‘Twas a Sunday morning, July 1st, when Claire and I hit the gas and left home. Saturday was spent frantically packing and saying goodbye to our grandparents. Then morning came and we enjoyed our dad’s breakfast, hugged our parents and brother goodbye, ran to the car so we wouldn’t get soaked from the rain, hugged our mom again, and drove away.
We were FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Cruisin’. Driving off into the great unknown…
The unknown turned out to be a church parking lot 25 minutes from our house when the rain got so bad we couldn’t see. Not quite the climactic moment we thought it’d be.
The rain finally cleared, and several hours later, we were greeted by our energetic host as we pulled into the Honeyberry Farm in Bagley, MN. We dropped our stuff in the trailer and hopped in her car to get tacos on the beach. While we waited, we waded in the water and talked to a woman and her son (who had never had any western medicine (!)) who occasionally picked strawberries at a farm nearby. The tacos were good. The ice cream was good. Back in the car, our host stated, “the night is still young,” in a way that sounded like she was asking me to confirm. I nodded my head and we found ourselves canoeing around Lake Lamand. The sun was setting and the loons were laughing, and it really was beautiful. But, to be honest, we realized right away that we didn’t see eye to eye with our host in several ways. We like tacos and ice cream and canoeing, but doing it all at the same time with someone we’d just met and didn’t connect with well was….a little much. After arriving back at the farm, Claire and I plopped ourselves in the trailer and stayed there for the rest of the night questioning our decision to do this for the next four and a half months.
Our time at the Honeyberry Farm was interesting. We enjoyed the work: picking honeyberries, saskatoons, and cherries, packaging honeyberries, and making deliveries to a language camp and natural foods co-op. We ate berries basically every way possible (fresh, baked, in pancakes, ice cream, as syrup, and kombucha). We used our free time to hang around Bemidji, Park Rapids and Itasca State Park where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are located.
We talked a bit with the hired berry pickers: Brian, who grew up in the mountains and wanted to move back with his son and be as self-sustainable as possible, and Kurt, a former biology teacher who loved the idea of our trip and reminded us that professors often don’t know what they’re talking about. Speaking of: we had the opportunity to meet a college professor and his lovely wife from Canada who were staying at the farm for a night through a hosting website on their way to Alberta. Three hours were spent discussing his research on the differences between evangelicalism in Canada and the US, and most recently between Canada and England. We talked briefly about politics, our trip, and what their kids were up to, while enjoying some dairy-free honeyberry and cherry ice cream. It was easy to get along with them, and we wish we would have had more time to talk.
While we appreciate the opportunities we had, the hospitality we were shown, our host’s willingness to film an interview, and the people we met at the farm, we were ready to leave. The environment was a bit cramped and the lack of personal connection with our hosts was disappointing. We were seriously hoping we would find like-minded people at our following WWOOF experiences.
The day we left, we packed up the car, picked a few honeyberries before we decided getting mauled by mosquitos wasn’t worth it, and took off with only one thought in mind: life will be better in Canada. And it was.
