A Berry Good Day

Catching up with a friend while harvesting our favorite wild fruit

Montana summers are punctuated by the huckleberry crop, and from everything I’ve heard, this year is a banner season with an abundance of large, luscious berries. My friend Brenda (better known by her trail name, “I Have My Pants in the Car”) headed for our favorite huckleberry patch to try to harvest a few cups for huckleberry bear claws.

Visitors to this area often wonder the heck is a huckleberry. The short answer is that huckleberries are closely related to blueberries, with both being in the Vaccinium genus. Yet, huckleberries grow on much shorter bushes and feature a purple or magenta sweet and tart berry, depending upon the particular variety.

Although they haven’t been studied extensively, there are seven varieties in Montana, with the most common one being Vaccinium membranaceum, also called mountain huckleberries. We seem to have found two distinct varieties, with one most likely being the mountain huckleberry, while the other was taller and had more reddish berries. There were also a few whortleberries, Vaccinium scoparium, the huckleberry’s tiny cousin, which is delicious to pick and eat on the trail but would take forever to harvest for baking.

We were not disappointed with our choice of spot. Although we had to search to some extent, we selected four cups within an hour. There are areas with much thicker berries in the region, but we loved not having to drive very far, and spending time chatting before thunder reminded us of the weather forecast.

It was a treat to spend time with my friend while wandering around the woods. Besides the huckleberry bushes, we found woodland pinedrops, Pterospora andromedea, along with more of the fungi ghost pipe, Monotropa uniflora, than I’ve ever seen in one area. Both Pinedrops and ghost pipe are part of the same family, Monotropaceae, so it’s not a surprise that they are found in the same area.

While ghost pipe is easy to identify, and any type of fungi is always fun to find, I had no idea of the medicinal benefits of the mushroom. According to a study at Penn State by doctoral candidate Savannah Anez, it is a powerful natural medicine useful for pain management and relaxation. My mind is officially blown, and I wish I had harvested a small amount to make a tincture with it.

I still had a three-hour drive from Brenda’s to home, and around the time I reached East Glacier, I was a bit peckish. I reached for a vanilla yogurt and was happy to remember the delicious huckleberries also in the cooler.

The huckleberry harvest started early this year, in the first part of July, and I hope it continues well into September. Brenda and I have hiked in the middle of September in places where huckleberries still lined the trail — and, not surprisingly, had a black bear on the trail most likely looking for them — so it’s my hope that when I return on over Labor Day weekend for a book signing at Barnes and Noble in Kalispell on September 6 we’ll be able to venture into the forest again to search for our favorite berry.