Fruit jars or sealers always remind me of my youth and the wondrous canning season.

My mother, like all Depression Era Mothers canned everything. My brothers and I would pick cucumbers and tomatoes from my grandmother’s garden. These our Mother would turn into “dills” or delicious tomato pickles. Raspberries, strawberries and Saskatoons we would pick in the wild. Of course, we would preserve peaches, pears and apricots when they became available.

They would all go into sterilized fruit jars. We were always fascinated by the names. Midwest, Improved, Gem, Ball, Corona, Crown, Jewel, Canadian Mason to mention a few. Even Eaton’s department store had its own fruit jars with the distinctive E embossed in a diamond.

The making of glass has been around for centuries. It was an inexpensive way to store, ship and sell otherwise perishable items. Beer, wine, coffee, soda pop and a thousand other items would use this inexpensive safe container. A whole industry of glass factories sprang up in Canada to serve the need. Most were in Eastern Canada.

The Mid West jars were manufactured in Beausejour Manitoba. They have the distinctive M on the bottom. These jars were manufactured there because of the fine Silica sand. To this day bottle collectors scour basements, flea markets, and garage sales for these inexpensive items of our past.

The actual canning process was a lot of work. Processing the fruits and vegetables to capture the fresh taste was very labour intensive. Those were the days that running water meant running to the well. This is probably why today most people prefer store bought. All this would be forgotten when a sealer would be opened for desert. We would then enjoy a dish of the fruits of our labour... what a treat.

Ken Kristjanson
October 2014