Buckets of Blue

Day One - Friday, July 13

The heat alone would have been punishing enough.  The added humidity gave an air of cruelty to the day.  Together the temperature and moisture created the kind of oppressive heat that squeezes sweat right out of the skin.  Sweat that sits and waits for a breeze to cooly whisk it away, but on this day there was little wind to speak of.  This was a day meant for lounging near the pool or lake, or sipping an icy beverage under a shade tree, or retreating into the comforts of the great air conditioned indoors.

But none of those places are suitable habitat for wild blueberries.  If it's mid-to-late July in northern Minnesota two things are likely: 1) The heat will be unbearable, and 2) The blueberries will be ripe.  Berries make their own schedule and will not hang out for long waiting to be harvested; when the bushes are mottled with blue it's time to be in the patch, regardless of conditions.  So on a day best spent anywhere but a sun-filled patch of forest, that's exactly where I was as I bent to grab a cluster of blue from near my ankles.

Gathering wild blueberries can be, in a word, agonizing.  Soaring heat indexes, savage deer flies, clouds of mosquitos, and rough terrain are all to be expected on most blueberry days.  Add in the physical strain required of picking fruit that's generally less than a foot off the ground - sore knees, aching hips, and a lower back that screams for mercy - and it's easy to figure out why a wild blueberry patch is, more often than not, a rather lonely place to be.  

A day that started with a chainsaw in my hands before the sun had even begun to melt away the morning's dew, followed by a few hours on a tractor turning the soil of food plots with a plow, now found me knee-deep in regrowth foliage an hour's drive from where I woke.  Neither my parents nor my daughters are fond of pursuing the wild blueberry; my parents spent too many years accompanying my berry-obsessed grandfather on his all day picking parades, and my daughters have heard too many of my parents' grumbling musings about those trips.  So alone I made my journey, and alone I picked my way through the outer edges of this recently logged section of land that filled many of my grandpa's buckets with blue.

A feller can't stop along an interstate highway to pick wild blueberries.  No, scenes like this....

...are reserved for those who are willing to veer off the beaten path.  Wild blueberries and pavement do not exist in harmony; anyone lucky enough to receive directions to a blueberry patch will be challenged to remember the exact "turn left, turn right" cadence of navigation.  A common rule handed down by berry pickers of old says "the worse the road, the better the berries".

I had driven northeast on Highway 71, across the Gemmell bog and past the ghost village of Margie to Hicks' Ridge, always my grandpa's first destination when he thought the wild blueberries might be starting to ripen, as it has become for me.  Yes, I've committed a cardinal sin of berry picking by naming the exact location of my patch....except I haven't.  The Ridge is a labyrinth of "roads" and trails twisting through a mixture of pine forests growing out of sandy soil and coniferous bogs standing atop layers of peat moss.  Finding Hicks' Ridge is easy enough (there's a State Forestry Department sign along the highway announcing the entrance to the road, for crying out loud) but finding the best berries......well, that's your job.

And it appeared nobody had attempted that job as I meandered past the gravel pits and into the first of the soaring stands of pine.  Recent rains had pebbled the sandy road with the tracks of water drops, and my tires were the first to disturb the plinkety pattern they had left behind.  Twice I had to cross mud holes (with my Honda Civic, mind you) that a day earlier would have been impassable, and not once was I stopped by blown-over trees I feared I'd find.  Now that I was comfortably settled into my patch - comfortable in a "sweating profusely with an already aching back" kind of way - I pushed away the thoughts of "too hot" and "gosh darn bugs" to instead focus on the complete isolation, the near silence, and the above average berry crop.

Adding to the physical strain of harvesting wild blueberries is the time it takes to gather a worthwhile amount.  Most wild berries are smaller than tame blueberries, so filling a pail takes a lot of berries, and a lot of time.  Bushes like this:

certainly help - note the size, the lack of green berries, and how exposed they are (not hidden beneath layers of leaves).  Too often bushes like this are the exception and not the norm, making the filling of a pail a slow, tedious, and painful process.  And for some reason the upper half of the bucket fills much more slowly than the bottom half...perhaps the blueberry gods enjoy cruel pranks.

Just over two hours after the first rattling plunks of berries danced across the bottom of my bucket I dropped in the final handful, topping off my first five quarts of the day.  Being a slow picker, two hours is my barometer for measuring how good the berry crop is.  I pick slow because I pick clean - I stop occasionally to throw out leaves, twigs, or green berries - and I tend to let myself get stuck on bushes or areas that aren't necessarily "bucket fillers".  Or I walk more than pick, always thinking "If this spot is good, the next spot will be better."  I had done all of the above as I filled the first bucket, yet still managed to do so very near my two hour goal.  With one bucket done and time enough for one more, I found a semi-shady spot in the pines for a rest and a delicious lunch of luke-warm water.  My back ached.  My clothes were soaked with sweat.  My patience for the ever-present buzz of deer flies had worn thin.  But here I was, accomplishing a task two years in the making, with nary a hint of another human within miles of me.  The breeze that was too light to be felt on the ground was strong enough in the treetops to provide a murmuring rush as it passed through the pine needles.  The heavy air, suffocating at times, provided one benefit - it pushed the scent of those needles downward, creating a natural pine aromatherapy no candle or diffuser could ever match.  

