Program at Alaska Botanical Garden brings in elders to harvest berries

Highbush cranberries have a distinct scent: tangy, pungent, sour. It's what gives Alaska's autumn woodlands their unique end-of-summer aroma.

Some associate it with decay because it comes at a time of falling leaves, when arboreal green gives way to browns, yellows, oranges and reds. But in fact the sharp fragrance means the berries are plump and ripe and ready for eating.

Late last month a frost turned the berries at the Alaska Botanical Garden sweet. A few days later, a dozen or so berry-hunters from Southcentral Foundation's Elder Program arrived to harvest the bounty. The first thing they noticed was the fragrance.

"Mmm! It smells so good!" said Louise Britton, originally from Pilot Station on the Yukon River.

"I could smell them from the parking lot," said Helen McNeil, a Tlingit who came prepared with four buckets, gallon Ziplocs, some lemon water "and two things of coffee."

McNeil pointed out that she didn't plan to fill all the buckets herself. "It's just that sometimes people show up without a bucket, so I always bring spares."

Using a cord over her neck to hold one bucket chest-high in front of her, she went to work with two hands, pulling the juicy, red fruit from the shrubs.

Robin Dublin, executive director of ABG, said the elders' berry-picking idea came about as a way to "tell the Alaska Native story."

She noted the Anchorage Heritage Garden, a recent addition to ABG, reflects the kind of food-and-flower garden one might have seen in the early years of the city.

"It's very western," she said. "But the word 'heritage' means different things. We have one or two bent trees used as trail markers by the Dena'ina people, but nothing about traditional uses of local plants. That's something visitors are very interested in. So we started to try to find people who could advise us about traditional uses."

"I use it for jelly or syrup or tea," said picker Lisa Dolchok, originally from Clark's Point on Bristol Bay. "But my grandkids want fruit leather, so for the first time this year I'm going to try and make some."

"I have a good recipe for syrup," said Lorraine Pico, originally from Upper Kalskag on the Kuskokwim River. She estimated she could make between two and four quarts for syrup from a bucket of berries. But she wasn't just picking the red ones.

"These taste like raisins," she said, plucking the dark, shriveled berries from last year that still clung to the branches.

"I never knew that before," Dolchok said. But she recalled how, as a child, she used to eagerly savor the old lowbush berries that came out of the snow in the spring. "One thing about this is you get to share information with people."

"Normally when we say berry-picking, we mean blueberries or (lowbush) cranberries or blackberries," she said. "But highbush are good, too."

The elders berry-picking event on Sept. 30 was the third at ABG this fall. Previous pickings had been for raspberries and currants. "But our timing was off," Dublin said. "This is the first time we've tried this and we're still learning. We did it about two weeks too late and the wasps were eating on them, ravenous."

Wasps are only one of the perils at the garden. Right now a big piece of the long Nature Trail leading to Campbell Creek is closed due to concerns about bears. "We planted a bear buffet at Lile's Garden," Dublin said. "Raspberries, currants, apples, pear trees."

Visitors can pick up a "bear-aware shaker" at the gate. The plastic container rattle keeps bruins from being surprised when a human comes down the trail, with luck preventing an unpleasant encounter.

But no bears or wasps were to be seen on the sunny, cool-enough-for-gloves day when the pickers showed up. They fanned out, chatting and laughing, often exploring in pairs. Britton and Jennie Zaukar, from Sleetmute on the Upper Kuskokwim, kept an eye out for harvestable spruce tips and chaga growths on birch trees as well as for the berries.

Regular visitors to ABG are not allowed to pick the berries or any other plants except as part of an authorized group like the Southcentral Foundation elders. "We don't want people to think they can just come on this property and pick," Dublin said. "They really can't. We rely on the integrity of the community to make this garden work. And so far we have not been disappointed."

"For older people who want to pick, it really is a golden opportunity," she added. "For some of them, agility and access can be issues. Here we have paved pathways and good trails."

The group at the garden on Sept. 30 appeared to revel in the chance to be outdoors with buckets in their hands.

"I've always picked berries," Dolchok said. "I love to pick. But I can't climb mountains anymore. But here — you smell the berries. And it fills my need."