A Blueberry Patch 1985

This is a favorite story that I've been saving for a rainy day like today.

An opportunity to travel through the Canadian Quetico National Park and the American Voyageur National Park otherwise known as the Boundary Waters was a once in a life time chance that I could not miss. These parks are comprised of a series of interconnected lakes and rivers that straddle and twine the Ontario and Minnesota borders. As the park name indicates, they mark waterways that were once the superhighways of this continent and form the dividing line between the United States and Canada. Their shores hold traces of those former travelers’ footsteps along side stone paintings and camps of the Algonquin people.

One enticement of the parks is that no motor boat traffic is allowed on the water, nor is air traffic allowed above. The only people you’re going to see are other canoers, maybe kayakers. That was my reason for traveling via plane from Vancouver to Winnipeg to hop on a bus for an eighteen hour ride to Fort Frances to catch a canoe ride. Except for a distant sighting during our crossing of Kabetogoma, the largest lake in the series, there were no other boats for a beauty two weeks worth of days.

Eighty years previous a dam had brought water levels up by twelve feet throughout this section of the border waters, burying much evidence of the past. Painted red oxide petroglyphs with their precious stories had not been lost, having been painted twenty feet above the original water line. The preservation of those petroglyphs was one of the strongest arguments used in closing the parks to motor boats.

It was the last day of my part of my companions cross country canoe trip. We had followed the paddle strokes of the Voyageurs who had been following the Algonquin. Every lunch break, swimming hole, camp site, and berry bush that we enjoyed showed evidence, if you knew what to look for of the previous hosts. As the days had rolled by I found myself half expecting to catch up with the humans who’d left coals from fires hundreds of years old. In places where generations of camp fires had been burned, hundred to two hundred year old trees often grew out of the heart of the old fire and stood as testament to the nourishment from the bones and debris left in the coals.

I would need to go to the Customs Office in Crane Lake Minnesota and check in before boarding a bus to start the trip back to B.C. There was a perfect swimming rock and tiny beach at the campsite for cleaning up the gear and ourselves. With that done, blueberries came to mind. The native blueberries were ripe and had been a luscious source of fruit as we’d island hopped. Like everyone before us, we camped on islands to avoid bears, who, during berry season could be trouble for a camper or more particularly for a campers food stash. We had eaten through our sweet treats except for a couple of servings of maple syrup. The possibility of pancakes with blueberries for dinner was plenty of reason to explore.

My thoughts turned to those unknown others who’d created the barely perceptible path my feet had found. When I wiped hair out of my face I felt the yellow pileated flicker wing feather I’d put there in the morning. It had been on the ground on the same path past the outhouse. The further I traveled the path the more it opened up helping my passage to the other side of the island pass quickly. There was no mistaking the blueberry mother lode when I found it. I was surrounded by the low lying shrubs as far as I could see. And the heavenly smell that was coming from the over ripe berries that had fallen onto the hot rocks under the bushes was mouth watering.

I hunkered down and started picking without exploring further. My container served at first to collect enough berries to throw berries by the cup full down my throat to quench my thirst. As I made my way, picking and eating I knew that this patch of berries bushes had served as manna from heaven supporting life for tens of generations of nomadic hunter gatherer people. Out of the corner of my ear I could hear a young girl telling her cousin and friend that she need not be scared about bears, that’s why they made the stop to harvest the blueberries of Blueberry Island. In my minds eye I was surrounded by a large group of native women hunkered as I was, waddling as they moved to the next bush concentrating on the task to hand. I heard a grandmother gently chide the young girl by telling her an old story of a bear on Blueberry Island from her grandmothers’ time. I listened closely realizing there was a lesson in Grandmothers words for me.

As we picked I listened to their stories of healthy well fed babies, sick and aged aunties, plans for future ceremonies and celebrations, concern for the well being of the hunting men. I listened as Grandmother told another story, an unusual one about time travelers. I listened with a heart full of homecoming knowing she told this story to acknowledge my presence. It was not until the blueberries I’d been picking were overflowing the container that I found myself back from no time.

The only pleasure greater than this experience, is revisiting it with you.