It’s ‘caviar of the forest’ season in the Pacific Northwest, and the bushes are loaded

You might be more likely to spot Sasquatch in the lowlands of the Pacific Northwest than a wild huckleberry picker. The once booming industry is all but gone despite the abundance of the berries, especially this year.

When the big leaf maples turn bright yellow and the sun is fleeting, the “caviar of the forest” is ripe for the picking.

The evergreen huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum, is turning purple all over Washington’s coastal regions but perhaps nowhere more than the Key Peninsula, where berry culture goes back decades.

We’re talking about the lowland or coastal huckleberries. They are not to be confused with the larger mountain huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) that draws pickers into the Cascades in mid-summer. Another, bright red huckleberry, the deciduous Vaccinium parvifolium, also ripens earlier in the year.

2024 is a bumper crop for the evergreen huckleberry, says Adam DeLeo. He should know. DeLeo spends a lot of time in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula. Usually, he’s harvesting fungi for his Key Center-based business, Adam’s Mushrooms. But he’s been diverted this October by the juicy berries.

Bush whacking

There’s no high tech involved in huckleberry harvesting.

On a recent drizzly day, DeLeo loaded up his Honda with buckets, boxes, a stick and a News Tribune reporter and headed to the wilds of Mason County.

Parking near a gate on land he had permission to pick on, DeLeo slung a roped bucket over his shoulders and grabbed the purple-stained stick.

Moving from bush to bush and branch to branch, he used the stick to knock berries into the bucket.

Some bushes had bigger berries than others. Some berries were dark purple, and others were coated with bloom, the same substance that coats blueberries. It protects the berries from bacteria and insects and retains moisture.

The berry business

Picking and selling huckleberries has been a lifelong venture for DeLeo, 39, who grew up on the Key Peninsula.

“As a kid, I’d fill Dixie cups up with them and go sit on the roadside and sell my huckleberries,” he said. “It really cracks me up to think back then and then to see me doing this.”

DeLeo started his mushroom business in 2015, and it wasn’t long after that he started dealing in huckleberries as well. In those early days, he bought the berries from pickers.

Since then, a lot has changed in the Key Peninsula huckleberry business.

While forest products like salal (used in floral arrangements), cedar boughs (Christmas decorations), Cascara bark (medicine) and others are big money makers for timberland owners, huckleberries are not.

“They kind of fall into the cracks,” DeLeo said of the berries. The crop isn’t big enough to interest forest-land owners.

“It’s not big money,” he said. “They don’t even want to answer the phone for that kind of money.”

Fortunately for a local boy like DeLeo, he knows a lot of people who know people.

Family Legacy

Nicole Carr, 49, is the fifth of six generations who have made a living off their land just outside Key Center with chickens, hay, beef cattle, Christmas trees, a dairy and more since 1886.

Her family got into the huckleberry business in 1938 when they started buying from pickers, she said recently. The berries would be cleaned at huckleberry sheds. One of them, built by her great-grandfather Elmer Olson, is now the El Sombrero restaurant in Key Center, she said.

Carr’s father, Charles Neimann, was running the seasonal huckleberry business in the 1970s, about the time it began to fade, she said.

“These traditions weren’t passed down, unfortunately, and most people don’t want to go out and work hard,” she said. Huckleberry harvesting requires a lot of walking, sometimes on hills, carrying heavy containers and much bush whacking.

Demand fell, too, as consumers turned toward cheaper, commercially grown blueberries and other fruit.

There’s still a huckleberry shed on Carr’s SunnyCrest Farm. It holds the last remaining huckleberry sorter and cleaner, built by Olson. The nearly antique machine still runs, and Carr lets DeLeo use it to clean his haul.

Neimann used the machine as long as he could, she said. He died in May, and now only DeLeo runs it.

“Even though he wasn’t well, he was still trying to be out there, picking, as well as buying from just a few people,” she said. “Sometimes he and Adam just picked together.”

Where to look

The evergreen huckleberry and its cousins are survivors. They’ll grow in deep forest and bright sun. The best areas to look for them, DeLeo said, is in a mix of environments: The edge of a forest clearing, for example, where there’s a mix of sun and shade.

In full sun, the bushes will grow more compact. Recently logged land is a sure bet. There, the bushes are usually cut to ground level. After the loggers leave, the roots sprout new growth.

DeLeo’s annual haul (either by his hands or others) can range from 700 to 2,500 pounds of huckleberries. Yields can vary greatly from year to year.

He uses about 10 percent to make a huckleberry jam which he sells along with his mushrooms. He sells some whole berries to local restaurants like Alderbrook Resort and Simple Goodness Sisters. The rest is sold at farmers markets.

At markets where he gives out samples, he makes sure customers eat a handful at once. The berries can range in flavor from tart to sweet, and just one might give the wrong impression.

Huckleberry friend

It’s a blustery but warm Saturday as the Proctor Farmers Market swings into full gear. Next to a cranberry grower from Olympia, DeLeo has set up his mushroom wares with the help of operations manager Tim Hartman.

The mushrooms — foraged chantrelles, lobsters and others — go quickly. But it’s the single crate of huckleberries that’s getting a lot of attention on this day.

Hartman scoops out a sample for Henry Hua of Tacoma. After a few juicy bites, Hua buys a pound.

The fruit has intrigued Hua for years after hearing Andy Williams reference a “huckleberry friend” in the ballad, “Moon River,” he said.

“It’s got style,” Hua said of the berry. “I love the flavor.”

The foraged aspect of the huckleberries is a bonus, Hua said.

“I love wild,” he explained. “I have a science background, so I love wild plants more than human (raised) plants.”

For DeLeo, the products he sells are the very essence of wild and natural — two terms so overused in commercial food production that they’ve virtually lost their meaning.

“Not everyone’s sold on it,” he said of the huckleberry. “I think you have to have a little bit of a deeper appreciation for the berry. It’s more than just a tasty treat.”