BALA, Ont. — The full potential of one of Canada’s oldest cranberry farms has been realized only in the past 20 years.
Wendy Hogarth, who runs Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh with her husband, Murray Johnston, said adding value has been a matter of necessity.
Their 27 acres produce 300,000 to 500,000 pounds of cranberries annually. Bulk cranberries sold by the truckload fetch around 70 cents a pound.
“We started selling cranberries to people who came by,” she said. “We just started adding things as we went on.”
The family and the wider community have pulled together to make it work.
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Standardized packaging was introduced. Alliances were struck with other businesses in the area to add value to the raw product. June Johnston, Murray’s mother, started making preserves and now produces 1,000 cases a year.
Others in the community, including nearby Iroquois Cranberry Growers, have helped by sponsoring the annual Bala Cranberry Festival in mid-October.
As well, Hogarth came up with the idea of turning cranberries into wine to capture the terroir of Muskoka, a region of rock, lake and wetland, to add value to the raw berries.
“Creating wine from the local harvest is an ancient idea.”
Muskoka Lakes Winery began with 600 cases of a single vintage 11 years ago. Today, with winemaker Matt French on board, it produces 5,000 cases, half of which are sold from the on-farm retail store and the remainder through the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
Most of the wines contain cranberry as the key ingredient. The winery has won awards and its White Cranberry vintage, made from hand-selected berries, was recently chosen for the LCBO’s Vintages section.
Hogarth said the winery has enabled the farm to maintain its retail outlet year round. While Bala is in the centre of Muskoka’s tourist region, it’s also an hour away from major highways and the property is located on a dead-end road.
The farm was founded in 1952 by June Johnston and her late husband, Orville. Back then, cranberries were used primarily to make sauce to accompany roast turkey.
The remnants of Hurricane Audrey wiped out the first crop in 1957, and the cranberry industry was then hit by a U.S. pesticide scare that reduced demand to a trickle.
“They kept the farm going, as do so many others farmers, by holding off-farm jobs,” Hogarth said.
“June taught home economics at the Gravenhurst high school and Orv went back to being a musician.… He would play all night and work on the farm all day.”
Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh is one of three producers in Ontario.
British Columbia and Quebec lead cranberry production in Canada. Wisconsin is the world’s largest cranberry production region. The grower-owned co-operative Ocean Spray dominates the market.
While television advertisements have left many people thinking cranberries are grown in water, the vines are on dry land most of the year. They like the acidic soil natural to a marsh or bog setting, according to employee Samantha Hicks.
At Johnston’s Cranberries, the marshes are flooded three times a year, Hicks said. Ice that forms over the winter protects the crop from damage. In the early spring the water helps deal with insects and frost.
In the fall, flooding makes harvest easier. Equipment removes the berries from the vines and the berries, which contain four air pockets, float to the surface. Fifty employees work on the farm during harvest. Several steps are involved to remove impurities and substandard berries.
Did you know….
- Some Native Americans called the cranberry ibimi, which means bitter berry.
- Native Americans and Pilgrims used cranberries in medicine to treat a variety of illnesses, including bladder infections.
- Researchers believe that polyphenol compounds called flavonoids are responsible for reduction in cardiovascular disease. Flavonoids inhibit blood clotting and improve blood flow, reducing blood pressure. Cranberries have been shown to inhibit the development of both breast and colon cancers.
