In Southern Ontario, two weeks before Thanksgiving, autumn leaves have barely begun to turn. But other signs of the season are afoot. At Muskoka Lakes Farm & Winery, one of Ontario’s oldest cranberry farms, it’s the first day of the harvest. Visitors from as far as the Dominican Republic, Texas and New Zealand have come to take part in “the plunge,” wading into a pool of freshly harvested berries – a seasonal ritual.
Cranberries are grown in bogs that stay dry for most of the year, but which are flooded to allow for easier harvesting come autumn. The berries, which are agitated by machines, fall from the shrubs and are kept afloat by the water. It’s a unique process for a native North American plant.
On Muskoka Lakes Farm & Winery, the owners and farmhands pick and produce 130 to 180 tonnes of cranberries yearly that grow on 27 acres of land. The berries will be sold fresh as well as turned into juice. And, of course, some will end up on Thanksgiving tables.
