The Harvest

Our berries are handpicked by my family and me, alongside experienced local harvesters—people for whom this isn't foraging; it's a way of life. Most have been picking since they were children. Their grandparents picked. Their parents picked. Now their own children are learning the same marshes.

Harvest is woven into the culture of Newfoundland and Labrador. Families meet in the berry patches. Stories are traded over full buckets. Local festivals celebrate the season. For many fishing families, once the capelin or herring traps are hauled in, berry season begins.

The harvest follows the land.

We begin with cloudberries (bakeapples) in southern Newfoundland, then zigzag our way up the Northern Peninsula, moving from inland bogs to coastal marshes as each patch reaches its peak. From there, we cross the Strait of Belle Isle into Labrador—the mecca of wild berries. We load the boat, island-hop our way north along the coast, and harvest wherever the berries are ready.

Every bucket is picked by hand. Every stop is timed to the season. Every berry is gathered where nature says it's ready—not when a calendar does.

And when the timing is right, the red berry tells a different story.

Unlike the cloudberry, its harvest runs in reverse. It begins in the north.

After the first hard frosts of autumn, the berries sweeten and are ready to pick, remaining on the plants until winter finally buries them beneath the snow. Then we wait.

When spring sunlight melts that blanket away and the marshes begin to breathe again, the berries emerge naturally preserved. That's when we return.

For us, spring is the finest harvest of all. Months beneath the snow mellow the berry's sharp bite, deepen its flavour, and, according to research, preserve its remarkable concentration of natural compounds.

It's one of nature's rarest gifts—a berry that reaches its peak only after surviving an entire subarctic winter.

The Apex Berry-everything below it is just a super fruit.