Though the wild blueberry has been coveted by humans for centuries, the stars must align just so for there to be a crop to harvest.  A heavy snow pack for insulation in winter and moisture in spring is the first step towards bountiful berries.  The timing of the last cold night of spring is crucial; too often a mid-to-late May frost will wipe out any hopes of July berries by burning up exposed blossoms.  Finally, periodic soaking rains in June and early July are necessary for helping small green berries become full and juicy orbs of blue.  Last year a late light frost and minimal June rains wiped away hopes for even a below average berry crop.  But this past winter provided plenty of snow, the final frost was in early May, and the rains have fallen beautifully all summer....the perfect storm for a blueberry lover.

The first half of the second bucket was filled in less than an hour.  I was finding more bucket filling bushes and that, along with my renewed energy after break time, had me on an above average pace with hopes of being done sooner than planned. (Even the most ardent berry pickers get worn down by heat and bugs!)  But too soon the bucket fillers became sparse and thoughts of bluer pastures pulled me beyond the outer edges of the area I knew had decent picking.  Wild raspberry and Juneberry bushes were plentiful, but my rambling (and stumbling) explorations did little to advance the mound of blueberries closer to the top of the bucket.  Moving back to my original area I resumed picking, but the sweat was pouring off me now, dripping into my glasses and eyes and causing many delays each time I had to stop and wipe away the salty blindness.  The deer flies, present all day, had recruited mosquitos to help with their quest to drive me insane...probably should have sprayed on a fresh layer of bug spray during break time.

Bugs!  The bane of berry pickers young and old and in-between.  Rare is the berry patch, regardless of variety, free from the buzzing, humming, biting, and stinging of summertime bugs.  Thick applications of insect repellant helps, skin covering clothing helps more.  But therein lies the conundrum of the wild berry picker - wear long pants and long sleeves to keep the bugs at bay but succumb to heat stroke, or dress cool and get eaten alive?  Most prefer to take their chances with the heat stroke, but even long clothes combined with repellant can't stop deer flies from thumping against one's head, or mosquitos from finding the exposed skin the spray couldn't.

Finally, nearly two-and-a-half hours after starting, my second bucket was heaped to its top.  Five hours of heat and bugs had taken their toll, the joy of being done equalling that which I felt at the beginning of my first bucket.  As I rolled along the single-lane sandy road toward the highway that would take me home, water bottle empty but air conditioning on full capacity, I tempered the aches and pains and exhaustion with the knowledge that I'd have ten quarts of berries in my freezer, not enough to last until next summer but enough to give my daughters and I some berry sauces and muffins and maybe even a pie or two.  I had driven out of Hicks' Ridge with two full buckets a few other times, but never more than two and sometimes only one.  A tough day of picking was, in the end, worth it.  To echo the words of my grandpa after one of our final berry trips together - I felt like I was going to die, but at least I got my berries.

Day Two - Monday, July 16

It was happening!  Opportunity had knocked in the midst of blueberry season, and for once I was able to fling open the door and charge through.  For years I've listened to my dad's brothers spin tales of berry picking so good that filling a bucket in an hour is considered average.  Now, finally, my schedule aligned with their schedules, and the peak of the berry season was upon us to boot!  At 7:00 a.m. my Northome uncle and aunt and I began a 70 mile drive to meet the Baudette uncle, who had been scouting various patches in the Lake of the Woods region and would guide us to the spots he felt looked best.

Again I travelled north, straight north this time, and again my route crossed miles and miles of desolate bog.  If the Gemmell bog I traversed on Friday was lonely, the bogland north of Red Lake is completely friendless.  Both places are nice reminders that the planet still has plenty of undisturbed wild places left, but both places are undisturbed for a reason.  Deep, water-filled ditches line both sides of Highway 72 on its straight path towards Canada, ditches that appear as moats to keep intruders from the lands beyond.  As though anyone would intrude on these floating masses of moss, these lands fit for mosquitos and little else.

Bog crossed, uncle met, we headed west out of Baudette towards the patch deemed best due to less pickers and bigger berries.  The 70 miles to the meeting place now became another 30 to the picking place, and each time we transitioned from one road to the next the new road became less of a road.  Eventually roads gave way to grassy paths through the woods, the last few thousand yards unmarked by any vehicle prior to ours.  If the word "boonies" needed a photo, this was the area to shoot.

Some spots need to remain secret.  On a good berry year even an average patch will hold plenty of blueberries for any pickers eager to fill some pails.  But a below average year for berries will require an above average location if a picker has any hopes of putting blueberries in the freezer.  Wild blueberry pickers are a rare breed, but high quality blueberry patches are rarer still.  There are pieces of information in the world that should always be kept hidden - social security numbers, productive fishing holes, favorite cookie recipes - and wild blueberry patches top the list.

