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Plant Profiles Home
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© USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada . Vol. 2: 705.
© Jim Stasz @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
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The Beginning of an Export
In the 1700s, Samuel Hearne recorded that wild cranberries picked near Churchill, Manitoba were being packed for export. "When carefully gathered in the Fall, in dry weather, and as carefully packed in casks of moist sugar, they will keep for years, and are annually sent to England in considerable quantities as presents, where they are much esteemed."
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Range
Cranberry is native to bogs and swamps from Manitoba to Newfoundland, with its range extending south into the mid-western and eastern U.S. It is now grown commercially in many other areas.
History and traditional uses
First Nations knew that cranberries could prevent or cure scurvy, a condition which we now understand is caused by Vitamin C deficiency, and taught this medicinal use to settlers. Some First Nations also used it for bladder and kidney problems.
Cranberries have also always been popular as a food. First Nations dried them and mixed them with fat and/or dried meat or fish to make a portable "trail mix". In the early 1800s, settlers in Massachusetts began to grow cranberry commercially, making it one of the first native North American medicinal plants to be cultivated as a cash crop.
Current findings and new possibilities
Medicinally, cranberry is used today primarily to prevent bladder infections. It may also help to treat infections once they are established.
Researchers are still trying to figure out exactly how cranberry acts. The most supported theory at the moment is that cranberry prevents bacteria from adhering to the bladder wall.
In the Canadian garden
Cranberry, although not a common sight in the domestic garden, can be grown in southern Canada as long as you can provide sun, peaty acidic soil, and a way of keeping the shallow roots moist. Plants are sometimes a little hard to find, but often can be ordered through nurseries or from mail-order suppliers.
Commercial growing and harvesting
Cranberries - for both food and health products - have become an important cultivated crop in Canada. Almost all berries on the market are farm-grown. The major production areas are the lower Fraser River Valley in British Columbia, near Drummondville, Quebec, and in parts of Nova Scotia, although there are also growers in several other provinces.
Starting a commercial cranberry operation is an ambitious project, since today's berries are grown in specially constructed artificial bogs. The bogs can be flooded on demand to make fruit collection easier and for better winter protection of the plants.
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