The cranberry harvest continues at Hopcott Farms in Pitt Meadows, B.C., as it has every fall since 1932. Travis Hopcott, son of the owner, says the third-generation farm was purchased by his grandfather in 1932 for $9,000. This year, they will take almost three weeks to harvest 450,000 kilograms of cranberries from five bogs. The lower mainland of British Columbia produces 20 per cent of the world's cranberries.
The cranberry plant is a perennial vine. Once the fruit is ready to be harvested, water is pumped from the Pitt River into municipal sloughs and then into the cranberry bogs to a depth of approximately 18 centimetres. Harvesters use a machine to beat the fruit off the vines and then reflood with an additional 30 centimetres of water. The berries float to the surface and booms are used to corral them to one area of the bog where they then get pumped into a truck and delivered to Ocean Spray for processing.
Travis Hopcott uses a machine to beat cranberries off their vines.
A machine helps remove cranberries from their vines.
Workers walk in a flooded bog while harvesting cranberries.
Workers harvest cranberries.
Workers pull booms while harvesting cranberries.
A worker holds cranberries in his hands.