Cloudberry happiness or madness

Already in June there were signs that there might become a very good berry harvest in this year. In the beginning of summer the weather was warm and also rainy and there were lots of mosquitoes as pollinators. Early in July we heard many news that berries could be a lot. And that started to raise our cloudberry fever.

We arrived in Äkäslompolo at the exact planned time, as the first berries had been picked already in southern Lapland. On the first day in Äkäslompolo we had to check berry situation, of course. There were lot's of berries but still raw ones. For a while we were worried are we still too early for picking berries? But no worries, we found lots of ripe ones from open swamp. You might know that you can pick up cloudberries only from the swamp, and there are different kinds of swamps. Some swamp has trees and some are open ones without trees. And you might know also that cloudberries are very healthy, which called as superfood - and very expensive to buy.

A very good harvest meant also lots of berries to clean. However, cleaning berries is much easier than walking in the swamp. We packed cleaned cloudberries to bags and then put them to a freezer. We had a very good mood with the cloudberry catch every day.

So the berry madness hit to us too and it was no surprise, as it has been hit often before. That madness means that you have to to pick berries every day. And in the end of the day, the next day's picker places will be planned, where should go and found a good, maybe a better catch than previously? In this year, it also meant a numbers of wondering - when we found a good place - there were a huge amount of cloudberries. So much that it was difficult to find to step place without stepping on the berries. Many times we had to say "oh my goodness, can this even be true?".

Madness also means that there is no time left for other things to do. It was pointless to plan other activities before our freezer was full. Our freezer had a lot of work and was very loudy about it. I was a little bit worried about the loud noice and tried to keep it calm. Also we had an other problem when the freezer was full - should we buy an another freezer? For this, my skillful husband find a method to range daily previously frozen berries into a cooler bag and put new fresh berries in to the freezer. This way we got two times more frozen berries.

We visited the "Mikko and Ulla swamps" those were familiar places from the previous year and also we found new swamps. Our daughter came to help and she became our "younger cloudberry agent" and we named a very good cloudberry swamp after her. We will definitely return to "Milla's swamp" on the following summer.

You might wonder that it could be difficult to find good berry places. We have become familiar with the landscapes from winter ski trips and summer bike rides, but the best berry places were found just by a chance. Of course, it is easier because we have many years experience of navigating the forest and swamp. In addition, we made sure that we stayed close to the road and we knew all the time where we were. We didn't want to be among those who got lost in the forests or swamps. This happened to too many people in this year because of berry madness.

Finally, it must be said that within of nine days, however, we took two days off from berries. Eventhough we were worrying, how much good berries were left unpicked in those days?