A foliage alternative

September 11, 2011|By Nancy Heiser, Globe Correspondent

Thousands of acres of wild blueberries grow in Washington County, spreading… (PETER WINHAM )

CHERRYFIELD, Maine - In mid to late September, weeks after Maine’s wild blueberries have been raked, feted in festivals, packaged, frozen, and sent countrywide, the vast barrens of sandy, acidic soil left by glaciers, where the berries grow semi-wild, turn to broad swaths of crimson. This transformation happens after the first hard frost.

While leaf peepers head to the mountains, coastal Washington County, far down east, offers a different seasonal experience. This rugged and vast stretch of Maine beyond Bar Harbor, where half of Maine’s 85 million pounds of commercially harvested wild blueberries grow, is hardscrabble, quiet, and thinly populated. Fields of the low-bush blueberry plants that weren’t raked and harvested, which is about half of them, transform into a brilliant red. The raked fields turn a browner red. Bordering forests of deciduous and evergreen trees provide color contrast and texture to undulating fields of ankle- and knee-high bushes so expansive that the landscape sometimes feels like the Midwestern plains.

In June you hear the loud hum of millions of imported bees pollinating the fields. In the fall, to keep the plants healthy, some of the fields are mowed or burned on a rotating basis. It’s a view few tourists see, because not many venture this far north and east.

If you’re game for this unusual fall excursion, get an up-to-date Maine Atlas and Gazetteer published by DeLorme. It’s essential for navigating the back roads through the fields. And gas up early, as services are sparse.

Maine is the world’s largest producer of wild blueberries. The state and parts of eastern Canada are the only places where the naturally growing fruit is commercially harvested. Find Cherryfield on the map. Despite its name, which some say derives from wild cherries that once grew here, the town proclaims itself the “wild blueberry capital of the world.’’ It’s home to Jasper Wyman & Sons and Cherryfield Foods, the world’s largest wild blueberry growers and processors. It’s also central to the state’s largest stretches of blueberry barrens. Find Machias, northeast along Route One. This is the region you’ll be traversing.