Four days later, after hours of cleaning berries, Mom and Dad stand on the dock, a colander and cloth at their feet. Dad holds the bucket of remaining berries and says "We'll do these the Finnish way."
"With water?" I ask, thinking, "I've done that before, it doesn't work that well."
"No, with wind." He tips the bucket three feet above the colander and the berries spill out. As they do, the wind whips away leaves and twigs. Magic. One day, I'll try this myself and make it look like I've always done it.
I watch him and Mom from a distance, through the leaves of Mountain Ash and poplar. It's so windy I can't hear a thing above the steady rush of waves hitting the shore. I wonder why Dad knows about this "Finnish way"; tricks picked up from his in-laws? Mom figures it was from his days at camp, out on Wabegischik, when the old Finnish guy would pick and clean his berries at the boat landing. Dad would watch. The scene stamped into his memory for a lifetime.
Blueberry picking became a worthwhile endeavour this year, with Dad's purchase of berry pickers from Lee Valley. Red boxes with metal tongs comb through the plants, gathering the berries and allowing leaves and twigs to fall between the tines. This year's harvest: 20 litres in 2.5 hours. This is a far cry from the meagre amount Jen and I painstakingly gathered last fall.
The berries are still small, but sweet. The experience is soul-lifting. You're crouched in a clearcut (they have their own beauty, I promise), listening to the crunch of your shoes on dried slash, fingertips slowly covered in a thick, purple dye. The smell and feel of heat hits your nose, your cheeks, at the same time: waves of soil, leaves and wood. We are 20 kms down the Sherridon road and can still see a smoky haze in the air, a reminder that the forest fires still burn somewhere "near".
After an hour and a half, our backs sore and heads starting to spin, we met back at the truck for a break. Compared booty (I had more, but picked dirtier), had a beer. Headed out again, but didn't last as long...we were winding down.
Post-pick, we stopped at a bridge on the way out to the highway. Wandered downstream in our bathing suits, climbed over rocks, manoeuvred our way into the deeper waters. Steve did his otter routine, London swam furiously to save him and I dunked and got out of there (unknown waters could harbour leeches). We lounged like boreal merpeople, stretching our backs and muscles while perched on glacier-moved river boulders. Dates don't get any better than this.
