An exerpt from A Social History of Wild Huckleberry Harvesting in the Pacific Northwest

Since its inception in the late 1920s, the commercial wild huckleberry industry has been characterized by a labor force that whether migrant or local has typically lacked other wage options. As described in earlier chapters, during the Great Depression, commercial huckleberry pickers were often, but not exclusively, unemployed men. This demographic labor force largely shifted to many Native American family pickers as well as non-Native American women and children during the 1940s through the 1970s. More recently, commercial huckleberry pickers have included a large number of the elderly dependent on social security and younger residents dependent on public assistance as reflected in the comments of Jane, the Bigfork buyer:

I often see men pick and the women stay home with small children and wash and clean the berries. One woman was in here recently complaining that she had been up until 3 in the morning cleaning berries. If you’ve got small children, you’re going to have to stay home. Women do pick, and in general, the families that I see do depend on the huckleberry since I’ll ask them where so and so is, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, he has a real job now’. The impression I get is that these people are not working and huckleberries are an important income for them. The people in Libby pick a lot. The impression I get is that they use the money for extras, for things like school clothes, the fair. Other commercial pickers include non-English speaking immigrants to the region as noted by another buyer, “Liz”: Before 1994, I had a contract with a Boise company to buy 7,000 lbs of huckleberries. They gave me the buckets and all. This gave me the cash to buy my own huckleberries from the pickers. But in 1994, [my ex-husband] and his Cambodians started picking in northern Idaho around Sandpoint and Bonner’s Ferry and sold their berries at $1.75/lb [to the Boise company]. So I got no contract with Boise that year. I had enough in the freezer for the season and then that was it.

Since the 1990s, the summer farmer’s market in Missoula has included numerous Hmong family stands that sell fresh huckleberries from early July through August and often later into September. In 1996, the first author met with many of the Hmong community at a meeting in Missoula to inquire if any were interested in participating in interviews. Following lengthy discussion in Hmong, leaders at the meeting indicated that they did not approve of participation. They expressed concerns that as Hmong, they were being harassed at their picking spots, and some indicated that they were gathering huckleberries primarily in Idaho to avoid such incidents.

An exerpt from A Social History of Wild Huckleberry Harvesting in the Pacific Northwest