WADING RIGHT IN
Visitors can dip their toes into Wisconsin’s cranberry harvest
It’s grey and raining and about 18 C, but more than 70 people are lined up in a field in central Wisconsin, undeterred by the gloom — or the wait. Their eyes are fixed on a lagoon that’s pink with thousands of floating baubles: cranberries.
In the Badger State, late September to late October is cranberry season, and hundreds of devotees and curiosity seekers have come here, to Wetherby Cranberry Co. in the town of Warrens, for Harvest Day, when they tour the sprawling marshes by bus and, literally, dip their toes into the cranberry experience. For US$10 extra, they can pull on a pair of hip-high waders and step out into the water to have their photo taken amid the cran-jewels.
Wisconsin produces about 60 per cent of the U.S.’s cranberries and about 50 per cent of the world’s cranberries. It’s the official state fruit and the state’s largest fruit crop, both in value and acreage, with around 8,400 hectares (21,000 acres), and about 250 farms — most of which are family-run, with some six generations deep. The nearly $1 billion industry employs more than 4,000 people, and it has a deep history in the area, says Tom Lochner, executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association.
“Cranberries grew here in Wisconsin for eons,” said Lochner. “The Native Americans collected and harvested them, and they used them for food, they used them for dye; they used them for medicine; and they traded them when early European settlers came in the mid-1800s,” he said.
Lochner explains that the European immigrants then began cultivating cranberries themselves, and the commercial industry was born. Every fall, cranberry lovers flood the state for festivals, parades and marsh tours here and farther north.
I’d arrived the night before, determined to immerse myself in a Wisconsin cranberry adventure, waders and all. As someone who commits to a theme, I opted to stay at Le Chateau: The Manor Bed & Breakfast in Wisconsin Rapids. The Queen Anne Victorian dates back to 1889, when it was built by John Arpin, a lumber baron who also has a history with — you guessed it — cranberries. They grew wild on the land he used for his lumber business.
I was delighted to find that Faye Collier, who owns the B&B with her husband, Bill, also likes to commit to a theme: Breakfast included, among other items, pumpkin cranberry bread with cranberry butter, cranberry raisin bread pudding and cranberry juice.
I also chose the B&B for its location in Wisconsin Rapids. It’s about a 50-minute drive to reach Wetherby Cranberry Co., and much of the route travels along the “Cranberry Highway,” which passes cranberry operation after cranberry operation on Highway 173.
When I got to Wetherby, a family-owned cranberry company that dates back to 1903, the water was blushing. On a bus tour, we learned the fruit doesn’t actually grow in the water. Rather, the beds are flooded for harvest so that the air-pocket-filled berries, which develop on scraggly vines close to the ground, rise to the top and can be more easily plucked up by the harvesting equipment and then sold fresh or processed.
After waiting nearly an hour in line for the waders, it was my turn, and it was even stranger than I’d hoped it might be. With my rubber boots up to my hips, I slowly stepped into the chilly water and walked over the tangled plants that once held the berries. I plunged my hands in and the fruit felt buoyant, bouncy, light. Local helpers stood by to take photos for visitors, and I’d left my camera with a fresh-faced blond wearing a tiara and sash that said “Cranberry Princess.” She saw me reach into the water and grab two handfuls of the berries. “You can throw them if you want!” she encouraged. And as I tossed them in the air like bouncy red balls, she snapped the best souvenir I could hope for.
After the tour, I drove to the nearby Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center. The basement serves as a cranberry museum, shedding more light on the cranberry’s history. (The name cranberry, for example, is inspired by the shape of the blossom that grows on the fruit in early summer — it looks like a sandhill crane and was originally called a “crane berry.”)
Placards revealed insights on frost protection that made me wish I’d listened more closely during my physics classes. (When temperatures get close to 0 C (32 F), cranberry growers turn on their irrigation systems so that the water can freeze around the cranberry and protect it. “As water turns to ice, a small amount of heat is released, which helps protect the vines and berries from frost damage.”)
I decided to make one final stop before leaving cranberry country: a place called Babcock Cafe, about a half-hour west of Wisconsin Rapids. The restaurant is a plain-looking building with beige siding — the only attention-grabbing things were a sign reading “World Famous Pies” and the fact that the parking lot was packed. Lochner had mentioned this place when I asked if he had any favourite haunts for cranberry treats. “The cranberry nut pie with a little ice cream on it,” he said. “I would recommend that.”
The pie was delicious — it was the cranberry on top of my themed weekend.