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This is what Webster’s Dictionary says about “huckleberry”: “1. Any of a genus (Gaylussacia) of plants of the heath family, having dark blue berries resembling blueberries, but with 10 large seeds.”

Now I don’t agree with this description of the huckleberries growing in Humboldt County. My wife and I join other family members who live in Arcata and Dows Prairie each fall to participate in our annual huckleberry picking party. I haven’t noticed any seeds in the berries I have picked.

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[UPDATE from 2025: The word “huckleberry” means different things in different places. Mr. Dearing’s Webster’s had an East Coast bias, as one might expect: Gaylussacia are found only on that lesser shore, and in South America. The Humboldt County huckleberries the author describes are almost certainly Vaccinium ovatum, pictured above. It will be the Outpost’s featured “PLANT of the DAY” on Aug. 28, 2029, but you can see it here, now. — Ed.]

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The one person in our family most responsible for our enjoyment of huckleberry picking is Bea Reckord, sister of Marilyn Moxon, Art’s wife. These girls were born and raised in Dows Prairie. The Worth family children consisted of one boy and five girls. They grew up with huckleberries. Bea tells me they picked and cleaned huckleberries and sold them for 60 cents a gallon when they were young girls.

To this day, Bea and Marilyn love to go out, find the patches that are lush with berries, and telephone us when to drive to Arcata for the fun.

During the last 10 days of September and the first 10 days of October, the huckleberries are ripe and ready to be picked. It is true they are time consuming to pick and clean. Actually the picking is easy, and can be lots of fun, but if you pick them “dirty,” the way I do, they are tough to clean. I imagine if you kept track of the time required to clean a few gallons, you would be working for about two-bits an hour, but when you eat a pie filled with huckleberries, it is well worth the effort.

We were in Arcata recently to attend my wife’s college homecoming celebration. Part of the program was in honor of the Class of ‘39 — but that is another story. On that particular Sunday we got our gear together and headed for the huckleberry patch. Now I know you will understand that I can’t tell you exactly where we go to pick; we are like fishermen who never tell where they have all the luck. We are selfish, and besides, the girls who comprise the main crew would disown me if I say too much.

I know other people are aware of this patch of berries because many of the bushes were already picked, but there were plenty left for us and we picked from 1 p.m. until after 6. These girls never know when to stop.

My brother-in-law Art Moxon didn’t go with us this year. He talked himself out of going by saying he had to pick up irrigation pipe all afternoon. I know he fails to find anything attractive about picking huckleberries, but when he did go, he kept the party loose with his bear noises and his berry stealing. Now Art didn’t really steal any berries, he just borrowed them in order to be able to impress the girls with his ability to pick huckleberries. As soon as the girls started dumping their filled buckets into a larger container, he would sneak around, being careful to keep out of sight, fill his pail with berries from the container, then walk around and show everyone how full his bucket was. He would claim he had picked his quota, and would just scout around to find patches with more berries for them to pick.

It is true that bears enjoy huckleberries. I know this as a fact because, in the 1920s, I was with my father when he was hunting deer close to the Preston Ranch. We were camped in a small clearing for the night and, as we cooked supper, we heard noises several times back in the brush. My dad acted as if nothing of importance was happening, but the next morning as we went up a draw hunting, we startled a black bear while he was in the act of feasting upon huckleberries for breakfast.

Years ago we picked huckleberries on the Samoa Peninsula. There were plenty of bushes and berries too, but unfortunately there were great big mosquitoes, and they were hungry! It just wasn’t possible to pick very long at a time which was too bad because it was easy to get to.

It is sort of interesting to think about the economics of huckleberries. They have never been available on the market, and no doubt that is because they require too much time to gather and clean. Charley Riford, a Humboldt resident for many years, claimed to have a method to clean huckleberries. I never saw him try it though, he told me about it whenever we complained about the time required to clean a gallon. Charley was from Vermont, and when he was a young fellow he claimed he picked and cleaned huckleberries. He said there was nothing to it. You just fasten a wool blanket, preferably a dark colored one and old, to a fence. You drape the blanket with the top tied to the fence about 4-foot-high, then drape the rest of the blanket on the ground. You toss the berries, a few at a time, up onto the top the blanket and, as they roll to the bottom, all the leaves, worms and stems remain stuck to the blanket.

When I approached my wife with this idea she said, “Are you nuts? A wool blanket cost $100 today. I haven’t any blankets for you to experiment with (so) we will clean the berries the same as always.”

And, do you know, I just finished three days sitting at a table on the deck cleaning huckleberries. Oh, she worked right with me to keep me from goofing off. After all, she also washes them, dries them, and then freezes them, putting them in plastic bags with a date included. This is so we can rotate them as they are used. She bakes perhaps the most delicious huckleberry pies in the world; our kids all know it. When I taste one of those pies I am ready to go through all the fun and trouble again of picking Humboldt County huckleberries.

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The story above was originally printed in the September-October 1991 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.