MACLAREN RIVER — Spring is just touching the hills above the Maclaren River even though on Tuesday, there was snow for the third consecutive day. It didn't stay on the ground, but slush and sleet make it miserable to work outside.
Nature has put green leaves on a temporary hold. The early birds poke at my cabin window. "What the heck?" they seem to say. "Where is my food?"
There are robins, Say's phoebes and the cliff swallows that nest on the Maclaren bridge. We consider them bug eaters, but before the insects hatch, they all eat berries flash-frozen last fall.
Until their food sources diversify, last seasons' crowberries and cranberries keep these birds going. Yesterday, I picked enough lingonberries to make a couple jars of jam. The lingonberries were soft, but still pickable with a berry picker. Crowberries (blackberries) were also solid enough to pick. However, the few blueberries I could find were all on the ground. I picked up a few and performed a taste test. Ugh. They tasted like poor wine. Maybe that's why the robins are huddled by my window. Hangovers?
I am not a wine guy, but Richard Holmstrom, owner of Tangle Lakes Lodge, 20 miles east of Maclaren River is considered the wine guru of the Denali. Holmstrom has owned Tangle Lakes Lodge 30 years even though waiting tables and cleaning bathrooms has never been his idea of a wonderful time. So last year, Holmstrom decided to take advantage of the myriad of wild blueberries surrounding his place and open a winery.
Blueberries ripen on the Denali in late July, and there's plenty of competition from hungry ptarmigan, white-crowned sparrows and juncos. Despite that, Holmstrom managed to collect almost 1,000 pounds of the berries. He's no stranger to winemaking. Holmstrom's blueberry wine has won awards at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer and elsewhere. Buoyed by the success, Holmstrom purchased several large fermenters and went into production. The first run of what he's calling Beringian Blue will be small — after all, it takes a pound of berries to ferment one bottle of wine.
But the blueberry wine produced at the tiny, innovative winery at Tangle Lakes has benefits besides a great taste. Wild Alaska blueberries have higher antioxidant levels than those grown in the Lower 48. Also, according to Professor Elvira de Mejia, a food chemist at the University of Illinois, fermenting Alaska blueberries enhances compounds important to reducing glucose levels and boosting insulin secretion. And preliminary tests have shown that removing alcohol from the wine doesn't impact its beneficial qualities.
No wonder spring birds along the Denali Highway are so big and healthy compared to their puny counterparts down south. The pair of ravens that reside at Mile 30 of the Denali live almost entirely on berries nine months of the year. I am not going to make the claim that these are the same ravens I noticed living there 40 years ago, but I wonder. Maybe I should start eating more blueberries.
For now, though, there are no green plants on Maclaren Summit, and ground squirrels are searching roadside bushes intently. A close look with binoculars reveals the little guys are picking last fall's blueberries from the ground. In fact, all the small animals moving along the Denali are feeding in the berry patches. They have known for thousands of years what us newcomers are learning today.
Our snow has finally stopped. Sun is peeking through holes in the clouds as the storm passes. Two willow ptarmigan are working cranberries bushes along the edge of my drive. I'd bet that 20 miles down the road, Richard Holmstrom is also out checking the blueberry bushes around his new winery; are they ready to flower yet?
John Schandelmeier is a lifelong Alaskan who lives with his family near Paxson. He is a Bristol Bay commercial fisherman and two-time winner of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.