Farming the Sweet and Sour
So sour it makes you close your eyes.” That’s the Hul'q'umi'num' language name for the wild “bog cranberry” that was once so important for Indigenous foodways throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Traditionally, “all coastal aboriginal groups in the province of British Columbia ate Bog Cranberries,” according to Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, by Nancy J. Turner. Picked by hand while “still hard and mostly green,” the tiny mouth-puckerers required specialized knowledge to harvest and process. Most often, bog cranberries were “steam-cooked… until they were soft and red.” Cranberry sauce, anyone?
The little red treasures were a valuable trade item for coastal peoples, first with inland Indigenous groups, then with settlers as well. Settlers in New Westminster provided a particularly strong market for Indigenous peoples with bog cranberries to trade.
Even earlier, abundant wild cranberry harvests traded by Indigenous gatherers were shipped from Fort Langley to San Francisco, where they served to stave off scurvy for sailors.
Cultivated cranberries are bred from the large or American cousins of bog cranberries, and they’ve been grown in the Lower Mainland since 1946. Today, the town of Fort Langley hosts an annual cranberry festival celebrating this small ruby fruit.
The Cranberry Festival, which began in 1995, now brings tens of thousands of curious tourists to the area every Thanksgiving weekend. Besides showcasing cultivated cranberries grown using modern agricultural practices, the festival also helps visiting berry lovers appreciate the important role wild cranberries once played in local Indigenous peoples’ foodways.
This lively event recently inspired the Dewit family to open their nearby cranberry farm to the public for tours during the Cranberry Festival. They never anticipated it snowballing into a full-on agritourism business.
With five children and a demanding farm business to run, it might seem surprising that Brian and Mandy Dewit invested their time, energy and money in transforming part of their cranberry operation into a destination. But once you understand how dedicated they are to providing a farm experience that helps people understand the importance of agriculture and local food, it all makes sense.
“We’re passionate about sharing our cranberries with our local community. That’s one of the top reasons we became independent growers.”
Brian is a third-generation farmer whose family has been farming in the Langley area since the ’80s. Mandy, who “didn’t grow up a farm girl,” has a professional background in education and a passion for graphic design. Together the Dewits are the perfect team to bring home the importance of farming for visitors to their area. And their Glen Valley family cranberry farm is close enough to Fort Langley to reach easily, but just far enough into the countryside to feel like another world.
Visitors liked what they saw during those early tours — and online through the Dewits’ thriving social media presence. This positive response was part of what motivated the family to re- think its farm, and by the 2021 Cranberry Festival, THE BOG Riverside Cranberry Farm was a full-fledged destination.
The Dewits’ hard work has meant there’s something for everyone touring the farm throughout the autumn harvest season. There’s information — an audio tour narrated by Mandy explains the growing process to visitors straight from their own phones. There are snacks: apple-cranberry fritters, cranberry cinnamon buns, cookies, and scones specially made for THE BOG by neighbourhood favourites Gourmet Donuts and Dale’s Roadside Bakery. There’s the chance to feel like a real cranberry farmer by suiting up in waders and stepping into the bog. And, of course, there are unique artisanal cranberry products at the onsite farm store. Visitors learn about the cranberry lifecycle, see real cranberries in cultivation, and, if they’re lucky, even observe the family bringing in the harvest.
While THE BOG may be in its agritourism infancy, you’d never know it when visiting the farm. The Dewits seem like old pros, with everything running smoothly thanks to the thought and care they dedicate to their newest “baby.”
But unlike THE BOG, the family’s professionalism is far from new: it’s been hard-earned through decades of individual and collective experience in education, business, agriculture and industry service (Brian’s father Jack volunteers for the B.C. Cranberry Marketing Commission).
Even B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham is impressed. She visited the farm during the 2021 harvest, donning waders herself to check out the bog first-hand.
This seamless experience at THE BOG results from collective efforts by family, friends and neighbours. On tour days, Brian and his father run the harvest equipment, Mandy staffs the entrance booth to welcome visitors, their eldest sons boom cranberries in the bog, another son helps visiting kids wade into the bog, their younger children pitch in wherever needed, Mandy’s dad helps out as a parking attendant and Brian’s mom supervises the farm store.
