Dogs and Berry Picking

Ah, berries!  We all love them.  Picking them makes great childhood memories.

When we went floating down the river in a canoe, there were baby raccoons picking berries with their mother.  So cute to watch as we glided by.

I remember the endless high bush blueberries in Ontario.  It seemed like miles of them.  When we lived at Matachewan, Mom, Dad, and I picked so many we had every container in the kitchen full.  Then we feasted on berries, pies, muffins, and pancakes for a long time.

In the Yukon, up in the tundra there were abundant low bush blueberries to walk through and turn our shoes blue.  They were especially good.

We always had to be on the lookout for bears.  Black, brown or grizzly, depending on where we were.  It was a good idea to have a pan to bang on, a dog to bark, a gun, and a rig fairly close by to jump into.  The latter was not always possible.  Black bears in the Yukon range from pure black through various shades of brown.  They can weigh about 180 lbs.  They are mostly around the forest.  Grizzly bears range from dark brown, to rust ,to almost blonde.  The grizzly weighs about 300 lbs. or more.  They move around between the riverside and up into the alpine and tundra. 

One time we were visiting the Bootileer sisters near Dawson.  It was a warm sunny day and there were raspberries growing by the road.  We were picking some and King our little Pomeranian, was picking his own, one at a time, and eating them.

Another of our dogs liked to pick rosehips and eat them.  The Cairn Terrier we have now stands patiently while we pick her blackberries.