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Judy Ferguson's first book, Parallel Destinies sells for $19.95 and can be purchased through Judy Ferguson at 907-895-4101 or outpost@wildak.net.  It is also for sale at Diehls', Granite View, Kelly's Country Inn, Tanana Trading Post and other stores.  It can be purchased on-line from Outdoors Alaska.

Interested in fishing while you are in Alaska?  Take a look at the selection of fishing books on our partner site OutdoorsDirectory.com  Click on the image for more information.

Vera, with young helpers Elijah and Tamela, picks berries which she found to be as plentiful as in her homeland of Ukraine. (Judy Ferguson photo)

Friendship becomes fruit of the berry patch

By JUDY FERGUSON

Berry picking is more than going out and just picking berries. It's one of the last times on the warm tundra and in the fading sunlight before we all go indoors for the winter. 

The blueberries, raspberries and cranberries are little packages of sunlight we gather in among the golden grasses of fall. It's mothers' "time-out." The children wrestle and roll through the berries and into their buck brush "forts." The women savor the peace and joy of being outside together with nothing pressing. The jams and pies are the extra dividends later on in the winter. 

Carol, whom I've known for almost 30 years, was the friend who first got me into the berry patch and later into making jams without the use of commercial pectin. She flew in from her home in the Bush in 1973 for one of her yearly shopping trips. We rode my horses back behind our homestead to the blueberry patches at Thompson Lake. Carol's 2-year-old son rode in front of her and my 5-year-old was in front of me. 

Carol goes to the berry patch to gather what soon will become her homemade jam. (Judy Ferguson photo)


It was a long ride and the berries were past their prime. We slowly picked around the lake, packed our berry buckets into the saddle bags and then, started back home. The last mountaintop we had to descend was long and steep. I turned and saw Carol and her baby on the back of our horse who was going crazy. Klondike was leaping like a frog back and forth across the face of that steep grade. I was horrified. "Get off, Carol, get off!!" I hollered. Quickly, off they slid, and we walked home, packing our blueberries, now pureed. 

Later, over my two-burner stove, we cooked an experiment in my cast iron pot. Rose hips and high bush cranberries simmered, as we added only sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Carol had a hunch the rose hips could be substituted for the recipe's required apples as we brewed up an Alaskan "apple" butter. It required no pectin and it was wonderful as a condiment with meat or slathered on hot biscuits. 

But Carol lives several hundreds of miles away in the Bush and it's not easy to find companions who like to get stickers in their knees, swat bugs and pick berries in an all-day marathon. But my friend Judy and I cherish it as one of the highlights of the year. Judy has six boys, which increases my 11-year-old son's enthusiasm for picking considerably. As we scoot from clump to clump, she and I love to talk. She always finds the blueberry mother lode, and calls, "Come on over here; they're regular grapes!" 

Judy likes to make blueberry muffins. I stretch my berries with rhubarb and occasionally serve pie to guests who promise not to whine about the rhubarb strings in their teeth. 

My Russian teacher and friend, Vera, loves to pack up and go berry picking. She was raised in Ukraine; I was raised on the other side of the globe, in Oklahoma. When two people speak different languages, have been taught in the Cold War atmosphere, and yet, discover a sisterhood that goes beyond culture, language and political systems, it is a miracle. I grew up hearing the air raid siren often, since we lived right across the street from the Civil Defense System's weekly blast. I grew up thinking that any day Russian bombs could drop from the sky. Vera's oldest daughter, Antonina, had nightmares until recently that the American bombers might very possibly invade their tranquility at any moment. 

As we became friends, in the warmth and relaxation of the berry patch, we shared our thoughts and laughed with her daughters, Olga and Tamela. Vera loved the blueberries, the sunshine and the glory of the Alaska Range; we were cut out of the same cloth. Vera was delighted to find a sea of berries in Alaska as plentiful as any back home in Ukraine. 

Months later, my daughter, Sarah, and her school friend, Christine, made Christmas batches of jam. The assortment of jams, sparkling with the dark red of the raspberry and deep purple of the blueberry would be sent out to family members. This was mid-winter fun, a hilarity harvested with those last moments of sunshine, and of women not having to make supper right away, but relaxing, listening to children not gathering berries, but rolling in them--a harvest from a time set apart.

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