"Blueberryland" Article by Burndett Andres
"Taming the Wild Blueberry - 90-Year-Old Author Keeps on Pickin'"
“I just love to be picking
berries,” Walter Staples said during our visit at the Red Barn in
Milbridge. We were meeting to discuss
his latest book Blueberryland, Taming the Maine Wild Low-bush Blueberry
in which he admits he’s addicted to berry-picking. Walter, who celebrated his ninetieth
birthday on September 13th, was in Washington County this weekend
with his son and chauffeur, Jim, to deliver copies of his books to various gift
shops Downeast and to Margery Brown for the Cherryfield-Narraguagus Historical
Society. She and my partner, Ralph
Larsen, rounded out our party.
This is
Walter Staples’ second foray into subsidy publishing with Peter E. Randall
Publisher of Portsmouth, NH. The second
printing of his first book, The North Bay Narrative, One Hundred
Years of a Newfoundland Outport Village is nearly sold out and Blueberryland
has been selling steadily since being published earlier this year. The success of both books is due in large
part to Walter’s personal promotional efforts at book-signings and the
subsequent word of mouth advertising these appearances generate.
The “Author and Fly Fisherman,” as
his business card describes him, was born in Eliot, Maine, in 1913 and is a
graduate of the University of Maine. For
twenty-eight years he traveled extensively in the United States, Canada and
Europe while engaged in poultry disease research for a major New England
poultry breeding company. He is
presently retired, more or less, and lives in Tamworth, NH, but he still writes
poetry, travels to promote his books and often comes to Washington County with
his son for hunting and fishing...and blueberry picking. Blueberryland is the story of how
Walter Staples came to observe, and participate in a small way, in the taming
of the wild low-bush blueberry.
A deer-hunting trip first brought
Staples to Wesley in 1937, and continued bringing him and his companions back
every year until the early 1950s. During
those years he made friends with many of the natives and observed low-bush
blueberry growing and harvesting. He
describes one early visit this way:
“In early August
of 1942, I took my bride of two years over the Airline Road to Wesley, as much
to explain and justify my annual vacation being spent there, as in the hope
that she too would enjoy the trip...We spent a night in a small cabin on the
edge of a field just bursting with the blue of ripening berries at harvest
time. Picking from bushes just outside
our cabin door, we had blueberries for breakfast...”
In the early 1970s, Staples bought
a tract of land “just off the Airline Road, on the highway to Machias” that
included about twenty acres of blueberry fields. A series of circumstances conspired to thrust
him willy-nilly into “the commercial aspects of low-bush blueberry production”
and, ready or not, he began participating in the management of a blueberry
field. In Blueberryland, he
describes with affection raking his field with family and friends.
“Nothing takes the place of a field
full of family...chattering...singing,” he told us with a smile. Margery also shared memories of local
businesses shutting down during the blueberry harvest fifty years ago and whole
families participating in the raking, babies in carriages and playpens joining
the children, parents and grand-parents in the fields.
Walter Staples’ involvement with
low-bush blueberries goes back half a century.
In Blueberryland he provides thorough documentation as he traces
the taming of the wild blueberry during that time and the evolution of the big
business that has been made of it. He
laments the loss of family involvement and the loss of the personal
satisfaction that comes at the end of the day when “you can look at what you’ve
picked, you can count it.” His son, Jim,
who plans to continue raking berries for his own use for many years to come,
echoes his feelings. Last year he
personally raked over four hundred quarts of berries to share with family and
friends.
We all agreed that there is a
mystical connection between growing, harvesting and preserving one’s own food,
a connection we have all felt at one time or another. Walter and Jim expressed the pleasure they
derive from blueberry raking; Margery has looked with satisfaction at some five
hundred jars of home-canned fruits and vegetables on her shelves; Ralph has
known the thrill of growing prize-winning kohlrabi in his Long Island victory
garden. Like them and many of you, I
have done a little raking, canning and growing myself and could appreciate
their quiet, little introspective smiles.
Staples did a lot of research over
the two years it took him to write Blueberryland. He offers hope that
even as the blueberry industry grows and becomes more mechanized and
monopolized by large growers, pockets of small growers will continue to
preserve the old ways and the old satisfactions; they will find ways to make
small farms profitable. One example of
alternative management he uses to illustrate the point is Chris McCormick and
his family in Cooper, ME, who are producing organic, wild low-bush
blueberries for the retail market.
Blueberryland will be of
interest to the old “blueberrying” families of Washington County because it’s
likely their friends and relatives are mentioned within. It’s also of great interest to those from
away because it explains the discrepancy that exists between the name of our
native product and the practice of cultivation we observe. Irrigation, applications of herbicides and
fungicides, systematic burning, fertilization and pollination would not
normally be associated with “wild” blueberries.
Blueberryland explains how the industry has grown away from its
wild beginnings and will relieve any consternation that may exist in the minds
of the uninitiated.
Mostly though, Blueberryland
is a story about a man who just loves picking berries. You can share his passion by asking for a
copy at your favorite gift shop or bookseller.
Both of his books are also available from Margery Brown at the
Cherryfield-Narraguagus Historical Society, 546-7979.
This article appeared in the Downeast Coastal Press of November 18-24, 2003
Ref: Maine, At Last - Settling In, Vol. II, Page 231
Ref: Maine, At Last - Settling In, Vol. II, Page 231
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