Dainties Found In the Arctic

In spite of the latitude and Arctic current, Labrador is the home of much that is delicious in the berry world. Even the outlying islands furnish the curlew berry and bake apple in profusion, and upon the mainland, in the proper month, September, a veritable feast awaits one. Three varieties of blueberries, huckleberries, wild red currants, having a pungent, aromatic flavor, unequalled by the cultivated varieties; marsh berries, raspberries, tiny white capillaire tea berries, with a flavor like some rare perfume, and having just a faint suggestion of wintergreen; squash berries, pear berries, and curlew berries, the latter not so grateful as the others, but a prime favorite with the Eskimos, who prefer it to almost any other; and lastly, the typical Labrador fruit, which, excepting a few scattering plants in Canada and Newfoundland, is found, I believe, nowhere else outside of the peninsula–the gorgeous bake apple. These cover the entire coast from the St. Lawrence to Ungava. Their beautiful geranium-like leaves struggle with the reindeer moss upon the islands, carpet alike the low valleys and the highest hilltops, and even peep from the banks of everlasting snow. Only one berry grows upon each plant, but this one makes a most delicious mouthful. It is the size and form of a large dewberry, but the color is a bright crimson when half ripe and a golden yellow when matured. Its taste is sweetly acid, it is exceedingly juicy, and so delicate that it might be though impossible to preserve it. Yet the natives do preserve it with all its freshness and original flavor throughout the entire winter, merely by covering it with fresh water and heading up tightly in casks or barrels.