Stalking the Wild Blueberry

Copper River Record   October 4, 2018
​By Robin Mayo
Along the western end of the Denali Highway, from Paxson to Tangle Lakes, there are dozens of places to pull off the road.  Some are real pullouts, others just wide shoulders, or places where the ditch is shallow enough to make good parking.  And in early September, it seems nearly every one holds a vehicle or two.  This time of year, chances are good the occupants are either hunters or berry pickers. It’s usually pretty easy to tell which is which, although occasionally you can be surprised when a well-armed team in camo shows up to claim a Subaru.
My Mom and I spent several days roaming the area recently, filling our buckets with Blueberries.  A gentleman in the campground asked us how long we’d been picking berries together.  Or he may have been asking how long we have been coming to Tangle Lakes for a blueberry pilgrimage, but nonetheless I blurted out “53 years” to his surprise.  But it is true, I have no doubt that the first Autumn of my life I was bundled in a backpack and taken berry picking.  Soon I had my own berry bucket, a tin can painted dusky blue, with a cord to go around my neck.  It wasn’t very big, and I remember occasionally accumulating an inch or two of berries, ready to eat, spill, or possibly even contribute to the family supply in my Mom’s big bucket.
We had a few false starts before we found a spot to settle down and really pick.  Sometimes the brush is much taller than it looks, or the ground turns to swamp, or there just aren’t good berries.  But we did eventually find what we call a “Gobby Spot,” a place where you can just sit down and pick, hardly needing to move.
From our spot, we can hear the traffic rumbling by on the Denali Highway.  At the end of the Labor Day weekend, much of the traffic is outbound, big rigs hauling swamp buggies and four-wheelers.  One of the things I love about berry picking is that once you find a good spot and your fingers get going, your mind is mostly free to wander.
 I notice that most of the hunting rigs are not displaying antlers, so are probably not taking home any meat for the freezer.  Smugly, I reflect that it is hard to get skunked berry picking.  Even in a bad year, if you persevere, you will bring home the goods.  From that thought I start imagining what it would be like if berry picking were regulated like hunting, with seasons, bag limits, and mind bogglingly complicated regulations.    We’d be punching our harvest tickets for each gallon we collected, and planning to stop in at the Department of Fish, Game, and Fruit to have our harvest sealed and tested for size and sugar content. How many of us would it take to over-pick this area? Would they shut down the season if escapement goals were not met? Would the berries we ate while picking count towards our limit?
I shake my head to dispel the fantasy, and return to picking.  While I daydreamed my bucket has been filling steadily, and it is time to make a trip to the car for a fresh container.  This is the secret of successful wild harvesting:  the progress can be so slow and incremental, if you pay too much attention to it you will get discouraged.  Instead, let your mind wander and stubbornly refuse to evaluate your progress, and then be thrilled when the handfuls add up to quarts and gallons. 
My Mom has some tricks up her sleeve.  She has brought small plastic containers, applesauce jars with nice screw-on lids.  She is a clean picker, and when she comes across especially good berries she picks them neatly straight into the container, puts on the lid and they are ready for the freezer. Apparently this skill is not hereditary, I am far too messy a berry picker to get away with such a stunt.  Instead, I will spend several hours once I get home, rolling the berries down a cookie sheet covered with a tea towel.  The leaves, twigs, and bits of tundra will be left behind, and I will fill ziplocks with nice clean berries ready to freeze.  I’m not a jam eater, so I freeze them whole, ready to go into smoothies, muffins, and pancakes.
My mind is wandering again, this time to blueberry pancakes.  I wish I’d brought a frying pan so we could make some in the morning.  We’d mix the batter and pour out the pancakes without the berries, then gently sprinkle them on the raw side of the pancake as it starts to cook on the griddle.  This works with frozen berries too, and is so much better than trying to mix them into the batter.
After three days of such musings, all our containers are full, and nightly frosts have turned the berries soft.  The seat and knees of my pants are purple and stiff, and my tongue and teeth may be permanently stained.  The berries will join the salmon and vegetables in the freezer, each bag carrying the memory of bright autumn tundra, and the taste of sunshine.