On the Cloudberry trail /trying to find the superfood

Cloudberries are very liked in our family and berries are super healthy and named to Superfood in Finland.

We arrived to Äkäslompolo over 30 degrees warm weather and our minds was already turned to great cloudberry catches. On the first day our steps were towards the swamp and we had the rubber boots and mosquito hat on, and the day was very hot. We were sweating and thirsty and so was mosquitos thirsty too. All this might sound crazy, but you can protect yourself from mosquitos very easy e.g. using by mosquito hat.

The first target was a swamp on the side of  Lake Ylläsjärvi and we assumed the cloudberries are waiting for us. But they didn't, we found only few single berries. I tried to remember what kind summer weather had been, cold or rainy and are the all berries lost? Could we found berries from higher places where the temperature might have been higher? With these thoughts we decided to go to Lake Tunturijärvi. But the result was same, no berries there either.

We met bikers in Lake Tunturijärvi and friendly woman told us that they have seen lot of cloudberries on the other biking route. The lady gave us name of place and I asked her not to tell this for anyone else. We decided to go this place next morning early. Before we left Lake Tunturijärvi we swam in it. That made good for us, the water was very refreshing.

In the next morning we went to the new swamp. The biking lady's tip was correct, and the swamp was all over red cloudberries. But, most of berries were raw and we need to come back later and let these berries to get ripen. We will be back after day or two. We had just tasted delicious berries, so we decided to go to other swamp on the Muonio side. We drove towards Muonio and my husband saw berries from the car. We stopped and he was right! There were ripe berries and we got the first nice catch. We didn't know name of this place and I named it after my husband, it's now Mikko's swamp. I don't even know if there are names for all these swamps, but in our stories this place is named now.

The day had been very warm, we decided to go for a swim in Lake Äkäslompolo. This swim trip was very nice, the beach at Lake Äkäslompolo was Sandy and easy to swim. The swimming did very good for the shoulders.

The third day we didn't go to pick berries, because we rented mountain bikes. On the front of the bike, we kept big bike bags just in case we'd find berries in biking route. Unfortunately, this wish did not come true.

On the following days, we started the day by picking berries and later we continued by mountain biking. Luckily the hot days were over, and we had better/cooler days for our activities. We got berries daily and our catches were bigger day after day.

Few days later, we returned to the swamp where were lots of raw berries. When we arrived, we saw a car right next to that swamp and we were shocked. To our treasure place had become intruders, dammit! We decided to walk past the place, and we saw lots of raw berries. We went a little bit further to pick berries, we knew there are more berries. One of the intruders followed us and he was going to the same place. We decided to straighten across the swamp and rush to pick "our" berries. The man followed us, and he picked berries diligently. It was like berries picking competition between us. On the way back we went to check the original good place and we saw it completely empty. All the berries and raw ones had been picked. This made us anger because we had just let them ripen first!

On the last day we returned to the Mikko's swamp and found from there more forested swamp. I knew that cloudberries could be bigger in that kind of swamp. From there we found extremely large and delicious berries. I said to my husband that places should be named. My husband, during the week, had suggested different places to be named after me, and just this was the right one.

When our holiday was over, we packed a good number of frozen berries with coolers and with bottles of frozen Lapland water. With these, the cloudberries were transported unharmed about 20-hour journey to our city home. At home, the berries were put on the freezer and Lapland's fresh water tasted very good. Next summer we will be coming back to Mikko's and Ulla's swamps to pick cloudberries again.

About some history from cloudberries hobby. When I was a child my parents loved to pick berries, so I have almost grown in a swamp. My parents monitored conditions of summer's weather, and they knew when the time was right and the places, where to find cloudberries. We started picking early in the morning and good places were secret, we didn't tell the others about them. This tells that cloudberries have been always very valuable berries.

I have taken my children with me to pick cloudberries. I'm happy that my dear daughter loves to pick berries and she is a very good and fast picker. She has been my berry friend many times.

On this year my husband, who has grown up in the Helsinki area, was forced to be my berry friend. First days might had been difficult for him because he is not used to go to swamp. In the last couple of days, I saw his enthusiasm (I try to believe in this way) and on the last day he surprised me by picking more berries than me. He is becoming a very good picker!