Reflections on 40 years of the Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival

SWAN LAKE - For generations the Swan Lake community has celebrated art, music and food through their annual Huckleberry Festival. This year's iteration will take place Saturday, Aug. 14 marking the event's 40th anniversary.

Since its beginning in 1981, the festival has taken place on the second Saturday of August in the Swan Lake Day Park near mile marker 72 on Highway 83.

"Whoever picked that date was a genius because we have been blessed every year," said Lesly Olsen, who has been co-organizing the event for the past several years with her husband Terry. 

She said the weather has been consistently pleasant over the years although Volunteer Helen Whitney said one year they experienced harsher conditions.

"[We had] one year when we were all set up with the silent auction and we were working and we got this huge downpour," she said. "I was literally lying on the table covering everything."

The Huckleberry Festival originally began to act as a fundraiser for the Swan Lake Volunteer Fire Department. However, over the years the revenue has shifted towards more general town maintenance. It also used to help fund their local search and rescue team. Both the fire department and search and rescue team continue being involved with the festival by respectively providing huckleberry pies and ice cream.

Some of the community improvements funded by the festival include installing an electrical speed limit sign and a retired patrol cruiser along the highway. The generated revenue also goes towards holding local events at the Swan Lake Chamber and Community Club.

Some of the original organizers of the festival included Laurel and Joyce Lape, Janice Chambers, Dolores Kimball, Garnet and Dutch Dahmer and many others. Other notable volunteers noted include Jackie Strosnider who previously helped organize, Ken Myers who manages the booth setup, Pastor Chuck Cushman who helps control the event's parking lot, Anna Dwyer who helped with the silent auction for years, and Jody and Otto Dringman whose family helps set up the event the night before.

Early versions of the festival held pig roasts.

"[They] would stay up all night basting the pig," Whitney said.

Whitney said they also held rafting races but these eventually faded out because of how complicated they were to set up.

"Mark, my son, ... built a raft out of [an] old pontoon boat and ... old throwaway sofas, recliners, ... great big speakers, [and] an umbrella," she said.

Terry said it is difficult to get an exact attendance count every year because people come and go all day, but he believes that there are "easily" over 1,000 attendees. His only concern for this year's festival is smoke.

"We have no control over the forest," he said.

Admission for the festival is free but the huckleberry pancake breakfast costs $7. The meal includes pancakes, meat, juice and coffee. Volunteer Lyn Chambers-Bienvenue said Bigfork Harvest Foods and Ferndale Market have been "loyal contributors" to the event for years by donating supplies.

"We couldn't do it without them," she said.

Breakfast will run from 8-11 a.m. while the rest of the activities will be held from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Volunteers said it previously ran until 4 p.m. however, in recent years organizers have cut it off an hour early because a "lull" begins developing around 2 p.m.

Events scheduled throughout the day include a huckleberry baking contest, auctions, raffles, games, live music and a beer and wine garden. The Swan Lake Chamber of Commerce and Community Club sponsor the festival.

Games include water gun fights, a water balloon toss and volleyball. For the baking contest, contestants must have at least three servings of their entry and must use huckleberry somewhere in the recipe. Categories are split between 12 and under and adults. The judging will take place at 11 a.m. with entries accepted between 10:30 to 10:55 a.m.

"It's just joy to look at all these creations," Lesly said.

In the afternoon, Laughing Horse Lodge owner Kathleen Moon will take over the beer and wine garden to offer food like street tacos. There will also be several other food trucks and vendors offering a variety of food and drinks.

The band that usually plays the event, Roy Wilhelm and the Ashley Creek Ramblers, have disbanded since COVID-19. However, one of the former members started a new band called Silverado that will play this year.

Another draw for the festival are the t-shirts the organizers sell every year. Every year the shirts feature a new design thus becoming a collectible for attendees. Although the managerial role has been taken over by someone else, Bienvenue used to handle many of the shirt sales in the past.

Over the years the event has held numerous silent auctions and raffles featuring items donated by local businesses. With this year's festival coming right after the initial wave of COVID-19, Lesly said instead of asking businesses for donations they would instead raffle gift certificates that are $25 and up.

The festival's Arts and Crafts Fair usually features anywhere from 50 to 60 vendors offering a plethora of Montana-made pieces including woodworking, jewelry, stained glass, knitted items, paintings, photography, metalworking and rock engravings. Some vendors will accept credit cards but the organizers still recommend bringing mostly cash.

Lesly said the event has always had a multitude of merchants even in its early days.

"Each artist has their own unique touch," she said. "We are always thrilled with the variety, ... especially the new vendors that reach out yearly."

She said she appreciates the participation of Carol Beck-Edgar who is responsible for much of the festival's publicity and communication with vendors.

"She's good about ... getting the information out there so people reach out to us," she said.

In January the organizers began sending out applications to previous vendors and by the next week they were processing submissions.

"I love the journey of it," Lesly said. "It's a process ... everything's [not going] to be done now. ... Once the festival starts that morning ... [we] let it flow."

For more information on the festival visit https://www.swanlakemontana.org/huckleberry-festival.