The care and respect the Dewits show their crops and visitors extends — or perhaps stems — from how they treat each other. For example, during peak hours on Thanksgiving Monday, Brian momentarily stepped away from harvest equipment that was running full-tilt to give one of his daughters a hug. She’d come to see how he was doing. But instead he asked her, “How’s mom? Doing alright?” with a voice full of concern for his wife inundated by the crowds front of house.
Even when he’s not on the machine harvesting, Brian is always plenty busy. “I do most of the farm maintenance and management,” he explains. “Cranberry farming is so much more than just harvesting the beautiful fall berries. It’s a year- round endeavour caring for these perennial plants [pruning, sanding, fertilizing, pollination], attending to the quality of the growing conditions [soil, drainage, irrigation] and managing bog maintenance.”
That’s why everyone helps out. “We have the perfect family- sized farm. We do walking weed control together around the property. I grew up farming, so I know how many valuable skills farm kids learn. My kids understand it’s not just about plants and equipment. There’s so much more. That’s what we want our visitors to understand, too.”
While the whole family contributes around the farm, Brian and Mandy are the masterminds behind THE BOG’s development as a destination. “We’re fortunate to steward a stunning harvest. We want to showcase it to help people value and respect farmland.”
After taking Buy B.C.’s Refresh Food Business course together, they began to envision aspects of THE BOG beyond the farming they already understood so well. “We realized what we didn’t know and still need to learn,” explains Mandy. “Everything from processing to packaging to marketing. The shop is a great example. It was a combined effort, and we did everything ourselves — design, construction, the whole thing. It was our summer project.”
Mandy was thrilled to put her design skills to work and use her training as an educator to develop learning resources for visitors, which sometimes include entire classes of children.
Brian takes satisfaction in seeing what their hard work has created. After helping out on his family’s hog and dairy farm as he was growing up, Brian then worked on another Glen Valley dairy farm after high school. He watched the parcel across the street transform from undesirable agricultural land into 160 acres of lucrative cranberry cultivation. His father started cranberry farming in 1999, with Brian and Mandy following in 2010 when they took on a 20-acre contract for Ocean Spray.
The Dewits now has 35 acres in cranberry cultivation, 14 of which supply their Ocean Spray contract. On the remaining 21 acres, they grow their own crops — the ones that meet the increasing demand of Lower Mainland consumers who want local produce directly from independent markets and farmers. Fruit from those 21 acres also provides the raw material for most of THE BOG’s farm store products.
THE BOG’s cranberries are easy to find now that the Dewits have expanded their business. However, local Indigenous peoples, committed to preserving traditional foodways face significant challenges if they want to include wild bog cranberries in their repertoire. Carrielynn Victor, an expert Stó:lō plant practitioner and the author of Plants of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Field Guide to Food, Medicine and Technology Plants of S’ ólh Téméxw, laments that she’s “never even tasted one.”
Victor explains that some of the active participants in her network of plant practitioners have seen bog cranberries occasionally and do know where to find them if needed, but it’s difficult. Like so many wild food sources, bog cranberry no longer thrives in the Lower Mainland, where it was once abundant in muskegs and peat bogs. Victor attributes this loss to habitat degradation through development and the invasive blackberry. Any bog cranberries that remain in developed areas are very hard to find.
Hopefully the wild bog cranberry that served the Lower Mainland’s First Peoples so well will soon become the beneficiary of a rejuvenation initiative.
In the meantime, the Dewit family provides the closest you’ll get to straight-from-the-source cranberries. Locavores can visit the farm store during harvest or the family’s upcoming Christmas Market; seasonal shopping dates are posted on THE BOG’s website. Those farther afield can find other retail outlets throughout the Fraser Valley, order products direct from the Dewits or find out which online grocery services deliver their goods.
Wherever THE BOG products are procured, they offer everything a cranberry connoisseur could dream of. There’s hot cranberry pepper jelly and gourmet cranberry sauce, a “charcuterie sidekick combo” and crunchy freeze-dried cranberries — even cranberry honey — all beautifully packaged and ready for gift- giving. Those with dietary restrictions looking to benefit from the cranberry’s many health properties will be thrilled to find unsweetened cranberry juice and powdered cranberries. Smoothie, anyone?
And, of course, there are plenty of fresh cranberries in season and frozen year-round for all your family feasts, from the Dewit family to yours.
THE BOG Riverside Cranberry Farm
26885 88 Ave, Langley, B.C.
riversidecranberries.ca | 604.614.7625 | @theriversidebog
