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c03050fc-ee13-422f-9576-316707e6e3ed Rubs Bears rub against trees and brush to leave each other scent messages.

c77d2ff4-b053-4f39-aa07-77f4e9f28bdd < Back < >

July 22, 2022 Berry Bonanza It’s the best berry year in several years. Get out and take advantage. Posted Wednesday, July 20, 2022 6:38 pm Marshall Helmberger It appears that the area is experiencing one of the best blueberry crops in the past few years. Last year’s drought prompted many plants to kick seed production into overdrive and that means this year’s berry crop is looking plentiful. (photo by M. Helmberger) After back-to-back berry busts, it appears the summer of 2022 is headed for a berry bonanza, and that’s good news for bears and berry pickers alike. Credit last year’s drought. Just as last summer’s extreme dryness helped spark drifts of aspen fluff back in June, it also prompted many berry-producing plants— like juneberries, blueberries, and chokecherries— to kick their production into overdrive. The late spring likely helped as well, particularly with blueberries, which can often be damaged by early June frosts if they’ve flowered too soon. Cool springs help guard against that possibility by slowing the development of the plant’s flowers until the danger of hard frosts is past. This year’s juneberry crop appears to be exceptional, with many bushes practically drooping with the ripening fruit. While they may be known as juneberries, these plump, tasty berries typically don’t ripen in the North Country until July and they’re at peak ripeness right about now. Your best bet for finding a good haul of these berries is along some of the area biking and walking trails, roadsides, or field edges, where the bushes are able to get better sunlight. Ripe juneberries just waiting to be picked. (photo by M. Helmberger) Juneberries are a great picking option for folks who don’t like the bending and stooping required to pick the lowbush blueberries found in our region. You can pick juneberries standing up and I’ll often even use a ladder to get the berries that are otherwise beyond reach. Juneberries are a bit dryer than blueberries, so they’re a good addition to a blueberry pie, since they help make it a little firmer. If you’re holding out for blueberries, you can find plenty of ripe ones now, at least in the higher terrain. Blueberry bushes will grow in sun or shade, but if you want berries in any quantity, they need some sun. Around here, that means recent clearcuts (of black spruce or jack pine, especially) or rocky outcrops where trees are more scattered. Rocky outcrops can be good, when it rains. Last summer’s drought fried all the berries in the high terrain, but this year we’ve had just enough timely rain to make for nicely-plump berries. It is still a bit spotty on the outcrops this year, and I suspect that has to do with the intensity of last year’s drought. In areas with very shallow soil, which is typical of outcrops, the blueberry bushes were killed or damaged to the point where they’ll need to recover before producing any berries again. But where the berry bushes survived, this year’s production is well above average. I’ve yet to check some of my lowland blueberry spots, mostly because the berries there typically don’t ripen until late July or early August. And it’s still way too early to think about chokecherries, which I normally don’t pick until late August or September for wine making. From what I’ve seen, it looks like a bumper crop. Come mid-September, it’ll be time to check our cranberry locations. It’s been several years of lackluster production so we’re keeping our fingers crossed. Picking juneberries in Soudan. (photo by M. Helmberger) The good berry year isn’t just a windfall for human pickers. According to Jessica Holmes, the new Tower DNR area wildlife manager, the number of nuisance bear complaints has fallen pretty dramatically in recent weeks. It appears the bears are finding that the living is easy when the berries are hanging plump and juicy.

c58c203a-0b54-4ed3-83a6-a1d71037d607 < Back Slide 39 of 83 < > No one knew yet that natural ground fire actually helps white pines reproduce. The fire burns up leaf litter and underbrush on the forest floor while the mature white pines are protected by their thick bark. The fire creates ideal conditions for the next crop of white pine seeds to take root and survive.

d3ccc03b-ebcd-4c32-993d-7d2cf09eb3c1 BLACK BEAR DIET Red Maple - Seeds Acer rubrum May Spring A native and common medium size shade tree(40’ to 65’ tall) in Minnesota that turns brilliant red in the fall and has red flowers in the spring. Bears feed on red maple seeds in spring.

43eafb72-e756-4a7d-9961-7fa9c9451f46 < Back Slide 62 of 83 < > For example, scattered white pines are important to black bears.

56c4bcbd-f906-4114-83f1-5dd7666af935 < Back Slide 38 of 83 < > This let litter and underbrush become so dense on the forest floor that it became hard for white pine seedlings to find soil and light.

609ddf2d-2005-4c3b-9235-497b828b3535 < Back Cub Screaming When cubs are afraid, they scream. That’s the sound that brings mom running.

ac5ae65f-3da4-4706-95a9-48008362673d Discovering Black Bears, Mom's Choice Awards Recipient Discovering Black Bears is a nature activity book that explores the natural history of the American black bear, its behavior and habitat. It also covers bear-human conflicts and how problems can be resolved. This engaging book, aimed at children of all ages, introduces the reader to real-life bear biologists, who have new insights into bear behavior. Discovering Black Bears has full color illustrations, a sheet of black bear stickers, and contains 20 activities designed to challenge children s minds. Margaret Anderson October 31, 2007 40 Pages:

b2a3477f-07e5-4c39-b976-ae6be70810f7 Polar Bears: Living with the White Bear A Russian researcher details his observations of polar bear behavior after spending four years living among them in the High Artic. Nikita Ovsyanikov January 1, 1996 144 Pages:

2560967e-f56d-4905-bfa4-a3574bb585b1 < Back Slide 18 of 83 < > What happened was in the 1800's, good, sincere people were supplying lumber to a growing America and clearing the land for agriculture. No one knew yet that most of the land they were clearing in Minnesota was not good for agriculture. They were working hard to earning livings for their families and build a better America, and it seemed more logical to cut every tree they could rather than leave seed trees for the future.

18ba92c0-a928-43f6-93bc-e71a47c1c465 < Back Slide 29 of 83 < > But no one had tried to grow white pines before, so there was no way the foresters could know that what they were doing to help was only making things worse.