Hay River (Sep 15/03) - If you listen to those doing it, you can preserve just about anything that grows.

And now is the prime time for preserves in the NWT as berries are picked and vegetables are harvested.

"I do quite a bit of preserves," says Agnes Schell of Hay River. "I've got quite a bit done already."

She says making preserves starts at the end of July when strawberries are ripe.

Her friend Joyce Hinson says the busy season for preserves wraps up with cranberries. "Until we're kicked out of the bush by the frost."

Schell says there are quite a few natural products that can be preserved -- all sorts of berries, caribou and buffalo meat, just about any kind of vegetable, and much more.

"There's so many things you can do up here," she says.

Both Hinson and Schell say the benefit of preserves is that they are all organic foods with no chemicals.

"You know what you're eating," says Hinson.

Schell says making preserves in the North used to be to have a selection of food throughout the winter, but these days it is to ensure organic and healthy food without chemicals and additives. "I like to know what I eat."

Making preserves involves a process whereby the food is washed and chopped up, boiled to kill any bacteria, and vacuum sealed in sterilized jars. The process is also called canning.

Hinson says food can last a long time as preserves. "I gave my children stuff last year that was four to six years old."

Neither Hinson or Schell look upon making preserves as some kind of craft.

However, Hinson says you have to enjoy it. "If you don't enjoy it, you don't do much."

For Tanda Bryshun, this was her first year making preserves, after her mother-in-law gave her a raspberry recipe.

"I wanted to try something new," says Bryshun.

She says making the preserves was a lot of work -- picking the berries and washing and cleaning them -- but she enjoyed it.

And she says she will definitely do it again in coming years.

Her husband, Doug, helped make the preserves. "It was carrying on a family tradition," he says, explaining his mother always made preserves when he was growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan. "She canned absolutely everything."

Doug Bryshun says the appeal of making preserves is that it is part of the whole experience of growing food -- from seeding to harvesting. And after you make preserves out of something like raspberries, he says, "Enjoying them seems that much better in the wintertime."