Twain's Feast - Andrew Beahrs [109]
“Look over there.” A truck towing an eighteen-foot boat is stopping at the intersection of Lobsterville Road. When it pulls away, water streams from the boat’s bilge. “That’s a big part of the runoff problem, too,” Bret says. “We consider this a sustenance-food area. But that’s pretty dirty water, and it all runs off into the bogs, along with the hydrocarbons and such in the roadway itself.” Now he’s using a federal grant to install catch basins, stopping much of the storm water; filtration units will catch about 80 percent of toxins before they reach the bog.
This constant balance between tradition and recent changes is what Jannette wanted to capture in Cranberry Day; she wrote the book, in part, to fight stubborn stereotypes. Some of these are startling—when reading to fifth-grade classes, she says, she’s had children ask where her horse is. “I’m like, ‘Kid! Look, I drive a Ford Escape. It’s 2009!’” she says. “I’ll bring along some buckskin clothing, but I make it clear that it’s really just for special occasions—and it’s clothing, not a costume. I really want to give them a sense of what it means to be a native person in the contemporary world.”
Her own sense of what the cranberry harvest means changed and deepened during the writing process. “I learned just like the kid does,” she says. “I only knew it was something we do every year—that’s the thing about culture, it’s just what you do without thinking about it. Maybe you eat matzo, but you don’t know much about matzo until you start looking into it.” That’s why her character Chris starts from a position of ignorance, knowing almost as little about Cranberry Day as someone reading about it in Florida. The book insists that culture is something passed on, something learned; traditions can only offer a still place in a changing world if they’re taught, observed, and tended to.
The harvest itself is only for tribe members. That night, though, there’s an open gathering and potluck at the tribal headquarters, a wood-framed building that suggests more a grand home than a community center. Kids run and tumble on a slope outside, their parents streaming past with trays and covered bowls. Within, a hundred people join hands. Elder Gladys Widdiss, who remembers harvesting in the days of oxcarts, delivers a blessing; she asks the Great Spirit for guidance and offers thanks for the next generation. There aren’t always so many energetic young people, she says, and they need everyone working, all the time. There are too many challenges to wait.
The two long potluck tables are packed. There’s baked ham and roasted turkey; the Three Sisters appear in a sweet casserole, a soup, and a savory dish with broccoli. There are four different corn breads, pigs in blankets, venison chili, and a coleslaw made with striped bass from just off the island. There are noodle casseroles with cheese and corn; there are cookies, coffee cake, toffee, and fudge (my small contribution; I don’t have a kitchen here). Notably, though, I don’t see any cranberries; ordinarily they’d appear as sauce, or chutney, or in a fantastic crisp (the recipe is in Jannette’s book), but this year there just weren’t enough to prepare for such a large group.
Given climate change, I ask Jannette, is Cranberry Day at risk? The question leaves her uncharacteristically quiet. “I don’t want to be the voice of doom,” she finally says. “But I think everything’s at risk. The berries are down so low, right by sea level. If the ocean rises . . .” She trails off.
In a good year, members of the tribe harvest with the kind of toothed wooden scoops used since at least World War I. Today there weren’t enough berries to take the trouble; instead they picked with their fingers. It rained all morning. But the serving trays are emptying; the room is full. And now seven drummers