Huckleberry Hearsay
It's a shake! It’s a pie! It’s a cartoon dog! It’s a famous movie phrase!
“Since you’re going to Victor, Idaho, you just have to try the huckleberry milkshake at Victor Emporium. It’s the best in the world.”
That was the word from Erik Kuna, the leader of our photography workshop in the South Dakota Badlands, after he heard we were planning to stay in this small town just across a mountain pass from Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. So of course, we had to sample this world-famous shake—and we weren’t the only ones with that idea.
It took four teenage servers behind a small counter to meet the demand, though it wasn’t exclusively for the signature lilac-colored shake made from the wild berries found primary in the mountainous areas of Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho. There were folks lined up for other flavors of shakes and cones, but huckleberries were the hands-down favorite. Why huckleberries?
The constant refrain we heard was that huckleberries are a scarce item that only grow late summer in higher altitudes—from around 2,000 to 11,000 feet—and that they can’t be cultivated. Though they look a little like blueberries, they’re usually smaller and tangier.
They’re prized not only by humans but also by bears, as you can see from the video above by Daniel Cheng of a grizzly bear eating huckleberries in Glacier National Park. I think I’ll leave the picking to others!
It also turns out that huckleberries are Idaho’s state fruit, adopted by the state legislature in 2000 at the suggestion of a group of North Idaho fourth graders. In the course of writing this piece, I just learned that on May 10 of this year, the huckleberry also became the official state fruit of Montana.
As an aside, do you know a) if your state has an official fruit, and b) if it does have one, what it is? I had no idea whether California had an official fruit until I looked it up. See below for the answer.1
Near closing time at The Bunnery Bakery & Restaurant in Jackson, my waiter Adiko served me the last remaining slice of huckleberry pie à la mode, which made a perfect afternoon treat with tea. He struggled to describe what makes the berry so popular among Bunnery regulars.
“The season is so short. They’re hard to get. They’re a little bitter and a little sweet, but when you put them in pancakes and pie, they’re really great.”
The Bunnery’s most popular item is its huckleberry cream cheese croissant, Adiko told me, but, alas, they were all gone.
“Come back tomorrow morning,” he said. Unfortunately I couldn’t as we were already on our way out of town.
More on the huckleberry craze
From Moab, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Victor, Idaho, and on our previous jaunts through the Northwest, especially in late summer, huckleberries have been the star, not only in shakes, cones, and pies, but also in other edibles like chocolate, fudge, caramels, jam, honey, syrups and pancake mix—even vodka! The trend also extends to other nonfood items like lip balm, soap, candles and purple teddy bears and hats!
In almost every window in Jackson (technically the town is called Jackson and the valley it’s in is called Jackson Hole, but locals usually say they live in Jackson Hole) that isn’t filled with moose-emblazoned t-shirts, hiking gear or pricy cowboy attire, there’s a sea of purple huckleberry items.
Even with the scarcity factor and the power of marketing, it’s a little hard to explain the huckleberry mystique. But my husband Jeff and I definitely fell victim to it when we sipped on those purple shakes and decided they were indeed the best we’d ever had—if not the best in the world!
More huckleberry memories
In the mid-1980s on another road trip through Montana, we encountered a character called James Willows—aka Huckleberry Jim—whose store, The Huckleberry Patch in Hungry Horse, Montana, just outside Glacier National Park, is apparently still going strong. We visited again in 2013 and I wrote a story that still echoes many of our experiences on this trip. Here’s a link and a quote that still seems to characterize the hunt for these elusive wild berries that makes them both so prized and pricey:
Grown wild mostly in northeastern U.S. and Canada--particularly Washington, Idaho and Montana--they're usually handpicked in mid- to late summer, though a young man at a small farmer's market in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, told us some hardy folks continue to gather them “until the first snow flies.”
“The later it gets, the higher you have to climb to get 'em,” he said. His favorite sight is a bush “just black with berries.” And no wonder! He was selling gallon bags of fresh huckleberries--weighing about 4 1/2 pounds--for $35 apiece. Elsewhere, he said, the berries, fresh or frozen, can fetch upwards of $80 to $100 for a gallon.
Prices have clearly gone up since I wrote the piece, with Northwest Wild Foods offering 3 pounds of fresh-frozen huckleberries for $59.99, excluding shipping. That’s a chunk of change, but it’s still possible I’ll have to order some to satisfy my yen for a a huckleberry pie or shake once we get home.
Huck Hound
Long before encountering huckleberries on northwestern vacations, Jeff, a longtime fan of both cartoons and TV themes, used to serenade me or attempt to rouse our son Sam for school by singing the theme from Hanna-Barbera’s animated TV series, The Huckleberry Hound Show, which ran from 1958-61. The featured blue hound, probably named for Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, was, like his namesake, a lovable rascal, though not near so complex. I’m not sure how Twain’s Huck got his name, but it didn’t have anything to do with berries as far as I know. Here’s a YouTube clip of the theme of the TV show, which Jeff loves and I’m afraid I find as irritating as ever:
The last line of the song is:
“That oh, so merry, Chuckleberry, Huckleberry Hound.”
At Victor Emporium, one flavor we regretted not trying was Chuckleberry, a combo of chocolate and huckleberry.
“I’m your huckleberry”
The Wikipedia entry on huckleberry observes that “‘I’m your huckleberry’ is a way of saying that one is just the right person for a given job or as a partner.”
In the 1993 American western film Tombstone, Val Kilmer as gambler/gunslinger Doc Holliday says the phrase to outlaw Johnny Ringo before killing him. In this case, being the right person for the job has lethal implications. But it wasn’t necessarily so. As an article in the Old West newsletter points out, “I’m your huckleberry” could as easily mean “I’m your guy. Or gal. Or sweet potato. Or acre lot near the railroad station. Or pie.”
Ah, the endless fascination of huckleberries. And cowboys. And the Wild West. It’s an ongoing story. But for us, after four weeks, it’s the end of the trail. We’re homeward bound via some familiar places, including Park City, Utah, nearby Heber City, and Las Vegas, where Jeff has a date with a flaming fajita (at Juan’s). We’re toting a few memorabilia—a cowboy hat or two, several jars of huckleberry jam, and some great books we meant to read—and still mean to!
Thanks for reading, liking, commenting, sharing, and, as always, for being faithful subscribers. It keeps me going.
See you in a week or so with some final thoughts about our American odyssey!
Ruth
In 2013, then Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, acting governor of California while then Gov. Jerry Brown was out of the country, declared the avocado to be the state fruit. Many of us think of the popular salad ingredient as a vegetable, though botanists consider it a fruit—basically a large berry with a single seed. Officially, California doesn’t have a state fruit. Unofficially, it’s the avocado. Does that make sense? Maybe to avocado growers. Not to me. I’d vote for one of my two favorites, the Blenheim Royal apricot or the Santa Rosa plum.
What an adorable picture of you and Jeff sipping the huckleberry shake. Another fun read of your amazing trip.
The next time you visit Glacier Park, let me know. I'll bake you the best fresh-right-off-the-mountain-side huckleberry pie 😉 ~ Leigh