It’s almost too late in the season for harvesting wild berries. Already the leaves of blue berries and high bush cranberries have turned red, yellow, or orange. We can’t expect to find berries on any of these plants. In the past years, on ground drained by Fish Creek, we have discovered ripen low bush cranberries this time of year. This morning, as Aki catalogues meadow scents, her other owner and I hunt the creek muskeg for bitter-sweet cranberries.

It should be pouring down rain on the muskeg. But the weather is dry. There is a pale, high layer of marine clouds above the mountain ranges. This would usually wipe out the detail of clouds and sky. Today, we can enjoy a subtle grey patchwork in the sky.

We hunt the muskeg but can only find a dozen cranberries on the meadow’s surface scattered like forgotten waste.