What could be better than spending a warm sunny summer day picking strawberries. Picking and munching to be precise. With tens of strawberry fields in vicinity I can’t wait to get down on my knees and get my hands dirty. Picking is quick. In fact so quick that it’s relatively easy to get about two kilograms in about half an hour. It’s kind of fun, even though I have to admit that cultivated strawberry fields are more for the city slicker type of adventurers. You basically don’t even have to look for any berries as they are right there on the field staring right at you, it doesn’t require any special skill or endurance and even if you tried really, really hard it would be rather difficult to get lost. Which makes picking all other berries a completely different affair. They grow out in the wast forests and swamps, so you might want to put that emergency helicopter number into your mobile phone. If you are picking in the area with a network coverage, that is. Even though this might sound a bit strange, but they are much sweeter when picked like that. It could be more challenging and fun, but could also be too much for the feeble.

By visiting an open market in any Finnish town around this time of the year it’s easy to tell that we’re in the midst of the berry season. Strawberries and bilberries will soon be followed by raspberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, crowberries, cranberries, and what-you-know-it-berries as they gradually ripen in the weeks to come.

And people love picking them. According to some statistics I’ve stumbled upon two-thirds of Finns will pick berries during the summer. So if you spot a person standing in the swamp who appears to be loitering, it is very likely that they are literally knee deep in the berries (and water). Although this is Finland, it is not very likely that anyone would want to be killing their time in the middle of the swamp. Anyway, if you do happen to stumble upon such individuals, chances are both of you are in there for the same reason. Which also means you’re not only invading their turf, but also their privacy. Finns are nuts about their forest fruits and their personal space which can be on a clear day, out in the open within the radius of up to 80 kilometers.

Obviously this whole ordeal is about much more than just berries. It’s about being out and about your favorite swamp, enjoying silence and hopefully solitude too, taking in fresh air, getting a snack on the way and saving some for later. And taking pleasure in such activities is deeply rooted in cultures of all the Nordic peoples. All with the exception of Danes who live in way to densely populated areas to have developed such primal urge for the untouched nature. And the attitude of being one with flora and fauna is also a part of everyman’s right enjoyed by these peoples.

However, even before it was codified into law, which happened in the Nordic countries mostly in the 20th century, everyman’s right was a generally accepted custom. At least in Finland everyman’s right guarantees everyone the right to roam freely in the countryside, without the need to obtain permission from the owner of the land.

This custom has been an integral part of Nordic cultures where people have enjoyed it for hundreds of years. However, everyman’s right covers much more than just free roaming. One of the basic premises of this right is enjoying the fruits and joys of nature as long as you don’t cause any permanent damage. Not only are you allowed to pick berries and mushrooms, and fish without permission to a certain extent, but can also traverse the land at will and camp on it freely. And all this comes without the fear of getting shot, as might be the case in, for instance, the US where it is advised to take the ‘No trespassing’ signs with utmost seriousness. Here, the case is exactly the opposite: it is illegal to put up a ‘No trespassing’ sign and build a fence, even on your own land.

As if it wasn’t difficult enough to wrap my central European mind around such concept of practically boundless freedom, there is still more to these comforts. If you want to sell the collected fruits, not only are you allowed to do so, but are almost encouraged as you do not have to pay any taxes from the sales. Generous? If you consider that Finns annually collect more than 50 million kilograms of berries, I think it is not only generous, but also very tempting.

Even though I am pretty sure that most of berries end up being consumed before they are sold, the volume allocated for sale is still far from negligible. For some this means big business, while for others it can provide a livelihood. What has become a constant in the recent years in Finland are seasonal workers from Thailand who come here to pick berries during the summer months. They usually number in hundreds and in the matter of several weeks they pick enough berries to earn a living until the next season comes about.

Of course, these professional pickers are a bit different than you and me. First of all they have their own areas and know when and how to pick. Secondly, the work might not really be appreciated or even endured by many. The most praised and consequently the most expensive berry in Finland is cloudberry which grows only in swamps. I spoke to a salesman on the local market who buys cloudberries straight from pickers and he told me that on average these pickers pick anywhere from 100 to 150 kilograms of cloudberries per day. And during the high season cloudberries can easily reach prices of about 10€ per kilogram. However, I can’t really imagine that carrying a bucket of berries on my back and wading through the mosquito infested swamps would be fun for more than half an hour. So, I am pretty sure that every cent these people earn is well deserved.

But before you start packing your things and heading to Finland to do some lucrative business consider that this year the season has been worse than usual.

Mladen

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Culture, Environment, Finland, Food, Leisure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.