.

But I’m still wondering about the vanilla. The next day I ask a Ranger about it. He says he’s been fighting fires in the Wenatchee Wilderness for twelve years and he has never smelled vanilla in the smoke. Privately I wonder whether it is a male/female thing; I’ve heard that women have a better sense of smell. I am also a little concerned that I might be having an olfactory delusion.

Two days later we discover hunting season for waterfowl is open. Hunters with their rigs and campers are lounging by the gate of the last wildlife refuge on the southern end of the Yakima valley. The refuge is closed to hunters on Fridays. However, it is open to birders. We salute the hunters with our binoculars and drive to the closed refuge station.

There are very few birds. A pair of mallards.  A red tailed hawk. A red-winged blackbird on his cattail swing. The rotted slurry scent of marsh hints at the open water hidden behind a scrim of tules and blackberry canes. There is still the faintest tang of woodsmoke in the air.  Unfortunately, the mosquitos didn’t get the Friday closure memo. In no time our arms and knees and ears become fair game to the bloodthirsty bullies who drive us back to the car.

Later, scrolling through my photos of the trip I come across a picture of the gold and buff groundcover at Dog Lake. I decide to call it “Vanilla Leaf Rising”.

 No. 

Could it be that simple? 

I look it up.

According to Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Achlys triphylla (Vanilla Leaf) has “a vanilla-like fragrance when dry.” (Pojar and MacKinnon, eds., 1994, p. 312) The notes continue with: “Vanilla-leaf leaves were used by the Saanich of Vancouver Island, and probably by other groups in the plant’s range, as an insect repellent. The Saanich dried the leaves and hung them in bunches in houses to keep flies and mosquitos away.” I believe I’ve captured my beguiling runaway aroma and solved the mystery of the well-behaved mosquitos.

In late May, I return to a seep in Hoyt Arboretum where I know Vanilla Leaf grows. A young family passes me on the trail and I try to act nonchalant as I palm the plastic bag I’ve brought for specimens.  When they’re gone I quickly pluck three leaves, a root and a flower. Trying to ignore my guilty conscience, I gently fold my loot into my pack. At home I hang my stolen goods on a cupboard knob next to my desk. As the leaves dry they remain a pale green and rattle in a breeze from the open window. They do not smell like vanilla. They do not smell like hay. Or clover. They smell sweet like themselves. Perhaps it was their buff colored death on a hillside in autumn that triggered that homelike exotic vanilla scent. Unless I can replicate the exact circumstances of the hike at Dog Lake I suppose I’ll never know for sure, but who knew that something dead could smell so sweet and also keep the bugs at bay. 

BIO: Kerstin Schulz is a German American writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry can be found in Here There Be Dragons Anthology(Hiraeth Publishing, 2024), Bards West Anthology (Local Gems Press, 2024), Cirque, Amethyst Review, and River Heron Review, among others. You can find her creative nonfiction in Herstry, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Relief, Wanderlust, Ruminate and in Raft.

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