Free Travelers' Tales Alaska by Bill Sherwonit Page B

roadbed and push through tall grass, careful not to trip on hidden dead-wood underfoot, and crest the lip of the field. My hiking boots sink into spongy mosses and lichens and I scan the ground for blues.
    It’s a good year and the bushes hang thick with fruit, like grape clusters, the blueberries fat and juicy and waiting to be plucked before they freeze and shrivel. Late afternoon sun shines up the valley, and across the river against the steep mountainside, the train’s rumble and whistle sounds. I’m not far from the road, but once over the field’s edge, kneeling on my folded rain pants, and pulling fruit from the twigs, all is quiet. The blueberry patch is my own private place. I pop afew berries in my mouth and roll them around on my tongue before mashing them and tasting their sweet sourness.
    W hen the tundra changed color, we went to the hills to pick berries. Wild cranberries slid off their bushes easily in solid handfuls, round and firm, into the warm palms of our hands. I thought of how good they’d taste with turkey come Thanksgiving. The air was crisp and fresh, the tundra smelled like fruit and spices, and we browsed like bears taking in the crisp air and the last warmth of summer, which left as the afternoon waned.
    â€”Dana Greci,
“Plowing the Driveway”
    When my knees and lower back get tired from leaning down to pick, I sit on my backside and spread my legs in a V and keep picking. The berries are so thick I can pull off five or six at once, with one hand, using a light touch, an open pluck, to separate berry from bush.
    After a while, I take a break and wander across the field toward the bank overlooking the braided river. I’ve seen small bands of caribou down on the riverbar before, camouflaged by silvery willows and gray driftwood. But this time only the bushes are there, thick and yellow-green. I return to the patch and finish filling the tub with blueberries, plenty for a pie.
    As I head back through Broad Pass, fall colors dot the mountains on either side of the road. Muted reds of bearberry leaves cover the ground just above treeline, orangey-red dwarf birch whisk back and forth in the breeze, spruce point up darkly green to lead my eye to rocky patches of grass above long, slaty scree slopes. A magpie swoops at the windshield and lands on a bough unscathed, tipping back and forth for a moment to get its balance before it flies away, iridescent in the setting sun.
    Rain begins to spit as I pull back into the Byers Lake campground, this time to sleep surrounded by other travelers: motorhome retirees relaxing beside a crackling fire, young twenty-somethings with bicycles atop their Subaru station wagon and a husky tied to a tree nearby, a lone man setting up his tent, radio perched on the picnic table spewing country music into the air. I camp far away from him, in a spot on Cranberry Loop, a quiet space where I build a fire and huddle under my waterproof hood and listen to raindrops patter softly on top of my head while eating dinner. I wonder if any of the other campers have discovered the cabin.
    When I return home Sunday at midday, I prepare the kitchen for baking. I open my tub of blueberries and dump them gently into a mixing bowl. Lightly, so I don’t squash them, I rake my fingertips through the purply fruit and pluck a couple of worms that have crawled out from hiding, and leaves and twigs still attached or stuck with moisture to the berries.
    For the pie filling, I measure six cups of berries into another mixing bowl and bag the rest in Ziplocs to freeze for muffins or pancakes in December. The berries are the only ingredient I measure. From scratch means having a feel for something you love, making it up as you go along, building on the knowledge of the past and incorporating your own pinch of flavor into the creation, whether it is a pie or a new marriage in a small cabin.
    Sugar hisses from the bag. Then a few squeezed drops of lemon juice, dashes of