I’ve been describing the community culture of berry-picking that emerged during the 1880s, focusing first on juneberries and then on chokecherries. Wagon caravans carried townsfolk, particularly young people, into the countryside to pick. Every community had its known thickets that were transformed into ritual places; press reports referred to them with affectionate familiarity.
There were other recreational activities that brought townspeople into the countryside, but when you think about them—waterfowl hunting, for instance—they tended to be male dominant. Berry-picking was a mixed-gender activity, involving mainly young people, going into rustic, romantic places. You can see the possibilities, as did they.
Not all of which were pleasurable, however. In 1885 the Emmons County Record reported that two married ladies had gone out to Long Lake Creek “in pursuit of the diminutive choke-cherry. They did very well,” the report continues,” and toward evening started for the place where they had left the pony and buckboard. . . . But during their absence the animal [for it seems equine participants might also see the opportunities of berry-picking!] had broken its picket-rope and departed for fresh pastures." The women found shelter at a rural residence, and the next morning one of their husbands came to fetch them—and their buckets of cherries.
As this account of misadventure indicates, in addition to the organized social caravans, there were countless ventures where married women friends went out to pick. These journeys, and the tail of processing and cooking that followed, established memorable womanly ties to the land.
From Dickinson in 1904 came the story, “There must be some wild fruit over on Third Creek in Billings County, for Mrs. George McClellan says she has put up, all told, of plums, choke-cherries and bullberries, 41 ½ gallons.”
The Adams County Record reported in August 1917, “The housewives have been busy these days canning chokecherry jam and jelly. There are a great many this year and the buffalo berry crop will also be large.”
By the 1920s chokecherry expeditions were becoming motorized. The Grand Forks Herald declared that both chokecherry jelly and chokecherry wine were abundant, local citizens having motored over to the Oslo district for the best picking. Local chokecherries, too, appeared in groceries; in 1930 one advertised them at 49 cents for 10 pounds.
You can discover the pervasiveness of chokecherries and other native fruits in the developing fruit culture of the region by perusing lists of competitions offered and awards won at local fairs. Adams County, for instance, 1912: best wild plum jelly, best chokecherry jelly, best buffalo berry jelly, best preserved wild plums. Stutsman County, 1921, a veritable exhibit of native alongside introduced diversity: best green tomato preserves, best crabapple preserves, best plum preserves, best strawberry preserves, best gooseberry preserves, best rhubarb preserves, best citron preserves, best ground cherry preserves.
For beyond the local color and sensory evocations of all this, a prairie historian can see a larger phenomenon taking place, a vital part in the relationship of our settler society with the land. Yes, all generations, from country and town alike, took part in the gathering, processing, preparation, and consumption of native fruits such as chokecherries, but it was the young folk, the generation raised on the land, who brought the enthusiasm that exceeded necessity. It was part of a rising acceptance, then love, of the land. It might be too much to call this sacramental, but it certainly contributed to a ritual sense of place.
Downstream of this initial acceptance, chokecherries and the other fruits of the land embedded themselves into diets, competitions, and cookbooks. They were wedded to the culture. And then came another level of consciousness, a matter of heritage, or homage: we gather these things, we consume them, as a statement of who we are.
We are in danger of becoming too distant from the land to remember who we are as plains folk. I’m not kidding: we need more berry-picking expeditions.
