Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival: Small community stages a sweet time for all
We all scream for ice cream when it’s huckleberry. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Lyn Bienvenue displays one fo the Huckleberry Festival T-shirt sold at the event. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Troy Ehrman mans the grill at the pancake breakfast with help from Sonny Mckenzie. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Creative Couture was one of over 50 vendors nestled into the forested Swan Lake at the day use area. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Cindy Love accepts entries for the huckleberry baking contest on Saturday morning. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Water fights were one of the kid's activities, which also offered a nice way to cool off on a hot summery day. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
It was a dog's day too with lots of canines attending with festival-goers from hounds to retrievers to toy poodles. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
This pair dives into a cup of huckleberry ice cream in a noble effort to share the deliciousness. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Boys enjoy the classic kid activity of throwing rocks into the lake. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Boys enjoy the classic kid activity of throwing rocks into the lake. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Easy riders. These kids were wheeled around the festival in a wagon allowing mom and dad time to browse. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Local band Silverado provide music for the festivities. (Kay Bjork/For the Bigfork Eagle)
Swan Lake. Huckleberry. Festival.
Any of these could easily be favorites on their own, but put them all together and you have a real crowd-pleaser.
The Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival might be the only big event in the tiny community of Swan Lake each year and when combined with old-fashioned simplicity, good eats, charming arts and crafts, live music and activities for all ages; it is a “don’t miss” event for both locals and visitors.
The festival, held the second Saturday since 1981, is a fundraiser for the Swan Lake Community Center that was built in the 1940s, spearheaded by the Women’s Club. Today the center serves as a gathering place for activities such as bridge, poker, and the annual Fireman’s Ball. The center is also offered for rent for special events at a reasonable cost. Proceeds from the festival are used for maintenance and improvements to the center as well as other community projects such as the radar speed sign erected recently along the highway.
The festival kicked off with a pancake breakfast featuring – you guessed it – huckleberries. Terry Olsen, one of the festival organizers, said that they probably served around 500 pancake breakfasts, making it a big money-maker for the fundraising event.
Booths and food trucks opened at 9 a.m. and by 10 a.m. cars had already filled the parking lot and were lining the shoulders of Hwy 83. Judging for the huckleberry contest began at 11 a.m. with adult and kid categories. A baked goods sale included more of the coveted huckleberries.
The Swan Mission Search and Rescue and Fire Department booth volunteers didn’t get much of a break from scooping huckleberry ice cream, which were its own advertiser as ice-cream eaters streamed through the festival, tempting the next sale. The ice cream sold out before the event was over.
Everyone had a variety of choices for lunch fare with several food trucks and local restaurant “Laughing Horse” traditional street tacos, peach huckleberry pie and a beer and wine garden. There was a brief panic when the beer tap quit, but a plea for help was answered and someone came to rescue and fixed the tap so it was running shortly afterwards.
It was a storybook setting with white tents set up in a verdant forest that meets the shoreline of Swan Lake. Booths were filled with a wide variety of handcrafted goods including pet accessories, jewelry, woodworking, textile art, photography and paintings.
Some attendees came with chairs so they could sit down and listen to the music of Silverado, a local country western band. The band featured two original members of the Ashley Creek Ramblers, who had a longtime tradition of playing at the festival. The band was recently disbanded when bandleader Roy Wilhem retired.
Pastor Chuck Cushman led the children’s activities, which included a water gun fight that proved to be a perfect way to stay cool on a hot summer day. Others enjoyed making a splash by swimming or just throwing rocks into the calm lake.
The chatter of the emcee carried announcements for raffle winners, cutting through an almost windless day at the lake. In previous years the silent auction and raffle has depended on donated products and gift certificates from local stores and restaurants, but co-organizers Terry and Lesly Olsen said because of the toll and stress of Covid-19 on local businesses, the group decided that instead of asking for something, they wanted do something for them instead. So the community rallied and individual members purchased gift certificates from these businesses for auction and raffle to support the businesses. Because that is what you do when you are part of a small, tightly knit community like Swan Lake – you help each other.
