It's 6am. I'm on vacation. It's my birthday. In thirty minutes I'm going huckleberry picking with my girlfriend's family. We've been dating for two years and I'm not entirely sure our relationship is ready for this. Any type of fruit picking is a serious commitment; your self-worth as a human being sits in the bottom of a large Tupperware bowl at the conclusion of picking. I'm being a good sport about it though. After all I could stay in bed. The idea of trudging through dew covered brush and picking berries for three hours doesn't seem like an appealing vacation activity, but I don't want my girlfriend's parents to think I'm not a fun person. I'm not a fun person, but that doesn't mean I don't want to trick people into thinking otherwise. Imagine the questions, "He doesn't want to go huckleberry picking? We don't understand. Why? Is he sick? Who wouldn't want to go huckleberry picking?" At the same time, they're asking me to do manual labor on my birthday...for the fun of it. That's why migrant workers do it right; for fun? For the unadulterated excitement that comes with picking small fruit? There is no cash reward for these berries. Best case scenario I get some jam out of this.
This is hard for me and I try not to go into this with a negative attitude. I woke up a half hour early just to practice saying things like, "WOW! Can you believe how many berries there are?" and "You can't get berries like these at the grocery store!" and "Come over here! I found the mother lode!" Eight large Tupperware bowls have been packed into the car and it's clear that we are expected to pick until they are filled with a couple overflow buckets just in case we really go for it. "Who could possibly eat this many huckleberries?" I think to myself, as the four of us pile into a Toyota Four Runner, "We're just giving ourselves diarrhea, right?"
I'm told that we are driving an hour to a location that is, "Prime for huckleberry picking." Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a farm that grows huckleberries, these are, "Wild huckleberries. The good stuff." The way they describe it to me, you'd think pure cocaine was growing on the Idaho mountainside. I have to admit that I've never even seen a huckleberry in person. A huckleberry looks like a reddish-purple blueberry. Please contain your excitement. I discovered that while the people of Idaho are primarily known for their potatoes, they've actually been living off of huckleberries. It's in everything up here - jam, muffins, pancakes, syrup, pie, cake, ice cream, drinks, you name it, they put huckleberries in it.
I'm told that we are driving an hour to a location that is, "Prime for huckleberry picking." Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a farm that grows huckleberries, these are, "Wild huckleberries. The good stuff." The way they describe it to me, you'd think pure cocaine was growing on the Idaho mountainside. I have to admit that I've never even seen a huckleberry in person. A huckleberry looks like a reddish-purple blueberry. Please contain your excitement. I discovered that while the people of Idaho are primarily known for their potatoes, they've actually been living off of huckleberries. It's in everything up here - jam, muffins, pancakes, syrup, pie, cake, ice cream, drinks, you name it, they put huckleberries in it.
We wind our way across bumpy fire roads and up the side of a remote mountain scanning the terrain for wildlife at every switchback. At this point I'm in too deep; my only hope is that I spot a Grizzly bear hungry enough to eat me. I wouldn't even resist the mauling. I small price to pay for saving me from the three hours of labor that lie ahead. No such luck. We arrive at the family's, "Secret spot," a location that I imagine has been handed down from one generation of pickers to the next, and commence picking. Ten minutes into it and I have the hang of it. There isn't a ton of skill involved, however technique is crucial for maximizing productivity. I develop a very good system in which I pull entire sections of a huckleberry bush over my bowl and pluck off the berries letting gravity do most of the work. I realize that my initial reluctance to pick berries has been replaced with excitement. I find that I don't just want to pick berries, I want to win! I don't care about picking more berries than the rest of the group, but instead discover a deep satisfaction in stripping every single berry from each shrub wiping it clean. I want to win against nature. I have always considered myself an environmentalist, but for the first time in my life I feel a dominance over nature. I'm filling my Tupperware at an extraordinary rate while decimating the countryside. I have every intent of clearing this hillside of it's berries. Later today birds, bears, and deer will come by looking for a tasty snack and will find nothing!
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Our three hours are up before I know it and I've picked about seven gallons of huckleberries. My girlfriend's family is calling me to come back to the car, but I want to continue. I'm not finished. There are still more berries, but I finally succumb to their wishes. With purple fingertips I emerge from the brush a new person. I finally comprehend the need to conquer. I understand the early pioneers' desire to triumph over the land. The loggers who clear entire hillsides of every last tree make sense to me now. Huckleberry picking is my Manifest Destiny!
