I have the blueberry picking gene. It runs in my family.
My dad’s an obsessive berry picker. It seems to have passed by my brothers, but I have a cousin who’s also afflicted. We love picking berries.
Mind you, the berry obsessed among us all live in prime blueberry country, so our devotion to all things blue is amply rewarded. They number in their billions all around us, and are free for the taking. And no store bought berry can compare taste-wise, with a wild blueberry that’s ripened naturally under the warmth of the sun.
In late spring every year, my dad drives to our favourite blueberry spots out in the bush, to “scout” this year’s crop. By mid-June we’re starting to chomp at the bit, eager to get out there.
Blueberry picking, when you live in Northern Ontario, can be more that just an outing on a summer’s day. It can become an obsession.
You drive to your favourite picking spot, usually in the mid-day sun on a blistering afternoon. You walk, scanning the ground for tell-tale blue. And if it’s been a bountiful year, you see lots of blue. Billions of berries. And, if you possess the berry picker gene, it may be hard to drag you away from your picking spot when it’s time to go home. When picking blueberries hours can pass, sweat can drip down your bag, the sun can burn you, and insects may plague you, but if you’re in a sweet berry spot, all sense of time (and indeed all sense) can disappear.
What’s a sunburn and some bug bites when the reward is litres of sun-warmed, delicious wild blueberries?
I live in Elliot Lake, Ontario. Smack in the middle of the Canadian Shield, and ancient, primeval boreal forest. Blueberry picking country. In a good year, I freeze 40 litres of wild blueberries. In my best ever year of picking (2011), I picked nearly 90 litres.
This is an area of old growth pine forests, granite outcrops, and countless lakes. The air is clean, and when you’re out picking sometimes it’s just you and the bears. Yes, they do go in the woods. And in blueberry patches.
This particular deposit wasn’t that fresh. But I still kept a wary eye out for bears. They do love blueberries. Don’t we all?
Although you can find blueberries anywhere, they love scrubby clearings. This is an area just off a logging road. It’s been clear cut (the trees chopped down) in the last few years, and has been replanted. As well as the pine seedlings, native plants have started to spread as well.
Blueberries love this area. I pick with my Dad, and he’s been rendered speechless by the spectacular berry picking we’ve enjoyed in this area in the last few years.
They literally hang like grapes.
Leave a Reply