Katrina Blair, local forager, grower, educator and plant expert – and the founder of nonprofit Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango – died Friday after a battle with cancer. She was 56.
Blair was well-known in the Durango community for her foraging expertise; love of plants, animals and people; patient community teachings; and steady leadership of Turtle Lake Refuge, which she founded in 1998.
The refuge’s mission is to “celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands,” according to the nonprofit’s website. The group forages, grows and prepares local, wild and living foods from the Turtle Lake Community Farm and serves them in food and drinks at the Turtle Lake Cafe on East Third Avenue in Durango. The nonprofit is also known for educating students and community members on sustainability, gardening and the value of wild foods.
A lunch was held Tuesday at the Turtle Lake Cafe to honor Blair’s life and impact.
Foods that held a special connection to Blair – including burdock soup – were served.
“It was the first thing she taught me how to make,” said Turtle Lake Cafe chef Catherine Girillos, who spent more than two hours collecting wild burdock to prepare for the meal.
She said she sees Blair around every corner.
“This morning, we were gathered to set our intentions, which we try to do every day, and just expressing the love, being of service, and I could feel her coming into the circle,” she said. “She’s having a great time. She comes in and she laughs.”
“Magic” was a word frequently used to describe Blair.
“She walks in beauty,” said Debra Galbraith, a friend of 20 years, who accompanied Blair on a northern New Mexico book tour for her 2014 book, “The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival.” Blair also wrote “Local Wild Life – Turtle Lake Refuge’s Recipes for Living Deep,” which was published in 2009.
“She wasn’t judgmental,” Galbraith said. “Part of her creed was to lead by example, and she really did. … I’ve never heard her say, ‘I’m a vegan, I’m a vegetarian.’ She just would be, and live.”
Galbraith said Blair taught her to embody gratitude.
“Before every meal, she would sing a song about gratitude for the food – her river song: ‘Thank you waters … .’ That’s who she was. To me, she’s a river lily, a bee making honey, and a bird flying high, the dirt beneath my feet and a turtle.”
Patricia O’Kane, who first met Blair at the Durango Farmers Market when Blair was a child, and has been a visitor to the Turtle Lake Cafe since it opened 20 years ago, said Blair influences how she walks through life.
“My mantra after meeting with Katrina was, ‘What would Katrina do?’” she said. “... Because she moved with such an idea of beauty and grace and strength.”
Blair’s nephews, Galen and Dylan Blair, remembered her as a “wild woman” who cared deeply for animals, plants and the wilds.
Blair taught the Snowburners Ski Program at Purgatory Resort, Galen said, which he and his brother were a part of when they were young. He recalled Blair making snow cones for the students by dumping jars of green juice in the snow.
She taught attendees at Dylan’s graduation party how to make flutes out of dandelions, Dylan said, and raised multiple rescue geese over the course of her life – one example of many of her deep appreciation for animals.
Dylan said she created community connections that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.
“She brought a lot of people together who had these common interests, or maybe didn’t feel understood by other groups,” he said. “... (She) really created a strong family network of people who may have never met.”
Blair’s mother, Pat Blair, co-founded Durango Natural Foods Co-Op, and her father, who died in 2015, worked as a geologist and had an interest in mountaineering. Her brother, Kurt Blair, died in a climbing accident in 2024.
A longtime friend, who asked to be identified only as “another weed Katrina loved,” said Blair had an endless supply of acceptance and love for people, plants and beings of all kinds.
“She loved everything for what it was – that’s why she loved weeds,” he said. He first met Katrina around 30 years ago, when she was living in a tipi near Turtle Lake.
“She could get me to eat anything – alfalfa, black-eyed Susan, wheatgrass,” he shared through tears and laughter. “... She helped people understand the world and be at peace with it. Some magic is gone from Durango.”
George Edwards, a friend of Blair’s, said Blair watched his daughter, Gracee, when he was experiencing heart problems and attempting to be a single parent to a 2-year-old Gracee, who is now 8.
Blair would sometimes keep Gracee overnight when Edwards needed support or was receiving medical care. He had intended to legally entrust Gracee to Blair in the event his medical problems caused his death, he said.
“I loved Katrina,” he said. “... Just the idea that she was willing to take care of my daughter when I was so sick, and she was so healthy.”
Blair had a formative experience with plants at age 11 while floating on Haviland Lake in the San Juan National Forest, according to reporting by 5280, and began foraging for wild, edible plants in her teens.
Her 1991 senior project at Colorado College, where she studied biology, was titled, “The Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants of the San Juan Mountains.” In 1997, she completed a master’s degree in Holistic Health Education from John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California.
Several organizations and individuals paid tribute to Blair this week in online statements, including the Durango Farmer’s Market; Animas High School, where Blair taught workshops; and the Telluride Mushroom Festival, which Blair was an integral part of for 20 years.
Blair famously hiked from Durango to Telluride for the festival for 15 years and would serve wild plants collected on the walk at the annual Wild Foods dinner.
A group of attendees at Tuesday’s Turtle Lake lunch – many in tears – held hands and sang a song called “Mother of the Water” to honor Blair.
“Dreams of new beginnings, streams and waterfalls / mother of the water, mother of us all,” sang the group.
Blair’s impact will live on, Galen said.
“She’s leaving the world with a sense of joy with the land, and with eating good foods and exploring and following your giddy, as she always loved to say.”
epond@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Katrina Blair’s father died in 2014. He died in 2015.