The stories I'd heard were true.  As we drove I began seeing blotches of blue along the path, and by the time we stopped I was so excited I thought I was going to wet myself.  It was hard to walk without stepping on berries, but easy to walk from spot to spot.  The lay of the land was flat with little to no undergrowth obscuring the berry bushes, many of which were loaded with clusters of blue.  My first bucket was full in 90 minutes, but before I could celebrate the speed at which I was picking I stumbled into an even better area.  In the midst of mature pines and adolescent spruces lay an open glade smaller than my house, nearly every inch of it covered with bucket filling bushes.  Large, bursting berries hung in clumps of six or more, each bush draped with six or more clumps.  I crawled from one side of the glade to the other, criss-crossing back and forth dropping handful after handful of blue into my pail.  In less than an hour my pail was full and still there were more berries to be picked.  When I had completed my passes across this blueberry utopia I had filled half of another bucket, and had most assuredly picked the best patch I would ever find.

Until we found a better one.  At this first stop I had filled three pails in far less time it took to fill two on Friday.  After the third we gathered at the car to rest and eat and share stories of past trips - my companions agreed that this was the best picking they'd had in this area, but not as good as two years prior in a different patch an hour west.  Enjoying the break we decided to drive a while and explore, maybe find another patch that could give us each another bucket of blue.  Remember, prior to this trip I had never picked more than two pails of berries in a single year....and already on this day I had picked......

Regardless of the patch, chasing the wild blueberry is a solitary pastime.  Whether picking alone or with others, rare is the sound of human disturbance.  The symphony provided by the berry patch includes the murmur of pine needles, the whistle of the chickadee, the buzzing of flies, and the scattered calls of various bird species.  The lonesome picker tends to have a patch to himself; even groups of pickers will scatter in search of their own best area, ultimately leading to the sensation of being alone in the wilderness.  Perhaps this is the lure of the berry patch for some, the deterrent for others.

We followed the grassy trails back out to the main dirt road and drove deeper into the wilderness, passing promising areas but nothing that caused our driver to lock up the brakes in amazement.  We stopped once and picked a bit in a spot that had nice berries right at the edge of the road, though nothing about the picking enthused us much, so before long we were driving again.  More woods, more twists and turns, more scattered bushes of berries.  And then we found it.  To our right, the side of the car my aunt and I were on, were thick clusters of bushes hanging with blue.  "Stop!" came from our mouths at the same time, but before we could pluck more than a few handfuls of berries my uncles, who exited the car opposite us, excitedly called us to their side of the road.  And there, laid out on a carpet of moss under a stand of black spruce, was a sea of blue my uncles would later say was the best patch they had ever seen.  Huge clusters of huge berries hung from bushes in all directions.  In less than 45 minutes my pail was full, and I'd have easily filled another had time allowed.  But Baudette uncle had an evening meeting, and Northome uncle's hips were begging for rest, so with one more full bucket each (and another half for me) we loaded up and admired our day's harvest:

Nature's only rule states that she will follow no rules.  Thus, expecting perfection from Nature overwhelmingly leads to disappointment.  Bright sunny days can have too much wind; a needed rain comes down too hard.  Fresh snow looks pretty as it falls but piles up too high for skiing or not high enough for sledding.  With so many variables at play - some dependent on others, others dependent on nothing - it can seem nearly impossible for an outdoor experience to elevate itself to a perfect status.  When...if an outdoor event plays out as positively as possible, savor every breath of it and hold it in memory for the remainder of days.

On the drive south I less than half-jokingly called this the best day of my life.  Certainly, without question, without even a hint of compare it was the best berry picking day of my life.  You've heard about the berries - what I didn't mention yet is the weather, which was stunningly perfect.  A mix of sun and clouds, temps that were warm but not hot, a northwesterly breeze that was cool but not cold.  The bugs that had been relentless during my picking on Friday were mostly non-existent on this day, whether because of the wind or the temps was unclear....but who cares?  No bugs!  I got to spend a day with family I see far less than I should while also having plenty of alone time while we all picked our own patches.  The utter exhaustion that consumed me following Friday's picking was absent on this day, replaced by a giddy enthusiasm that comes from having lived the rare day that far surpassed expectations.

Nearly 30 quarts of berries traveled with me to my home.  The last few muffins sit on the counter next to the last few pieces of uneaten pie, with another whole pie hidden in the freezer alongside the two dozen quart bags of berries I was able to freeze.  Never have I gathered as many wild blueberries as I did this year, and perhaps never again will I experience a day like last Monday.  The stains of blue are washed from my jeans, the bug spray washed out of my shirt, and the aches and pains of two full days of bending and kneeling and crawling are mostly gone.  But the memories of that berry picking weekend?  Those stay with me, with the hopes of someday recounting its tales to a new generation of pickers as we scour the great north woods searching for buckets of blue.