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For Hugh, berry-picking is practiced with exuberance and maybe a bit of competitiveness.

"Waaa, that's big!" he cried out as he scraped one prize off a branch with the tines of a red, metal berry-picker.

Pickers say it's a good year for berries, following a particularly bad season last year. The abundance varies with the type of berry and the altitude of the bushes, but folks are seeing some fat ones.

"We've had a real summer," said Cooperative Extension Service agent Jim Douglas in Juneau. "It's the first summer since 1997. My garden is incredible."

Some areas had a frost in April that killed blossoms and reduced the available harvest, Douglas said. And as the July-to-September season progresses, pickers of some types of berries will have to climb in altitude to find them. But pickers are a happy lot this year.

"It was great," said Joyce Sarles, who picked blueberries on North Douglas on a recent weekend. "There were lots of berries left."

Sarles has picked berries since she moved to Alaska in 1965. It's an activity that gets family members outdoors together and connects them to the land, she said.

"I think for me it's mostly about tradition," said Joyce's grown daughter Carole Sarles. "Part of that comes from Mom telling me she took me out (picking) when I was 8 weeks old. I know it was a big part of her life."

Picking in August is a reminder the summer soon will end, and it's a chance to freeze foods for the fall and winter, Carole said.

"So it's kind of a storing up of reminders of summer and foods of summer for the winter," she said. "You can taste August in the middle of January."

"My mother (Bessie Visya) was great for that," she said. "The many fond memories my children have is going berry-picking with her. We have a lot of pictures of her with her baskets."

But over time, as Juneau has been developed, it gets harder to find good berry spots, Miller and other pickers said.

"Every place we went we found strawberries and raspberries," Miller said of the past. "But with development it's harder and harder to find a place. There are cranberries, but we have to go further to find cranberries."

Pickers use berries for juice, jams, jellies, marmalades and pies.

Sometimes picked berries become part of a family's favorite recipe. Danith Watts likes to make blueberry cobblers for family and guests at the Wattses' AK Fireweed House bed-and-breakfast. She uses her grandmother's recipe, which is about 70 years old.

"These are much tarter and tangier berries" than store-bought berries, Watts said of the blueberries she was picking near Eaglecrest on Saturday. "I think it makes a nicer cobbler because it's not so sweet."

Some Natives pick berries for potlatches, Miller said. Nowadays, Miller racks up mileage in SEARHC's annual Eagle/Raven health walk by looking for berries.

Berries promote health in a number of ways, said Libby Watanabe, chief dietitian at the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which provides health care to Natives.

It's healthy exercise finding and picking the berries. It's good for people's emotional health to engage in a traditional cultural activity such as food-gathering, and to connect with the land, she said.

"It makes us feel good internally because we're pursuing an active and traditional lifestyle," she said. "People feel spiritually connected when they practice traditional food-gathering."

And berries are healthy foods. They don't have saturated fats, and they're a source of energy-boosting carbohydrates, as well as fiber and antioxidants, Watanabe said.

Antioxidants are a component of plants that help prevent cancer. The acids in cranberries work to keep down bacteria that can cause urinary tract infections, she added.

Fresh berries are the highest in nutrients. But frozen or pressure-canned berries can capture much of the nutrients if done right, she said. Watanabe, at (907) 966-8339, can provide information on nutrition.

Douglas, of the Cooperative Extension, recommends berries be soaked in salt water to drive out any lurking insects. As he put it, "To make sure there's no inadvertent insect uptake."

He also reminds berry-pickers to make noise in high bushes to alert bears, and defer to them if found. Or, as he put it, "If you run into a guy in a fur coat, he or she has precedent."

"For us, it's a great supplement to a diet. But to the bears, it's essential," he said.

Young Hugh Watts might give Douglas an argument on what's essential to humans. Hugh is so eager to pick berries that he collects them behind Dzantik'i Heeni Middle School during his sister Elanor's soccer practice. He comes back from the woods purple.

"Oooh, la, la!" Hugh said Saturday as he swiped another branch with his berry scraper.

"Stop saying that, Hugh," Elanor said.

Eric Fry can be reached at efry@juneauempire.com.