With its gentle sloping walls and carefully woven loops along the rim, this basket does not immediately show its utilitarian nature. The cone shape of the basket itself allows for the weight of multiple gallons of huckleberries to be distributed so that the berries on the bottom are not being crushed by those on top. When the basket was full, it could be left in the shade of a tree with a few leafy branches interlaced through the loops on the rim to prevent the berries from drying out while harvesting continued. The mosaic tile-like decoration reveals an artistic hand, with the bold geometric pattern imbricated throughout the body of the basket.

References: For a detailed introduction to Klickitat baskets see Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh & William A.Turnbaugh, Indian Baskets, (Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd. in collaboration with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University), 1986, p. 165-166. For a similar example of the triangulated pattern, see Richard Conn, Native American Art in The Denver Art Museum, (Seattle: Denver Art Museum/University of Washington Press, 1979), fig. 335, p. 249.