Ah, Bear Lake raspberries.
It's no coincidence that ice cream joints throughout the state proudly advertise their raspberry shakes as the genuine Bear Lake article. While other raspberries — from the Northwest, say — are bigger and plumper, Bear Lake's climate and altitude combine for a pure taste that's lip-smacking good.
But there's trouble in them raspberry patches. Trouble the likes of which berry growers haven't seen for decades.
Raspberry yield the past few years has been dismal. Part of it is due to weather — frost, hail and drought — but even more to the "bushy dwarf" virus that has infected the berry bushes. Growers are having to plow up all their old plants and begin anew, and new berry bushes take three years to produce fruit.
"I've seen it coming for a few years," said Arlo Price, until this year one of the two largest growers in the valley. "Nobody produced anything this year."
A raspberry farmer all his life, Price, at 68, says he's too old to begin again. He's getting out, leaving a huge void among Garden City raspberry growers, the traditional heavy hitters in the business.
The remaining growers' task is made more complicated by the fact that there's no guarantee they'll all switch to new plants. Some may try to get along a few more years with the old, infected, plants, and since the virus is carried by bees, that means the new plants will likely become infected, too.
"It's a poker game," said Tammy Calder, who grows berries with her husband, Ned.
Add to that the booming cabin construction and consequent land value hikes in Garden City, and "the future (of raspberry growing) is probably brighter in Laketown, unfortunately," Garden City Mayor Ken Hansen said.
Indeed, there are a few new patches on the south end of the lake. But their success is far from assured.
"It's not an easy business," Price said. "Even berries at its best, you have to get the right (strain of) berry, resistant to virus, that will withstand winter, that has good flavor, and after all that you have to get them picked."
Ah, the picking problem. You might think growers would rejoice in the good years, but they don't — they can't find enough pickers to harvest the crop. Times were that raspberry picking was the mainstay of summer work for local teenagers. No more.
"The kids are getting hired younger and younger in the fast food places, milkshake shops," Calder said. "The local kids aren't really that interested in it anymore."
The hard work of berry picking has something to do with it. "You're bending over and scavenging through those bushes and going from cool and damp and wet in the morning to the heat in the afternoon and thinking I could be there at the Quick 'n' Tasty or LaBeau's serving up shakes," Hansen said.
What's more, raspberry harvest lasts only a few weeks in July and August — "just a flash in the night," said Ted Hildt, a major producer. The job is so short-lived that the usual pool of berry pickers, youths and migrant workers, prefer worse-paying but longer-term employment.
It's a problem that's growing worse by the year, and no one seems to have a solution.
But in spite of everything, growers remain hopeful.
"We could have gouged (prices) this year, but it doesn't make sense . . . ," Calder said. "People are planting. It'll come back."
E-MAIL: aedwards@desnews.com