Festival: Strawberry fields are forever
Festival: Strawberry fields are forever
Annual Chassell gathering on tap
| CAPTION: Laura Kirby/Daily Mining Gazette Vicki Rajala, from Covington, picks her own berries at Henry Ohtonen’s strawberry farm in Chassell Wednesday. Most area farmers say they’ve had a plentiful harvest this year. |
By LAURA KIRBY, DMG Writer
CHASSELL — If you’ve driven through Chassell lately, you might just have noticed the plethora of strawberry salesmen, women and kids, or kids dressed as strawberries on U.S. Highway 41. But is it a heightened marketing campaign or is the strawberry season booming this year?
Chassell farmer Kathy Ohtonen says fruits are selling well, and pickers are in abundance at her farm on Klingville Road: The combination of little winter kill and a mild fall has amounted to what is known in the strawberry business as a good “set,” she said.
“We have no irrigation, and even without irrigation we’re doing well,” she said. “We’re just small but we’ve had a lot of people in here.”
Ohtonen said she picked her first berries of the year on the first day of summer, which is early in the season.
Irrigation and climate conditions make for good growth, but other factors can also play a role in the quality of the crop, suggested farm owner Mary Crane. The Crane farm looks forward to a similar boom in strawberry breeding next year when seeds they planted this year blossom.
“It goes in three-year cycles,” she explained. “Here we have a three-year field and a second-year field. We did plant some, so next year should be really good,” she said.
But while the strawberry season is booming it’s nothing compared to what it once was, said Frank Murphy, chairman of this weekend’s Copper Country Strawberry Festival in Chassell.
He estimated back in 1939 there were around 100 members of the Copper Country Strawberry Growers Association, with 11,800 crates sold that same year. Members plummeted to about 41 by the 1940s with some speculating harsh frosts or dry weather affected the harvest and continued to drop as the country struggled through World War II.
Nowadays there are only about 10 to 15 farmers left in the area.
“Right now, the strawberry community is very labor- intensive,” said Murphy. “It’s best to get into that business if you got a lot of kids,” he joked.
Still, picking season could be important for the local economy in boosting tourism.
With the build-up to this weekend’s Copper Country Strawberry Festival in Chassell for example, local tourist attractions like the Einerlei gift shop are experiencing one of their busiest weeks of the year, said owner Nancy Leonard.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite as many roadside stands,” she said.
Many Chassell natives returned to the area for an all-school reunion held last weekend and while staying in the Copper Country for the festival, are getting their fill of the native fruit, Leonard says.
“We ... constantly see people who are on their way to go pick strawberries, or go find strawberries for sale,” she said.
For more information on the history of Chassell strawberry farming, visit the Chassell Heritage Center Web site. The center has extended opening hours during the Strawberry Festival running Friday and Saturday.
Laura Kirby can be reached at lkirby@mininggazette.com
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