A-Life BC Travel Blog

Our unusual weather this spring and summer could make for an excellent berry year. To get a good berry crop, we need a week or so of dryish weather in the spring, when the berries are flowering, so they can pollenate. Then we need rain in the spring and early summer, as the berries are swelling. Finally, we need sunshine to ripen them. All the cloud and rain this year has delayed everything a bit—even now, in late July, there are still ripe salmonberries to pick.

But all that rain has the other types of berry bushes loaded with green fruit. If the sun that’s in our forecast really appears, I think we can expect a spectacular berry year.

Here’s a brief calendar of the Tofino-Ucluelet berry season (remember, everything is running a few weeks later this year):

Salmonberries: (Pictured above). These are closely related to raspberries, and they look like plump raspberries. They can be yellow, orange, or red when ripe. They start in late May, and produce through June and into early July. Eat fresh.

Thimbleberries

Thimbleberries: Thimbleberries look like very bright red raspberries. However, the plants do not have spines and their leaves look like big maple leaves. These are the most flavour-packed berries I know. They melt in your mouth—and also in your hand—so there is no point in picking them into a container for later. Definitely to be eaten on the spot! They are usually our second berry to ripen, in June and July.

Red huckleberries: Related to blueberries, these are high bushes with tiny leaves and bright red berries. They usually ripen in July. They are excellent fresh. They are a bit tangier than blueberries, so they make a great addition to sweet baking, such as muffins, and in pancakes. Other huckleberries around here, less common, are the oval-leafed huckleberry (with blue berries) and black huckleberries—also both delicious.

Huckleberries

Himalayan blackberries: These blackberries are an introduced species, but they are still delicious. If you can find somewhere that has not been picked recently, and target the plumpest and blackest berries, their sweetness is astonishing! There is also a native black raspberry, which I have seen very rarely in the forests of northern Clayoquot, as well as a native trailing blackberry, which is common around Port Alberni. You are unlikely to see these two around Tofino or Ucluelet, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for them just in case. The Himalayan blackberry ripens in August, and is common along roadsides in both towns.

Salal: This is the bush you see everywhere in the rainforest, with its large leathery leaves. Because of its abundance, it was a very important food source for the Nuu-chah-nulth, and many locals, both native and non-native, still gather and preserve it. Its abundant blue berries are fine to eat—a bit blander than a regular blueberry. But cooked—in jams, or berry crumbles—they develop such an intense flavour that I prefer to mix them with other blackberries or blueberries to tone it down! You can find salal pretty much anywhere, with berries ripening in August and September.

Evergreen huckleberries: These tend to grow on drier, stonier areas, such as the top of Radar Hill. The tough little shrubs have pointy green leaves. The berries are black or dark blue, and both look and taste like small blueberries, ripening in late September and October, and often remaining good for picking through November or later.

For more info about the berries, as well as all of the other wild plants of the Tofino-Ucluelet region, consult Pojar and Mackinnon’s Plants of Coastal British Columbia.