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Uncertain Huckleberry Harvest

Hastened by heat and drought, the season is off to an early but weak start

By Clare Menzel
Beacon file photo

If you find yourself on Big Mountain this weekend, you might keep an eye out for huckleberries. Usually, the famous purple-blue berries don’t start popping on the mountain until much later—some people remember seeing ripe berries there in October last year—but pickers are reporting that this season is nothing like its predecessor.

“Last year was incredible, and this one is definitely not as good,” said Ed Springman, with the Huckleberry Haven in Evergreen.

“We’re about a month to three weeks ahead of time,” said Flathead National Forest Botanist Chantelle DeLay. “The season started earlier, and expectations are that it’s not going to be as great of a crop as we’ve seen in the past due to lack of rain and hot days.”

DeLay said that this season’s berries likely won’t be plentiful because plants at lower elevations may not have had the chance to produce flowers before June’s drought hit. She also predicts that they won’t be very plump.

“Huckleberries? There are no huckleberries,” said Greg Sorenson, a picker from Columbia Falls. “The hot weather has killed the crop. When you find them, they’re hard and there’s no juice. I won’t sell a single huckleberry. They’re too rare this year.”

The crop may be thin, but Laurie Carpy, the manager of The Huckleberry Patch in Hungry Horse, says there must be berries out there because pickers still come through her door with full barrels almost every day.

Besides, there is enough time for rainfall to turn the season around.

“Huckleberries are so resilient,” said Will Hammerquist, owner of the Polebridge Mercantile, which is famous for its huckleberry bear-claws “Hopefully we’ll get some rain and there’ll be enough for everybody.”

Though the pickers have been asking for up to 10 percent more pay due to scarcity, as Hammerquist reports, businesses like the Mercantile typically purchase their berries for use in the following season, so it’s unlikely that a poor harvest would effect prices of huckleberry products this summer.

“Huckleberries are a delicacy,” said Hammerquist. “And when we have a bumper crop like last year, we take that for granted. We’re pretty fortunate to have them in our world.”