Berry Picking on Signal Hill

Berry Picking is a big deal in Newfoundland. I have never heard the words berry picking mentioned as often as I have since I moved to Newfoundland. In fact, the number of times I have heard the words “berry picking” during the months of August and September alone is easily three times the total number of times I have heard them pronounced in my lifetime.

What is even more fascinating is that berry picking is always mentioned here with reverence and total appreciation. Thus I learned that berry picking is regaled in Newfoundland.

Not so in Ontario. The last few times I had heard the phrase in Ontario it was uttered always with a scowl on the face with one hand placed on the lower back – this being due to the pain of being bent over for so long, and the scrubbing time spent trying to  the berry stains out of the kids clothes.

“There were more berries on the kids than there were in the baskets.” That’s what we say in Ontario.

But here, the very mention of the words berry picking lights up people’s faces. Adult faces beam with delight and become all childlike and dewey. It’s quite delightful.

And, as it turns out everyone’s either gone berry picking at least once, or are on their way. A few charmed lucky ones have been gifted a carton of hand-pint or two of blueberries, picked bright and early by some generous morning person.

In fact, even I went berry picking this summer. It turns out this isn’t hard to do at all. All you have to do is go up to Signal Hill where the  wild blueberries grow.

It was a gorgeous summer day the day I decided to skip “the office” and make my way up the hill. A perfect summer day one might say. I had never walked up the hill, and fancying myself not too unfit as I had just got my second degree black belt a few months earlier, I was quite a bit shocked at the searing burning pain in my calves a third of the way up the hill. It was so bad that I had to take frequent “let’s admire the view in order for me to catch my breath and for the pain to subside enough so that I could continue.

It was harder to get rid of the the ego pain that came when a man clearly in his seventies whipped by me, and breezed to the top.

At about the halfway mark up Signal hill, you could start seeing the berry pickers. Some old, some young, a dads with his itsy bitsy daughter holding a bright green pail half her size.

I was letting the calf pain burn off while I was looking at a map of the hill’s trails when a nice couple with a few pints of berries came by. In usual Newfoundland fashion, they struck up a conversation and inquired if I needed some help. I told them no, it would be the first of many walks up there – pant – and that I was just familiarizing myself – wheeze – with the trails before picking a few berries of my own.

They told me that the blueberries were abundant, the partridge berries weren’t ripe yet and to be careful with my footing. It’s a craggy mountain  – that hill is  – and you have to mind where you are going.

Then the mister recounted how once while picking berries on Signal hill he slipped and tumbled about 30 feet before finally coming to a halt. His wife in a panic peered down to where he lay and hollered that he’d  “better not have spilled any of them berries.”

Berries are that big a deal.

Yesterday I finally made it to Bidgood’s in the Goulds. Though not mentioned as often as berry picking, I have heard Bidgood’s mentioned numerous times by various locals – enough times to peak this food lover’s fancy. I also just love the name the Goulds. I just love food, and Bidgood’s is a little treasure.

I skipped the seal flipper pie this time, but did load up on some ridiculously cheap frozen wild berries. Blueberries of course, and then a tub of brightly coloured squash berries.

Um. What do you do with a tub of squashberries? Man those are some tart berries.

Please send recipes.