The Cranberry Coast

A BERRY OF A COAST: The cranberry lends this stretch of coast its name, gives the region a vibrant color, fills juice glasses, flavors recipes & has a festival in its honor.

This picturesque expanse of Washington’s coastline boasts a versatile, unique little fruit that grows in only a few regions of the United States: the cranberry. It’s red and tiny, but big enough for its own festival. In fact the fruit is so large a part of the coastline’s personality, that the region is lovingly dubbed The Cranberry Coast. From the fishing town of Westport at the edge of Grays Harbor, through Grayland and past Tokeland at the tip of Willapa Bay, through Willapa River towns of Raymond and South Bend, the Cranberry is King.

Cranberries grew wild along the coast for hundreds of years, helping to sustain the American Indians who lived here. In the 1900’s they were introduced to Finnish settlers deciding to call the coast home. When these folks found out how versatile the cranberry was, they took to farming cranberries in local bogs. (A bog is a marshy piece of land that cranberries consider heaven.)

The delicate vines – about seven inches high – are susceptible to weeds and weevils, so farmers are diligent about tending them. They’re also careful not to walk or drive over the bogs unnecessarily as it damages them. Cranberries need specific climate and growing conditions to ripen. The state’s southwest coast gives them exactly what they need. More than 230 cranberry farms dot the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Oregon, but more than 30 percent of those are along the shores of the Cranberry Coast alone.

Most of the excitement surrounding cranberry bogs happens during autumn, when the bright red berries are back-splashed by the yellows and oranges of the changing trees. During spring and summer the cranberries are growing quietly, but in the fall the cranberries are harvested like no other berry. Two methods can be used for harvesting - wet and dry.

The wet method requires the bogs to be irrigated until flooded, then the farmers use water reels (nicknamed egg beaters) to gently shake the berries until they fall off the vines. The cranberries float to the top and they are simply gathered up.

The dry method uses a machine called a Furford Picker (named after the inventor) that not only picks the berries but prunes the vines for next year’s yield. Wet harvesting is quicker but condemns the berries to only be used for making juices or sauces, since it strips them of their protective coating and fills them with water. Dry harvesting takes longer but ensures the berries can be utilized for all other cooking and baking needs. Among the coast’s 90 farmers, only two wet-harvest their cranberries.

Watching the harvest take place is a tradition along the coast, with guided tours during the fall. You’d have to travel to the other side of the United States to find a larger concentration of cranberry bogs; it’s a great opportunity to see the shiny red berries harvested.

The Furford Picker (which looks like a giant lawn mower) is unique to the Cranberry. In the late 1940’s, Julius Furford designed a harvesting machine to make the task of getting the cranberries off of their vines without destroying the vines. Almost 60 years later it’s still being used. There have been other designs, but none have been able to perform the task as well. To see a Furford Picker up close, plan to attend the Cranberry Harvest Festival and take a guided bog tour.

The festival pays tribute to the little red fruit – you’ll find cranberry cookbooks, jams, jellies, and even jewelry made from cranberries. During the festival taste the ‘The Bite at the Beach’, which offers bites of cranberry recipes in a cup for just a quarter. Cranberries are so versatile everyone in the family is sure to find something they like.