Muskoka Trip Part III: Cranberry Time!

Cranberries - we used to have them on our
property in Bala.

Cranberry bog

Off we went to Bala, to visit the Muskoka Lakes Winery and the cranberry bog. The cranberries have been harvested and they are in full working mode.
 The berries are being sorted and washed.

There are bus tours of people all over Muskoka, to see the fall colours. There were tons of people having samples of the various wines. When the Cranberry Festival begins (the weekend after Canadian Thanksgiving), there will be even more buses full of folks coming in from Cranfest to sample and purchase.
We've visited Cranfest many times. We were volunteers in 2009, the 25th Anniversary, and the last October we lived in Bala. Cranfest attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

I brought home a new product, wine spritzers. Yummy! They've added a couple of interesting sculptures on the property. As always, click on one photo, and you can see a slide show.

My Bala souvenir - it's really good!

From previous visits, here are a few more photos. I usually have a photo taken with Matt, who makes the wine, but he was away on an errand.

Harvesting machines

Matt and his vats

Cranberry wine
in progress

Cranberries being washed

Gotta be spring - they're sanding the cranberry bog

Cranberry season is coming soon! Here is a summer shot! We in the north are happy to anticipate spring.

spring blooms

cranberries in the fall

And the final product!

Sir John shopping for wine!

fruit wine

Matt & Muskoka Lakes Wines

Trooper, me, Matt!

What a nice young man! He sends out the wittiest tweets. We've been visiting for years. This week we went to visit our old haunts, and check mom and dad's gravesite.

Trooper is always up for a belly rub!

Me an' Joe Brian, and Muffin Muncher visited Trooper, and Matt, of course. It's a tradition.

Muffin Muncher hopes for a wagon ride.
CranFest is a fun time in Bala, ON

New 2011 white cranberry wine!

Muffin Muncher eyes the cranberry wine!

Here are the cranberry plants in the bog. They have to be kept wet. We used to have plants near our frog pond, but they were wee things, and didn't get the right amount of moisture.

Cranberries in fall

Matt showed us the wine-making process in a tour one year. When we lived in Bala, we visited often!

Field and fields of cranberries!

This is where the cranberries grow!

Not too long - and these will be delicious cranberries!

Cranberries are blooming!

Everybody loves the cranberry bog!
Goslings run from me.

There are lots of critters who visit. I caught some video of beavers in the bog. They don't like the free flowing water!

I loved my early morning visits. Many different wine styles from which to choose. Cranberry wine, some is oaked. Then there are combinations: white cranberry, cranberry/blueberry, blueberry, and so on. Many have won medals at various shows. Matt always twitters about his events.


He has a long history here, as his family has been involved with the Johnston family since his grandfather's days.

Sir John goes to the Cranberry Capital of Ontario!

Puppets can be much fun.

I took Sir John to visit the Cranberry bog and winery, in my former town of Bala, Ontario.

The Cranberry Festival in Bala, Ontario, is one of the biggest Ontario Festivals I've been to and/or  volunteered! Many a day have I visited in the early hours, watched the beavers in the marsh, and the frogs and turtles.

Muskoka Lakes Winery is located on a 50-year old cranberry farm.

Cranberry bog is fun!

The Bala cranberry marshes are famous, thanks to Rick Mercer's visit. Rick, of the Mercer Report, was seen wake boarding in the bog.

He loves driving!

Blueberry is his fave!

Yum! Cranberry candles and cranberry juice.

My new fave! Georgian Bay Rose!

Award-winning wines!

Matt just finished doing up some berries!

Can you tell?!

Matt and his staff make a number of fantastic fruit wines. Award winning wines, but it's his fun tweets that I adore. 

Now, Sir John's idea is that Matt ought to get together with Napster and use one of Napster's paintings for a wine label. I know Matt was thinking of designing a new label. Why not use a local Muskoka artist?

Napster is an international celebrity. He paints with his tail. Nancy Tapley modelled the process for me.

There is one piece of his portfolio that is a fantastic painting that is an impression of cranberries. I think Matt & Napster could be good for one another!

Now, Sir John's idea is that Matt ought to get together with Napster and use one of Napster's paintings for a wine label. I know Matt was thinking of designing a new label. Why not use a local Muskoka artist?

Napster is an international celebrity. He sent a note card to the royal couple, and has a lovely reply in his portfolio. 

There is one piece of his portfolio that is a fantastic painting: an impression of cranberries. I think Matt & Napster could be good for one another!

Beavers, a beaver dam, lodge, and damned beavers

With spring creeping up the continent, and a Canadian election looming, a break is as good as a rest.




I took a canoe on the other side of Long Lake one April. The yellow line represents the long walk I took around the lake in spring. The trail is called the Oka Colonisation Trail. Now, partly, used by snowmobiles. The beaver dam is the small lake in the middle of the screen shot.

It meant hauling butt up a hill, taking cell phone, bear bell, water bottle, and a snack.


It harnesses the water above the lake, in this lake. With time, the bog that feeds this lake and the other has filled up with floating plants. You can see them in front of my canoe. Water hyacinth, floating plants, with water moving underneath.

 It was a sweet trip, and one I won't make again.

The beaver dam is incredible.

I love watching busy beavers.

It is illegal to ruin a beaver dam. Imagine what it does to the waterway below the system. Built over many eons, you can destroy whatever lies below.

Matt, of Muskoka Lakes winery, told us a story during a winery tour/tasting of how someone upriver destroyed a dam, which resulted in his having to go out and protect his cranberries which were threatened with being flooded.

You can see my post on the cranberry bog, 
to see how they grow!

There were several beavers in this lodge in the video. They were smashing their tails in a warning. Normally they go under the water and swim away. I was threatening their dam and two left, swimming away, these two stayed put swimming back and forth.


I am hoping some bird savvy person will tell me the name of the bird singing its tune in the background.