Blueberry Picking in Black Bay

 by Brooke

July 24^th. (I cannot believe it is July 24^th).The Keyhole, Georgian Bay.

The Keyhole anchorage, Georgian Bay

You could say I am brown as a berry now. Although I can’t say I have seen any naturally brown berries. Today I spent two hours on the Island picking blueberries. It’s not such a simple thing, hunting the elusive blueberry.  Because of the terrain, you must watch your step rather than watch for berries. Step, climb, turn, step, stop, search. You don’t want to twist an ankle. Don’t want to step on or near a rattlesnake that might be sunning itself on a hot rock. And it is good practice to continuously scan the area for bears.  

Bear at Wilcox anchorage

Once you find a low bush of berries—you check again for a roaming bear before you crouch and bow your head. Check the water too, as one might be swimming over, island hopping—like Burt Lancaster did in The Swimmer, although that was pool hopping, and I guess Burt was looking for something other than berries (…or was he?).  There are bear droppings, there are otter droppings. The otters’ are white for the most part, composed of bleached crayfish shells and claws. The bear droppings are black lumps, speckled with some indigestible deep red berries or choke cherries.

Just so you know what bear poo looks like for safety sake

Some of the best blueberry bushes are in crevices, protected from the wind, and warmed by the heat in the rock. Other rich bushes are in hollows where the moss is thickest, sometimes you step or kneel upon a moss bed that is ten inches thick. I picture the bears liking that—walking on a lovely soft carpet. 

The wind was up from the south as I reached the cliff edges on the far side, I mostly followed the edges, almost circumnavigating the island—but it is not a round isle, it is more like a character from the Cyrillic alphabet, like Ѯ or Ԡ, with extra loops added on.

It is a contemplative practice, berry picking. Aside from the bear and snake and Poison Ivy regard, my mind wanders to many things. At one point I noticed that the tips of my fingers were purple. That brought Phil to mind, Phil in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, where I spent three summers performing at the Ship’s Company Theatre. When the blueberry season was on in Cumberland County, Phil worked the fields. His whole fingers were purple. But he said it wasn’t due to picking the berries, it was due to the colour added to the pesticide that he was required to spray on them. 

Phil was lean and likely incredibly strong, perhaps in his late sixties—but who knows, with his lifestyle he may have just been thirty-two. He had a very gaunt, bearded face and bright blue-green eyes. As he spent months outside, his skin was the colour of iron rust, with as I said, purple fingers. Phil spent every night in the Glooscap Tavern on the highway that went up through River Hibbert. (*Anyone should get a prize if they can name the river that runs through the town of River Hibbert. I’ll put the answer at the bottom of this post...but no prize. Well, I said 'should'.)

Phil would sit alone at one of the small tables, with a small glass and a pitcher of Keith’s and when that was almost empty he’d order another pitcher. I never saw him eat.  Phil was a very quiet man, & seemed docile. He paid attention, and I think he appreciated us Ship’s Company Players because we were different and open. Phil was the only one of the locals who stood up against a small swarm of Barflies trying to pick a fight with one of the actors, Mxolisi “Welcome” Ngosi, a large, dark-black-skinned, lovely man from Soweto.  I wasn’t at the tavern that night, as I had too many lines to learn, but I heard that Welcome was surrounded and pushed around by these guys. Welcome had seen enough violence and stupidity to fill all of their lifetimes, and tried to reason with the louts. Phil came over and punched one of them, or threatened to punch them and, alongside the other theatre folk, he broke up the gang. 

Mxolisi "Welcome" Ngosi

When he’d had his fill of Keith’s, he’d hitch a ride out with anyone who was going along the road to Fox River, about a 15 minute drive west. He lived in a big house beside the road with his mother. I spent a month or so in Port Greville, which was the next settlement after Fox River. (The local pronunciation of Port Greville sounded like “Por-gurvill” or “Pork-er-ville”.)  Sometimes Phil would ask me for a lift from the Glooscap.  It was a dark drive past Diligent River then to Fox River where I’d drop him; then, just a few minutes farther along was the street lamp by the church in Porkerville. I was staying in an aluminum shack on Brook Street, which smelled toxic. It smelled like burnt carpet-glue and bug-killer and tar. The highway eventually goes on to Advocate Harbour. It's a beautiful drive.

The next summer that I saw Phil he gave me a hug. That’s how I know how strong he was.  He was used in the play that second season, to be a pallbearer in the prologue of David French’s play, Of The Fields, Lately.  

Waiting to go onstage with Phil

Well, that was a little voyage into the past.  Wandering rhythm, wandering mind: picking and sorting berries and memories. I found what I have decided to term a “pie-bush” of blueberries, tucked down on a narrow plateau on one of the cliffs facing south west. It was laden with very plump berries—so fat they looked farmed. It was probably saved from the bears because of it’s location, but it wasn’t too difficult for me to get to.

I took some photos of the bear paths around the island. The paths are handy to come across because generally they will allow you the easiest route from here to there. Unless of course you are on one of the paths between a mother and her cub. 

While I was moving around the island, through the junipers, around the boulders, and across the domes of granite, I thought of the recent “Pokemon Go”craze, that has hit Canada, and wondered what the thought processes were—certainly not contemplative—but the choreography was probably similar to what I was doing.

Pokemon searchers looking for a fad that won't die in 5 months

I find that the scratch of the juniper doesn’t trouble me anymore, nor does the stickiness of passing through a spider web, as I know the discomfort will pass—I notice it though, how easy it is to disturb a habitat. The Sandhill Cranes are croaking nearby. Five flew over a little while ago. Prehistoric flight. 

Sandhill Crane in flight

(The river that passes through River Hibbert is named the River Hibbert River.)