
Photo by DON BARTLING
The elusive huckleberry can usually be found along abandoned logging roads, and in old burns. The berry bushes found in these areas have a lot of sunlight and little competition for nutrients.
August 2, 2018
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August 2, 2018 1 a.m.
Huckleberries: Boundary County's wild purple gem
I have only lived in Boundary County about two decades, but that time has taught me by late July and early August North Idaho mountain ranges will be crawling with treasure hunters searching for purple gems. Armed with plastic ice cream buckets, grocery store sacks, coffee cans, or other containers, the prospectors comb hillsides from dawn to dusk. In coffee shops and cafes, they speak in hushed tones of finding “gold mines,” “mother lodes,” “bonanzas” or “purple gold!”