The Day We Almost Lost Our Berries…

We had rented a small farm house in the Laurentians for our summer week-ends and vacation retreat a few years ago. The house had a great location being situated on the flat of a large valley between mountains and very close to a lake having a small beach. Over time we got to know some of the year-round-folk and often would be invited as guests to any of the local shindigs happening at the time. We had a great time that summer making new friends and enjoying the ambiance of it all… until, to my dismay and my wife’s delight, we were invited to go on a blueberry picking foray on one of the smaller mountains called Weir Mountain.

I really didn’t want to go but couldn’t think of one good reason not to. Reluctantly I yielded and continued to pray for rain for that day. Well the day of the ‘picking’ looked like it was going to be one of those nice hot hazy lazy August summer days; the type of day were I would rather prefer laying in a hammock or on a beach … anything else but picking bl**dy berries! …and on top of some god-forsaking mountain yet! I cursed the rain gods. It was mid-morning when we left. We each took our own cars and our caravan of vehicles parked in a small lot at the base of the mountain. We began our ‘group’ trek, single file, up a fairly straight path. The path actually followed the contour of a small glen cutting through the well forested mountain in an upward direction.

We traveled upward for sometime before making an abrupt 90 degree right hand turn and continued along a even steeper path. The trail peaked and started downward traversing across another glen and continued up the other side. The trail was quite well used and not overly difficult to walk on except for its incline. Eventually we came to our ‘berry picking’ destination on top of… Weir mountain (la dee da).

Well I have to admit pickings were great. My wife and I had two water buckets and a small pail filled to the brim with berries. It was about mid-afternoon now and it was time to go back. I was really looking forward to the beach. A year-round-couple also was finished and we followed them down the mountain. To my chagrin we came across people on the way up who were kin to the couple leading the way down. A family reunion developed right there! …in the middle of the path! ….deep in the forest! …somewhere in this mountain called Weir mountain!

The family confab went on and on. I was tired, hot, sweaty, and impatient, and wanting to go for a swim. While they were talking I looked around and thought the area looked very familiar. We had walked quite a while up to that point and…Hey, I thought, I think we’re at the first Glen!. I turned to my wife and said “I know where we are, it’s this way to the car lot” and made a 90 degree left turn onto a path. What I didn’t know and forgotten all about it was we hadn’t crossed the second glen …we were in it! We continued along this trail for some time puzzled a bit at the lack of traffic wear. The feeling subsided when the sky and the thinning of the forest suggested a clearing ahead. Continuing on and coming to the end of the now diminished path was the biggest surprise of my life… a cliff! A very escapement like cliff! It was about 150 feet straight down. Standing there with two buckets of berries thinking Oh god!, there must be a way down I thought …I don’t want to turn back (besides I’m a man …and we never ask for directions or turn back..).

Through the tree tops below I could see what I thought was a telephone pole in the distance. That meant life. We walked along the edge of the cliff for a bit and found a very rugged way down. At the bottom the bushes and shrubs were very dense but pushing our way through we soon came to a large swamp. On the other side I could see the telephone pole that I spotted from the cliff. Holding the buckets and pail high, my wife and I trudge through that mire.

Each step we took created a sucking slurping sound but we pressed on thankful for our laced boots. Any other footwear would be long gone. When we finally made it across, we were relieved to find we were standing on a small country lane. Not to far down the way were a couple of old permanent cottages. Not knowing quite where we were, we were lucky to discover someone home in one to ask for directions. The elderly lady that answered our knock looked puzzled and asked us as to how we had gotten to her door. We told her of our adventure. She then said matter-of-factly that we were damn lucky …she had lost a horse not to long ago in that bog we crossed.

It was about 5:00 when we eventually found our way back to our car. The group that had stayed on the mountain picking hours after we had left were now down. The people that we left in the glen were also there and very upset to say the very least; they thought we were lost (we were for awhile) and contemplated amassing a search party. Of all the misadventures of the day I think that had to be my sorriest moment of all; to upset these thoughtful people so badly.

On the bright side, we didn’t lose our berries …and we were never asked to go blueberry picking again…