Empetrum nigrum, known as Black Crowberry, also curlew berry or heath berry, member of Empetraceae (the Crowberry Family) is a very low-growing, dwarf shrub that, with its needles, resembles a tiny creeping spruce tree. Like spruce or pine it, too, is evergreen. I missed its tiny pink to purple flowers. By the time I got to Churchill the very abundant black crowberry plants were already in the early stages of producing fruit. The pea-sized berries were still green at the time. far from the black color they would develop later on. According to Johnson in her "Wildflowers of Churchill and the Hudson Bay Region" flowers come out in June, just after snow melt. The fruit can be gathererd through the winter, assuming some bird or small animal doesn't get to it first.
According to Walker, the ripe berries are good added to muffins. Use fresh or frozen, or cook with sugar and lemon juice to serve with ice cream or custard. Mix with blueberries to give it more flavor. It is good made into jelly or jam. Fermented black crowberry juice makes a sparkling white wine. Its flavor also improves after frost. The Dene of Slave Lake gathered these berries to relieve thirst when no water was available. Samuel Hearne, writing in 1795, explains the origin of a local Indian name for this fruit. "It is also the favorite repast of the gray goose, which is why Indians called it "Nishca-Minnick" or gray gooseberry. Juice makes pleasant bevorage although seeds detract from the fruit itself."
Return to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada index page. Created 12/20/96