Huckleberry season come and gone , though I’m sure I could still find a lone berry fermenting on a branch somewhere at this time of year. This years picking season started up in South-east Alaska, out the backroads from Hoonah. Salmon season done (not really, it continues into late September) we turned to picking for our personal use only. In early August it was already damp and cool…are not almost all South-east summers?!!…so began by wearing fingerless wool gloves but switched to the thick dishwashing gloves or the blue gloves so commonly worn by fishermen.
The bushes were dripping with ripe fat blueberries. The open forest was boggy and wet with much less undergrowth than seen further south on Vancouver Island……My senses were awake listening for any sound that broke the silence. A brown bear maybe. The calm air was disturbed by the north wind that started blowing away the low cloud cover unveiling spectacular mountains with speckled snow patches and a monochromatic green landscape. Vibrant sun, suddenly so intense that it seemed to pierce the skin like a minute before the cold north was doing. In a clear boggy meadow the ground was covered in little red berries. Cloudberries. Apparently the Haida and the Tsimshian picked these berries in the summer when they were hard and stored them with grease in bentwood boxes under water (Pojar;Mackinnon,1994). “On Haida Gwaii the fruiting plants have become scarce” (Pojar;Mackinnon, 1996, pg. 80) since the introduction of deer but in Hoonah probably because of fluctuating deer populations due to the severity of the winters the berries were plentiful. Magical. I retreated and only took the memory of the moment.
Down on Vancouver Island at the end of August the Black and Red Huckleberries were just as ripe and prolific but the low bush blueberries high in the alpine were scarce (or from what I found). It was equally spectacular picking berries here. A towering mountain, the rumbling of a stream and my peripheral vision always aware that a movement may mean a cougar. I scan the terrain and look for unnatural patterns or colours that stand out which could mean a black bear , a deer or a watching cougar but see nothing. The air is warm here, not harsh like the cold glacier air of up north. Even if I was blindfolded I would know where I was from the different feel of the air on my face.
Berry picking….foraging….what more could put one at peace with this world. It’s all a memory now, a freezer full of memory that I will eat away all winter.
December 30, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Alaska, Blueberries, huckleberries, Vancouver Island | Leave a comment
Room to Be 