Dip your toes into Wisconsin’s cranberry harvest
It’s grey and raining and about 65 degrees, 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 $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.
Don’t equate cranberries with Wisconsin? I didn’t either until I moved to neighbouring Illinois and dreamed of bog wading as I read the stats: Wisconsin produces about 60 per cent of the country’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 21,000 acres and about 250 farms — most of which are familyrun, 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.”
I chose a B&B for its location in Wisconsin Rapids. It’s about a 50minute 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 (there’s also a giant Ocean Spray building; the company is a co-operative that works with local growers).
When I got to Wetherby, the water was blushing and, it seemed, bouncing with the buoyant berries, so bright and surprising against the grey that they demand attention. All around, the fields are made up of low-lying rectangles (the cranberry beds) separated by dikes and surrounded by ditches. On a bus tour, we learned that 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 — somehow making the water feel thick and bouncy as well.
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.” (I later learned that she was crowned at the Warrens Cranberry Festival in September) 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 hopped in my car and drove four miles to the 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 32 degrees, cranberry growers actually 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.”)
Upstairs, in the retail space/ice cream shop, it was hard to not fall into a monologue à la Forrest Gump while perusing all the options: cranberry salsa, cranberry barbecue sauce, cranberry vinegar, cranberry ice cream, cranberry coffee, cranberry taffy, cranberry wine, cranberry beer, strawberry-flavoured dried cranberries, chocolate-covered-cranberries.
As I wound back down the Cranberry Highway, homeward bound, I looked at the marshes with a new appreciation and understanding, and the inner “is-it-a-bog?” monologue was quieted.
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 plainlooking 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.”
When the executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers mentions a category favourite, you listen. The pie was delicious — it was the cranberry on top of my themed weekend.