Yukon Cranberry Primer

Here in the Yukon there are two types of cranberries, regular (low bush) and high bush. For the first time this year I've found low bush cranberries. In the past all I could find were bear berries. Bear berries are not edibly delicious unlike cranberries.

Here's what I was looking for;

 And these:

 On the other hand, these are bear berries, they look a lot alike, but bear berries don't taste very nice and they'll give you the runs if you eat 'em.

 Bear berries in a big patch:

 

Now these here on the left are high bush cranberries. They are an amazing jewel of a berry with a large pit. They are very juicy and tart. They also have a distinctive scent, sort of musky.

The berries below are soap berries. They are sort of edible, and you might mistake them for high bush cranberries if you saw them on a plate, not their bush. The leaves are totally different for one thing. Soap berries are high in saponin and are used by First Nations folks to make Indian Ice Cream, a pink foamy concoction.