Each July and August, dozens of Bristol Bay residents take to the berry flats. Some are casual gatherers, picking handfuls here and there. Others set out to harvest enough salmonberries to rival the year’s salmon harvest.
Kim Williams, her sister-in-law Liz Johnson and aunt Judy Samuelson are the latter.
Around 9 a.m., the three women embark on their tenth day of salmonberry season. Williams says it’s been a good haul so far.
“How many bags you put away?” she asks the group. One says 37; another says 40.
They load plastic buckets and quart-sized Ziploc bags onto their four-wheelers. Williams leads the group onto the tundra, picking her way between swampy patches. She’s heading toward one of their closely guarded berry spots.
“We have spots that we regularly look at beause we’ve been [going] there for at least 30 years,” She says. “We have spots that we go back and check. Some years they’re there and some years they’re not.”
Last year was an off year with no salmonberries to be found. Williams says heavy wind and a late frost killed the delicate blossoms.
“These berries are really fragile,” she says. “They’re a white blossom – a lot of rain can knock the blossom off [or] the wind … a lot of things can happen so they don’t berry.”
This time around the conditions were right and the berries early. Williams says they started scouting for June 9, more than a week earlier than usual.
“We always know that when you hear the cranes out on the berry flat, berries are ready. And when the fireweed is blooming, berries are ready. That’s the sign to tell you to go look,” she says.
Credit Hannah Colton/KDLG
Today’s destination is a prime berry spot the ladies have visited before. We arrive to find the flats thick with the big, bright orange berries that Williams says they favor.
“We want them big. We leave the small ones,” she says. “We don’t like them white, we don’t like them with black dots, we we don’t like them hard so you have to clean ‘em … they have to be just right.”
Credit Hannah Colton/KDLG
These flawless berries could sell for $100 a gallon or more, but Williams says they won’t put them on the market.
“We never sell. I did sell one year, my old ones, when I had like 80-some bags,” she laughs. “We’re not hoarders!”
William’s says her berries will go straight into her father’s freezer. Her family will enjoy a year’s worth of akutaq, a dessert made with berries mixed into shortening and sugar.
“Usually for my family we take out two bags when we’re going to have a meal of salmonberry akutaq, and I take blackberries or blueberries and I add it and it stretches it,” she says. “Now auntie Judy, she likes just strictly salmonberry akutaq. But she’s a picking fiend!”
The three women pick the area for several hours, with a light breeze keeping the bugs off. Before leaving for new territory, they try to tally up their haul from this one spot…
“Forty-four!” she exclaims. “Eleven gallons! That’s really good! … That’s lots, no wonder our backs are hurting!”
By late afternoon, they’re running low on Ibuprofen and freezer space, making it about time to call it the end of a successful salmonberry season.
