TENINO, Wash. — "You hang out with the basket makers, you'll get a side ache from laughing so hard. Because we were a lot of fun.”
Harvest Moon is a Quinault basket maker and storyteller who lives in a tiny cabin surrounded by cedars near Tenino.
And she really is a lot of fun.
"Shortest Legend Ever. A salmon went up a river. and came to a....Dam,” she deadpanned, standing at the front door of her home next to a sign that says ‘Never Enough Baskets’.
Her name reflects her calling: “You know my grandfather called me Harvest Moon, and I believe Harvest, when it comes cedar bark season time you won't see me, I'm out gathering and peeling bark, and I hold it as close to my heart as a newborn child,” she said. “I've been weaving for over four decades.”
Only one thing can lure Harvest Moon away from collecting the cedar bark that she can turn into practically anything.
A call to the set of a TV show or movie.
She was an extra on the early 90’s award winning TV show "Northern Exposure."
She appeared in the Northwest-shot Indie film "The Dark Divide."
Her line didn't make the final cut, but she sits around the campfire with family in once scene, playing a Yakama Indian.
She also appears in "First Cow", a critically acclaimed movie made in the Northwest. “When you see the trailer, you'll see, I'm sitting there when the cow comes off of the barge.”
This gifted storyteller has never had a speaking part make the final cut. But by showing up in films portraying Northwest tribes accurately, she's still telling a story, even if she's not talking. She says First Cow got it right:
"They did research, they worked with the Grand Ronde tribe to make it as, they even had a Chinook WaWa specialist to make sure the language was correctly said."
Harvest Moon also tells stories with her weaving - she got the gift from her father when he passed away:
“He gifted me something in my hands. and it was, and that's when I started making baskets,” she adds: “You’re not allowed to weave if you don't feel good or if you're mad. My teachers taught me that it goes into your basket.”
Harvest Moon was joking and happy when we visited – a perfect basket making mood, and she did settle in to weave more after our cameras left her home. No matter how Harvest Moon is sharing a story there's one lesson she wants people to take away when they meet her weaving at the local farmer’s market or go to one of her storytelling sessions, or see her briefly in a movie:
"I like to share with people now you can go home and tell somebody you met someone who has done in their life what they love. You only have a life. One life. Do what you enjoy. Do what you love to do.”
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