An Ode to Sam Thayer

Few people living today have made a greater impact on me than Sam Thayer.
I’m far from the only person who has said these words, he is indeed the world’s foremost forager today.
However, I’m certain nobody has the origin story that I do.
It all began in a Little Caesars Pizza, without either of us knowing what had begun.

In 2018 I was in Florida, preparing for my experiment of breaking free from the global, industrial food system through the attempt to grow and forage 100% of my food for a year. There was a class on making hickory nut milk which called me in. Sam turned out to be the instructor. I got to talking with him, and we realized that we both were from rural Northern Wisconsin, some 2,000 miles away. It turned out we even both lived in the city of Ashland for some time.
Sam was he manager of Little Caesars and I was the lifeguard stopping in for my lunch break on many a shift.
10 years older than me, we made no connection beyond him selling me the pizza I ate.
But we both vaguely remembered each other.
Wow, what an interesting reconnection we both thought…

He became an important teacher in my life. He had much of the knowledge I needed to accomplish my objectives. A couple years after the completion of my experiment, I ran into Sam again, now at a conference in Kentucky we were both speaking at. We shared a home for a night and that’s when we learned that he had lived right across the street from me. My living room window looked directly into his.

I strongly recall both the manager of Little Caesars and this neighboring house had a particular aura of darkness around them. But that darkness was nowhere to be seen in these interactions.

As I continued my journey, foraging became an incredible passion of mine, a way to deeply connect with Earth and live in alignment with my beliefs. Now spending more time in my homeland I tuned into Sam’s series of foraging books. They became my guides for living in relationship with the plants and Earth. Day by day, month by month, I could feel myself transforming into a liberated and connected human. Sam’s writings played an immeasurable role.

Then I attended the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival, which he started many years ago, both as an attendee and later as the keynote speaker. I always appreciated the opportunity to go on a plant walk with Sam in person. But now, it wasn’t the plants that I was focused on. It was Sam himself. Over the years both from afar and by his side I have watched Sam grow into his role as a teacher, leader and role model in the foraging community. I have seen him cry. I have watched his heart open. I believe I have seen his gratitude for the plants expand greatly, along with his ability to express this.
Sam will be the first to tell you that he had some dark days growing up in Northern Wisconsin. He almost didn’t make it… His light almost flickered for the last time…

Today, it is an immense joy to see his light shine so brightly. In my circle, it is hard to have a conversation without Sam’s name coming up. He has influenced so many of us through his utter dedication to the plant, animal and human communities. When you’re with Sam you know it’s not just about eating wild food. It’s about growing into skilled, resilient and loving humans who show this through our daily interactions with the life we share this home with.
I consider Sam to be a genius, to watch him is to see a brilliance that is one in many thousands. And with any brilliant human, you will always experience some awkward moments. Like the time when I hadn’t seen him for at least a year and the first thing he said to me in a crowded room was, “Hey, if you added a B in front of your name you’d be Brob!” I’d say Sam’s on the spectrum. This is part of what gives him his super power of hyper focusing in on a topic, to the point of becoming one of the world’s top experts on the topic. And the ability to perhaps continue speaking about a plant or ecosystem that you were done with talking about 10 minutes ago. But he’s managed to hone it all in so well, as to be one of the most effective story tellers I’ve ever met. His stories change lives forever.

A few times Sam has been in the audience of one of my talks, just as he was at a conference in Green Bay this week. To have Sam sitting there in front of me, as I shared the story of my recently completed year of foraging 100% of my food, was the full revolution in this foraging journey. To hear him say that my foraging journey is an inspiration to him, well that lights me right up. How beautiful that the spark within him, lit the fire in me, that then stokes his fire even more. What we are, we create more of in the world around us.

We are foragers.
Spend time with either of us, and there’s a good chance you won’t see the world the same again.
You may just see that food and medicine is growing freely and abundantly all around you. That you are not separate from nature… That you are nature, and nature is you… That liberation comes through a relationship with the land and all beings we share this home with.
We are foragers.
Interconnected and inseparable.

Learn from Sam Thayer: Website – Classes – Books – Facebook page – TikTok – YouTube

The Forager’s Harvest:​ A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants

Nature’s Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants

Incredible Wild Edibles 36 Plants that Can Change Your Life

Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America

Dancing wild rice with Sam at the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival 2021.

Sam taking us on a foraging walk in Summer 2021: