My Dad was a fanatic about a few things. One thing he was nuts about was picking berries.
Now let me set this up. I was a kid through the 1940's . Where I lived only about 50% if the land had been developed. So there was much native habitat left. Where I lived at Esk, Sask there was much brush but not many trees. Berries made up much of the shrubbery. One of the main berries was something called Saskatoons, Amelanchier alnifolia. There are many other names for this shrub.
Now saskatoon berries were my Dad's favorite. He loved to get a groups of friends and neighbors together and go for a day of berry picking. People would bring sandwiches, cakes, cookies and sealers of tea. At some time they would stop for a picnic lunch.
Now my Dad picked berries like there was no tomorrow. There had to be lots of berries around him. So Dad was constantly on the move and you would hear, "There's lots of berries over here." He was great for getting back in the car and going to another berry patch.
Now I was a little guy and because slave labor was in force I had to pick berries. I hated it. I would ask Dad if I'd picked enough to stop. He would say,"No, pick until your pail is this full." I would pick some more and go crying back to Dad to see if could quit. Finally ,I'd give up and just pick berries.
So we'd get home around 4 or 5 oclock and poor old Mom would have to sort and clean the berries. Most of the berries were canned. One year she canned 98 quarts. Pies are excellent but you have to use fresh berries.
Now my Dad had four daughter in laws. He insisted that they go picking berries with him. They all went with him at least once. Now my Dad had very little tact and sometimes none. He would look in the daughter in law's pails and loudly proclaim who had picked the most. He was a poor influence as he did not get one daughter in law to pick berries.
Dad was not only a berry picking fanatic but he was a fanatic about fishing. You heard the same cry, "There's more over here!"
Sadly most of that land has been developed and there's very little natural habitat left. Saskatoons have been domesticated and they are raised in your garden .
Hello,
ReplyDeleteWhat fun, sounds like you Dad arranged a berry picking party. I can see lots of pies, cobblers and maybe topping for ice cream YUM. It is sad to hear the land has been developed, that happens here too. Take care and stay safe! Enjoy your day, have a happy new week!
Dad liked having fun. Berry picking and fishing were great fun for him.
DeleteA nice glimpse into the past.
ReplyDeleteWe lived a very different life on the Canadian prairie.
DeleteI had never heard of saskatoons before. I thought you were making them up but The Bible (Wikipedia) tells me this about them: "The fruit is a small purple pome 5–15 mm (3⁄16–19⁄32 in) in diameter, ripening in early summer in the coastal areas and late summer further inland. They are eaten by wildlife including birds, squirrels and bears. It is also a larval host to the pale tiger swallowtail, two-tailed swallowtail, and the western tiger swallowtail.The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is named after this berry."
ReplyDeleteThe aboriginals made very good use of this berry in their food. They dried the berries. Now I dare you to look up Esk , Sask and also take the tour by drone which you'll find on youtube.
DeleteI couldn't find Esk in Wkipedia but I found a couple of YouTube videos - including the old church where I guess you went when you were a boy. Esk is much greener than I imagined it would be.
DeleteWhat a funny memory of your dad. He was definitely a character. Guess that's where you got it from. :-)
ReplyDeleteDad was a complicated character. The loss of his eleven year old daughter changed his life forever.
DeleteIt is great to share family stories like this. I was just talking to my sister last week about how the family stories will be forgotten if I don't share them with kids and grandkids. Same thing with family photos - they won't know who the old relatives are in the old photos we have. We have to take the time to label and explain who is who so they will know their history.
ReplyDeleteThere were very few cameras when I grew up. Now thee are thousands of photos but they will be useless unless there's some very good documentation.
DeleteI picked saskatoons yesterday from a tame tree in my cousin's yard. No bears to contend with. I only picked a gallon of berries and I thought of the berry picking in my youth when we would pick 5-gal pails of berries and yes, mom would can them at the end of the day after picking all day then cleaning them. I'm often reminded of how hard our mothers worked to make sure their was food for the winter.
ReplyDeleteYes, and our Moms didn't have electricity of running water.
DeleteWhat an interesting look back at berry-picking time. Your dad sounds like quite the berry-picking aficionado.
ReplyDeleteDad liked to organize and lead .
DeleteStill, it seems like you have fond memories. We used to go picking blueberries in New Hampshire, and somehow my dad made a competition out of it, so we WANTED to pick the most berries. As the youngest, I usually lost.
ReplyDeleteYour Dad was able to make the competition fun. Just as an aside. I picked blueberries in the Arctic. They were only 4 or 5 inches high but a very good berry.
DeleteIt's the "grass is always greener" syndrome -- surely there are more berries in the NEXT spot! I looked up Saskatoons and I see they are also called serviceberries -- that's the name I know them by. When I went to Glacier National Park in Montana back in the '90s I learned what a serviceberry is.
ReplyDeleteYes, Americans call them service berries. They do not grow very far south.
DeleteI only tried saskatoons recently. They weren’t a Newfoundland berry.
ReplyDeleteBut I think Newfoundland has lots of blueberries.
DeleteYou seem very good-natured about the slave bit :)
ReplyDeleteI have good memories of berry-picking with my parents and sometimes just my dad. Wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. He knew where they were all to be found. Oh, the smell of wild strawberries on a warm summer day, wafting up from the meadow grass. They are so easily bruised; we were taught to hull them as we picked because they don't take well to a second handling before washing. The hulls come off much more easily than cultivated berries anyway, so it was hardly any more work. I've never had a saskatoon but I'd sure like to try one.
The taste of wild strawberries is the best you can get. The domesticated berry is sometimes very tasteless.
DeleteI knew that Amelanchier is service berry, but I am not familiar with the shrub that produces berries. I looked it up. They look like our huckleberries, and your dad was like my dad about picking berries. We kids and Mom would find bushes near the car and slowly pick for hours. Dad would strap a big can on his back in a make shift pack and disappear off into the a ravine, always looking for the best patch to pick.
ReplyDeleteWe had a freezer so berries could be frozen for pies in winter. But the best was same day stewed huckleberries, served warm, for dipping in chunks of warm, freshly baked bread. Oh my. It made the day of picking worth it all, and besides, it was an adventure.
I've never heard of your delicious way of eating berries. We used real cream and sugar.
DeleteWe picked salmonberries when we lived in Alaska. I loved them!
ReplyDeleteI will have to look up salmon berries. I think they might be what we call Saskatoons.
DeleteSo you are quite an experienced berry picker! I hope you got to enjoy your share of them after all that hard work. I love hearing the stories about your childhood and your family.
ReplyDeleteI had a good appetite . we ate lots of the fresh berry.
DeleteWere there better times with your dad? Picking berries with him sounds kind of tough.
ReplyDeleteHe was quite a character your father!
ReplyDeleteMy dad would go for strawberries and raspberries.
ReplyDeleteThose were some great berry picking memories. I picked blueberries once with my Mother...saw a snake and went to the car. She was so mad.
ReplyDeleteWonderful nostalgia post here Red, I loved reading it. We used to pick wild blackberries but there was only sometimes enough for a couple of pies. I wonder if you had competition from the bears up there?
ReplyDelete98 quarts of canned berries! That's some great free food and nutritious through tough winters.
ReplyDeleteYour dad sounds like a character
A lovely post, it brought back memories of berry picking with my family in the 1940's. Post war Britain still had food rationing and food for free was most welcome. We would pick rosehips for syrup and blackberries for pies. Dad would have his big walking stick to reach down the high branches and he always managed to pick more than anyone else. We also hunted for bilberries, small purple berries growing low on the moors. I was better at picking those because I was small and could bend low with ease!
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