Nanaimo has its sweet bar and Saskatoon its berry.
I missed the height of the Saskatoon berry season on a trip to the Saskatchewan city last week but did luck out on a few frozen pies.
I grew up in Saskatoon and the pie, with ice cream, is my prairie comfort food.
It's a blueberry with attitude and although grown through a large swath of western Canada, including 91原创 Island, Saskatoon has the name cornered.
In the Cree language, the berries were called misaskwatomin and Methodist minister John Lake put an English bent on the word to give the city its name. He led members of the Temperance Colonization Society to homestead lands on the South Saskatchewan River in 1883. He recalled in his memoirs that a man brought him a handful of berries: "I asked him the name, he said they call them saskatoons. In an instant I remarked, 'Arise Saskatoon Queen of the North.'
You won't find any Saskatoon berries arising in the city now along the river bank, but you can still head out to a few spots in the country for some free pickings . . . or raid a family freezer.
