JUNEAU -- A lot of people don't know how lucky they are, but I do: I'm a stay-at-home dad whose kids go to camp and a self-employed writer with a very lenient boss. I also happen to live in one of the most beautiful, wild and biologically abundant places on earth. And it's summer -- one of the sunniest on record not only for Juneau, but Alaska as a whole.
Naturally, with all this time and great weather, I've been out there every day slaughtering 'em, just slaughtering 'em, for hours at a time, until I come home tired but exhilarated, sunburned but not blistering -- for a ginger like me, the equivalent of a nice tan -- clothes and hands stained deep red with innards.
But my cooler's not full of salmon. No, my quarry is the wild Alaska blueberry.
Obviously, I recognize the thrill of fighting a king, hooking a silver, netting a sockeye and cursing a humpy for not being one of those other three. Still, I can't understand why blueberry picking isn't accorded similar masculine status.
So it isn't hunting. It's gathering, and that's pretty close. Granted, blueberries probably weren't what Ted Nugent had in mind when, during his set at the 2006 Alaska State Fair in Palmer, he bragged to the crowd that every night he had himself "some dead Alaskan [expletive]." Still, when you pick a blueberry -- or salmon berry, cloudberry, mountain huckleberry, or high-bush cranberry, while we're naming local berries -- that's exactly what you're doing: having yourself some dead Alaskan [expletive]. And you killed that [expletive] with your bare hands, too. That's hardcore.
Consider this: if berries were animals, they'd scream like hell when you picked them. You'd have to shoot them first.
Berry picking is the easiest, safest, least exertive outdoor "Alaskan" activity I can think of, except maybe watching Northern Lights, which I can do from my living room (see what I mean about being lucky?). Not only are blueberries easy to spot, with or without polarized sunglasses. Like drive-through espresso stands, their sheer number and availability boggles the mind.
By contrast, fishing for and actually catching salmon -- at least around my Juneau home -- often proves as hard as finding the right snowblower parts. Theoretically, they exist. Sure, everyone knows someone who knows someone who supposedly got real lucky someplace or other, but by the time you hear about it, a hundred other people beat you there. Then — poof! — gone for the season. The only difference is, snowblower parts don't spawn.
Blueberries don't carry nearly the same uncertainty. Every cast's a hit, every blueberry's a keeper, and everyone loves pie. Plus, there's no bag limit. Point is, berry pickers at any skill level can provide for their families. There's no such thing as getting skunked and returning empty-handed, unless, of course, your kids ate the contents of the bucket on the way home. Even then, at least you actually got them to consume fruit, and in non-leather form, no less.
Also, salmon doesn't work nearly as well in smoothies.
Oh, and no matter how gifted an angler you are, you will never catch a salmon with a plastic dog poop baggie. Whereas I must've stuffed 4 pounds of blubes into the one I happened to grab at a trailhead last week, just in case "they were in." Incidentally, those same dog poop bags also make excellent makeshift galoshes for out-of-town guests who understand "appropriate rain gear" to mean a disposable poncho.
Of course, the main thing about blueberry picking is that you can actually lead the whole expedition without any of the outdoor skills you're expected to have simply because you're an adult, even though you didn't grow up in Alaska and often require adult supervision yourself. No knots to tie, no hooks to bait, no lines to untangle, no fingers to nick/cut/sever with a filet knife or, lest we forget, no chest waders to top with hypothermic water. And you can drink every bit as much beer, if not more so. Take it from me. Whoah, baby.
By the way, I'm much better at deep-sea fishing, like, say, for halibut. Know anyone with a boat who wants to take me? I'll bring the scones.
Geoff Kirsch is a Juneau-based writer and humorist.