Kramer the pug waits near the front of the Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival while his owner Ruth Stompro visits with a friend. Kramer and Ruth are both from Great Falls.
Janet Bourne of Making Faces Face Painting puts the finishing touches on a unicorn on the face of 9-year-old Celia Rishow of Bozeman.
Rick Patterson of Montana Sweet Cotton Candy stands near his cotton candy display. He and his wife special order the huckleberry flavor to sell at the festival in Swan Lake.
Roy Wilhelm, Pam Leisinger and Gary Grafe of the band The Ashley Creek Ramblers perform the Hokey Pokey at the huckleberry festival. "We're mostly country but we try to do the full gamut," Wilhelm said. "We want to make music for everyone from little kids up to old folks."
Kennedy Dretke, 6 and Ace Ackerman, 7, get a little help dancing to the hokey pokey.
Swan Lake Community Club members Doug Harwood and John Blair flip pancakes for the pancake breakfast. "We're legally allowed a 30 second break," Harwood joked as he waited for the next batch to cook.
Addison Swainston, 7 and her six-month-old sister Rylie sit in a wagon while watching the baking competition at the Huckleberry Festival in Swan Lake on Aug. 11.
Summer Laslovich sits on her mom's lap to help her judge the baking competition.
The winner of the baking competition was Tibby Dringman, 20. She made a Huckleberry Pan "Cake" with Buttercream Huckleberry Filling for her entry.
SWAN LAKE - The 37th annual Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival brought new vendors and surprises as well as returning attendees and vendors Saturday, Aug. 11.
As goes the tradition, the festival began with a huckleberry pancake breakfast put on by the Swan Lake Community Club. The festival is the club's annual fundraiser and volunteers do everything from cooking and serving pancakes to judging the baking contest.
Joyce Sedivy, a resident of Swan Lake since 1985, has been helping with the festival for 25 years.
"This year we got a little bigger," she said. "Usually we have around 50 vendors and this year we have at least 60."
One of those vendors is Montana Sweet Cotton Candy, owned by Rick and Debbie Patterson. The Pattersons are retired and live in Kalispell. They frequent farmers' markets around the area with their cotton candy business.
"We have up to 14 flavors," Rick said. "And usually they come in bags of three, but here we only sell huckleberry."
Getting the huckleberry flavor was quite a challenge. The Pattersons had to place a special bulk order to buy the flavor, and unlike most other cotton candy mixes, it didn't come with color added so the Pattersons had to die it purple themselves.
Cotton candy wasn't the only huckleberry flavored dessert at the festival. The festival's baking competition brought in four entries to the kids' competition and nine entries to the adult division.
The winner of the children's division was Jennifer Whitney, 10, of Bigfork. Although she mostly bakes cookies, her entry was a huckleberry bundt cake with lemon glaze.
The winner of the adult division was Tibby Dringman, 20, with a huckleberry maple buttercream cake that was decorated to look like a stack of pancakes.
Dringman, lives in Billings but her family has a cabin in Swan Lake. She has attended the huckleberry festival with her family many times and after watching the baking competition last year, she decided it would be fun to enter.
"I'm so in shock because my aunts are the real bakers," she said. "They win every year. I just did it to try something fun."
Wendi Waite and Heidi Van Diest, "the aunts who always win" were there with their own entries as well.
"I'm so happy that our little niece is in it now. Let's keep it in the family," Waite laughed.
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