Karen Wils photo Wild blueberries are a treasure to behold.

Karen Wils photo
At right, shown picking wild strawberries near camp are cousins Jeff Verbrigghe, Sherrie Salmi, my sister Lori and Andy Hendrickson, circa 1975.

ESCANABA — Tiny treasures still exist in Upper Michigan.

Wild and wonderful they thrive tucked away beneath the jack pines or hiding in sunny meadows.

Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and black, in that order they process through the summer months. Totally wild and totally free they all grown in their own little niche of nature.

To our ancestors, wild berries were a very important staple food item in their pantries. High in vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants, wild berries are some of the healthiest foods we can eat. Wild berries are often called “super foods,” packed with a bigger punch of beneficial compounds than their cultivated cousins.

The U.P. orchestrates a symphony of fresh berries throughout the summer.

The tiny red strawberries as vibrant as the violin strings, starts the music in June. Wild strawberries once covered many sunny openings in the Northwoods. Native peoples harvested them. They used the berry and the plant for food and medicine.

Many decades ago, when I was a young gal, strawberries carpeted the north shore area where I grew up. Out of our front door and across the train tracks, jack pines and rolling hills gave way to Little Bay de Noc.

Down low, interwoven between the long grass and the iron ore pellets, lay sweet wild strawberries. When we were kids picking these tiny delicacies was a great sport. Mom provided us with empty glasses or cans to gather our berries in. Much smaller than tame strawberries, wild berries still have a bigger flavor.

Mom often mashed our wild berries and made a sauce to put on ice cream. She even made wild strawberry jam when there was a bumper crop.

In July the fragrant raspberry bushes play their song. Like the viola of the slashings, raspberry bushes crowd the cut-over woodlands lush and green and thorny and dense. Even though picking the juicy ripe fruit of the raspberry can be a challenge, the taste makes it all worthwhile.

In cuttings near our camp under a canopy of huge white pines, my family and I spent many summer hours picking raspberries. Our only reward was Mom’s homemade raspberry pies to look forward to. I wonder how many kids today would still enjoy family berry picking?

Rich and robust and ripening in-between the sweet ferns comes the blue berries. Picking blue berries on the sandy plains of Upper Michigan is as relaxing and serene as the music of the cello. I remember packing up the whole family and heading to Stonington for the day to pick blueberries. Spot, our mixed breed terrier-type dog, followed right along with us. In his old, age he loved to lie down and eat the berries right off of the plants.

When fair week rolled around, the blackberries were beginning to ripen. North of the ore docks was a good place the find the blackberries with the unforgiving sharp brambles. If Mom could get enough of these berries, she would made syrup to ease any stomach ache.

I sometimes wonder just how many wild berries Mom made into pies, jams or froze over the years? It was such a treat to take out a frozen package of blueberries in mid-January.

Urban sprawl, droughts and some climate change has erased some of the wild berry areas of the north, but many tiny treasures still exist.

Talk to Grandma or Grandpa about some of their treasure hunts of old. And if you get a chance, pick some berries, either tame or in the wild.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.