In 1932 by a handshake agreement between Yakima Indian Chief William Yallup and Gifford Pinchot Forest Supervisor K. P. Cecil the Sawtooth mountain area was set aside on the lower side of the forest service road for use by Native Americans meaning Indians. The tribes and Forest Rangers hope people pay close attention to the signs indicating the areas reserved for use by the Indians. In doing so, you are respecting the culture of another people.

Everyone has their own idea on the best way to find sweet berries. Many believe berries grown in the shade are the sweeter. However weather patterns, soil content, climate, snow pack and killing frost often determine how well and how sweet a crop of the Olallie's will be from year to year.

From about July 20th through October 1st you can find huckleberries in most of the mountain areas of the Pacific Northwest from Montana Bitterroot, Idaho's Blue Mountain
Range, Sierra Nevada's and the Washington and Oregon Cascades.

As a child I began picking at the age of around two, putting more in my stomach than my cup, as was evident by the deep purple around my mouth.

From 1955-1959 my family lived in a Mill shack in Trout Lake Washington. Highway 141 ran right in front of our house and after about 3 miles it became a Forest Service Road. Which ran into the lowest huckleberry fields and around Peterson Prairie and the earliest to ripen. Every year mom and us kids would go pick 2-6 gallons of berries and mom would bake a pie for dinner served piping hot from the oven. Then she would freeze some, can some and make jelly out of the rest.

Then the mill owner sold his sawmill and the new owners shut the mill down where daddy worked as night watchman. We were still allowed to rent the old mill house.

Daddy, my uncle and a friend then went to logging and hauling the logs 25 miles into White Salmon, Washington. In 1960 a tree fell on dad and shattered his left arm, breaking it in 6 places and totally destroying his left thumb, he was laid of in a cast for a year.

After that he could not work. So he took to finding other work to supplement his government check. Cutting and selling fern, Christmas trees, mistletoe and cones. Then while picking berries he got the idea we could sell the huckleberries as well. He made a sign that read "Huckleberries for Sale $1.00 per gallon and we went out and picked 7 gallons. By the end of the day we had sold them all and had orders for 6 more gallons from the logging truck drivers who stopped and other folks who were camping. By weeks end we had picked and sold 25 gallons.

This took the family tradition begun by my grandmother on my White side and for centuries of picking on my Native American side into another dimension. After that we not only picked berries for our own use but to sell as well. By 1964 the price per gallon for berries went from $1.00 per gallon to $3.00. Then to $5.00 by 1970 when I had married my husband.