It's blueberry time in Ely!
One sure sign is seeing cars parked along the road in the Ely area where there is seemingly little else around. Today, there were two parked cars at different places along the Kawishiwi Trail, just before the turn down Garden Lake Road to our Ely MN resort. Sure enough, about 100 yards from one of the vehicles, someone with a bucket was crouched down in the brush, picking wild blueberries.
The berries are here--ripe and ready and just in time for Ely's biggest event of the year, The Blueberry Arts Festival.
This year's Annual Blueberry Art Festival runs July 24 through the 26 in Whiteside Park in downtown Ely. Between 30,000 and 40,000 people attend the festival each year to visit the booths of more than 300 vendors selling everything from Dorothy Molter root beer to hand-carved wooden canoe paddles and--of course--homemade blueberry pie. It's a great time to mingle and visit in town.
It's always fun to explore the trails and islands in the Ely area, but it's especially fun when the blueberries are at their peak. Look for blueberry patches around exposed rock in partly sunny to mostly sunny areas. Somewhat swampy and low-lying areas are also good places for blueberry patches. Choose berries that are blue-gray in color; red and green berries are not ripe yet and may not ripen after being picked.
One trick for picking is to hold a bowl with one hand and cup a bunch of berries with the other, gently "playing" the berries so that the ripe ones fall into the bowl.