Adventures of Huckleberry Pie: One Family’s Odyssey

by Sarah Stoner

The 120-year tradition of huckleberry pie in our family cannot be told without the story of how my mother’s family came to spend every long summer in the Selkirk Mountain range of Idaho, where the purple berries grow wild—and only in the wild. But first, let’s first establish some important truths in our family, about pie and huck pies. You may or may not agree. However, please know:

1. The only real huckleberries are purple. Do not directly state or imply in the company of any family member that the red variation is a huckleberry. Lips will be pursed, looks will be given. It’s definitely not up for discussion.

2. Thou shalt not add cinnamon to a huckleberry pie. Also, not up for discussion.

3. Thou shalt not add cornstarch or gelatin to any pie. A pie with cornstarch is a pie to be pitied, not a pie to be consumed. A pie with cornstarch—perhaps sitting behind glass in a restaurant—will be eyed with sadness. Only a few words will be said, in hushed tones of mourning.

4. Whatever amount of sugar the berry pie recipe calls for, thou shalt cut it in half. Tartness is part of the experience. The same cornstarch rule applies (Pity. Such a shame the pie was ruined) to an overly-sweet berry pie.

5. If you are a newcomer to the family, or if you’ve been around for a while but are now old enough to have earned your own bucket, your berry picking will be assessed. You will be pronounced a “clean-picker” (no leaves or twigs in your bucket) or a “dirty-picker.” Either one is fine, with maybe a twinge of leaning towards no-twigs in the berry bucket.

My great-grandfather Joseph was a botany professor at Eastern Washington University, back in the early 1900s when it was known as Cheney Normal School. A botanist uncle of his had specialized in the flora of the Selkirk Mountains surrounding Priest Lake, so he knew of the remote area from his uncle. The top of this 25-mile-long lake sits a few miles from the Canadian border as the crow flies, and was home to the last remaining herd of North American woodland caribou… that’s right, our venerable fuzzy-horned reindeer. When does the berry picking come in, you are wondering.

Joseph, who everyone called Chief after a trip to South America, travelled to the base of Priest Lake each summer. Married in 1903, he’d load up a canoe with a summer’s worth of supplies along with his wife Nona and five kids, the top of the canoe close to level with the water. They’d paddle the three-day journey to the top of the lake. Camp would be set up for the summer, while my greatgrandpa did his studies. Buckets of glacier-cold spring water would be filled and sloshed down the path to camp, deer would be hunted, trout would be plucked from the lake, and huckleberries would stain fingers purple while they were eaten off the bush or gathered for pie.

My mother’s grandmother Nona, short for Wynona, was a strong outspoken woman in her day, though gender roles were set in gelatin those days, baked into daily expectations. And so, the grand tradition of huckleberry pie began with my great-grandmother. It continued with my grandfather John who was the pie maker in the family, an early maverick in gender role bending. My father loves cooking but it’s my mother who makes a mean crust—steady perfection. What varies within a huck pie are the berries—some nights, the juice floods over the crust, caramelizes on the dish; other nights, the berries sit thick and still. The one constant: delicious! Huckleberry pie is the only instance when it’s okay to lick the plate.

This year, 120 years and five generations later, our youngest generation— that of my kids and their cousins, now in their teens—took on the pie making tradition. No one asked them to, but the adventure began on a summer hike when the five of them—youngest cousins—bolted ahead like colts the minute we piled out of the cars at the trailhead. The middle generation (me) and elder generation (my mother, her cousin Dan) were surprised to catch up with them on the trail… we came upon the teen gaggle stopped off the trail—stooped— plucking deep purple huckleberries that lined the dusty path to Two Mouth Creek. Not every year is a “berry year.” The kids know this. Gen 5 was busy, focused, excited.

The five of them buzzed with cooperation. Someone sacrificed their brown paper lunch sack. Everyone picked into the bag. No one ate any. The task at hand: collect enough for a pie. They consulted the elders on the path, solemnly offered forth the paper sack for assessment. “How much more?” My mom and her cousin and I weighed in. About a cup more.

The kids took turns carrying the loot up to the creek where three generations ate lunch in the shade, then returned camp. James and Liam dashed off to make the pie. My baker daughter apparently had some swimming to do. The boys had been discussing their pie-making plans the whole way down the trail anyhow.

The kids decided—pie for breakfast.

Huck pie used to be exclusive to summers for the first generations of our huckpicking pie-making family. The rough-hewn cedar trunk cabin built by Chief and his five sons had no electricity, no running water. Four generations later, I spent childhood summers in the cool cabin, listening to the Old Majestic wood stove fire up in the morning for the grownup’s coffee. The ice box was just that… a latched porcelain box with a door that opened to the front like a fridge.

These years, we freeze some of our fresh berries, haul them home in freezerchests of purple gold bounty. Fall birthdays and winter holiday plans now include the question, “How about I make a pie?” No one asks what kind of pie. It will be huckleberry, the berries will have been handpicked with love, and they will sing of the generations of purple-stained fingers, of summers spent in high-alpine forest next to a cold clear lake, for the last century and maybe for centuries to come. With not a cornstarch box in sight.

Sarah Stoner grew up in Uganda, Morocco, Belgium, and Thailand and spent part of her summers hauling spring water and picking berries in the Selkirk Mountains of Idaho. Sarah lived in the U.S for the first time at age 18. She returns each summer to Idaho with her family. sarahjstoner@hotmail.com