The Blueberry Book
I am currently working on a comic/graphic novel project tentatively titled The Blueberry Book.
Concept
The majority of Canadians live in urban environments. They get their food at the grocery store, perhaps supplementing with a backyard, balcony, or community garden, if they’re lucky. Foraging, as our accessible wild spaces grow smaller thanks to sprawl, is not a large part of many of our lives. And yet wild blueberry picking is popular in many areas in Canada, allowing opportunities to connect with the land, the food network, and each other—whether through picking together, selling or buying from roadside stands, or sharing recipes.
This project aims to explore these connections, drawing on ecology, biology, climate science, anthropology, and personal experiences in Ontario and New Brunswick.
Current Objectives (Summer 2025)
With funding from Ontario Arts Council, I’m currently researching blueberries and collecting personal accounts of blueberry picking across generations and communities.
My current objectives are
to gather personal histories, anecdotes, and memories of blueberry picking;
to investigate cultural connections to blueberry picking;
to learn the history of blueberry picking and how the practice may or may not be changing.
If you have experience picking blueberries for personal use or for work, please consider responding to my questionnaire:
Special Thanks
A special thank you to all who have and continue to contribute to this research.
Further thanks goes to the Ontario Arts Council for grant funding and to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival for recommending.
Updates
I have begun preliminary research and am planning a research trip to New Brunswick at the end of the Month.