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on the top of the mountain. With his many years of picking
experience, Elmer had more knowledge of where to go and how
to do this tradition than the rest of us put together. He always
had some great stories to tell as well.
Forty years later, and many picking trips gone by, I have
seen the ritual passed off to my children. My grown children go
on their own picking excursions and share that experience
with their friends. A clever idea my daughter and son arrived
at was to decorate the tables at their wedding dinner with
small jars of homemade huckleberry jam for each of their
guests to take home as a remembrance of the wedding. In
doing this, Chris and Molly were sharing something new with
others and exposing them to the tradition.
These hunter-gatherer traits we enjoy in our family were
learned and handed down from past generations. Many of
these things were a way of life for the natives of this land. The
natural resources are precious gifts