The other day when I was looking for a noxious plant on the river bank, I discovered all kinds of Saskatoon berries (amelanchier alnifolia) that were just about ready to pick. This berry grows from parts of Alaska, throughout the Canadian prairies and into the northern states. It has many other names one of them being service berry.
It was a berry widely used by aboriginals in their pemmican. Settlers soon found the berry and liked it.
My Dad loved picking Saskatoons and liked nothing better than to get some neighbors and spend the day picking Saskatoons. At that time there were very few improved roads. Saskatoon shrubs grew along the road allowance. The country was a mix of grass, shrubs and trees.
Dad would find a place where there were berries and everybody got out of their old cars and started picking berries. Well, it didn't take Dad long to say that this place wasn't great so let's go down the road as he knew another place that he thought was better.
Much the same thing happened all day.
They had taken a lunch and had a picnic. Sometimes pies were taken.
So by the time Dad got home in the evening he had 5 gallons of berries and yes, a few spiders, leaves, twigs and cobwebs. They spent the rest of the evening sorting berries and washing them. One year Mom canned 96 quarts of Saskatoons.
However, the day was mainly Dad hurrying the group from one Saskatoon patch to another.
Now my Dad liked ice fishing. In fact, he was nuts about ice fishing. We were able to take the car and drive where ever we wanted on the ice which was about 2 feet thick.
He had a bar to punch a hole through the ice. We were little so he'd set us up first. He would then punch a hole in the ice for himself. Well, wouldn't you know it. The fish weren't biting fast enough to suit him so everything was put back in the car and he drove to another place that he thought was better. This continued all day. He wasn't a sport fisherman but wanted fish for food as he loved fish and these were perch and one of his favorite. We'd get home with about 75 fish.
We'd get home cold, tired and hungry.
So he was the same with fish as with berries.
After supper? Guess what? We had to fillet fish. So there were two little boys who did a lot of complaining about filleting the cold fish.
