Ever Wild: A Lifetime on Mount Adams

Darryl Lloyd
19
The coming of horses to Native Americans on the Columbia Plateau,
beginning in the early 1700s, made it possible for groups of up to several
hundred people at a time to reach the huckleberry fields in only a few
days of travel time. And in late summer, tribes from all over southern
Washington and northern Oregon converged on Pátu to harvest berries. Of
the twelve species of huckleberries in the Cascade Range, the most highly
prized was then and still is Vaccinium membranaceum—renowned for its
large, sweet, dark-blue fruit. Known as wiwnu to the Yakamas, huckleberries
were a sacred food and according to oral tradition, had great power for
doing good. These seasonal gatherings, called wiwnumi (“berry month”)
were eagerly anticipated as a time for socializing and trading, as well as
subsistence food gathering. Indians believed that as long as respect was
shown for wiwnu, the berries would return each year to fill the winter
stores. The elders spent many hours storytelling with younger people, as
they passed on essential information on how to preserve the berry fields,
their traditions, and nomadic way of life.
American Indians used fire for centuries as a tool to increase huckleberry
production, according to research by Cheryl Mack. Repeated fires
reduced the invasion of shrubs and trees, and were set in autumn after
berry harvest. Natives knew that huckleberries need sunlight to produce
a full crop of fruit. The burns also created grassy meadows for horses to
graze and to draw deer and elk within easy range of the hunters.
The earliest account of a large Indian berry-picking expedition on
Mount Adams was written in August 1878 by Francis Marion Streamer,
a lonely white man invited along by the Indians. He was a newspaperman,
who had trekked to the town of The Dalles from his original home
in Chicago to Seattle two years earlier. The huckleberry expedition consisted
of a tribal party from the Simcoes in eastern Klickitat County.
With some two hundred horses, they started at The Dalles and rode
for days, following well-established trails to Ollalie, or “huckleberry
country” on the northwest flanks of Mount Adams. Their route passed
through Camas Prairie and upper Trout Lake Valley and crossed the
White Salmon River before it traversed the western half of the mountain
at the subalpine level. The “pleasant journey,” as Streamer called
“Autumn in the Berry Fields”
is part of a much larger mural
on a building in Toppenish,
Washington. Painted by
Janet Essley, this scene
shows a Yakama Nation
family collecting and drying
huckleberries, with a variety
of basket types that were
used for different purposes.
In the background is Mount
Adams.