Indian Heaven and the surrounding wilderness area have played an important role in local Native American life for about 10,000 years, and the vicinity was originally called Sahalee Tyee by native peoples, which loosely translates to Indian Heaven. The Sawtooth Berry Fields, known globally for their huckleberries, burned during the late 1890s and again in 1902. Later fires helped maintain the fields by drying their berries. From 1902 to the mid-1920s, local tribes including the Yakama, Klickitat, Wasco-Wishram, and Umatilla, as well as Native American groups from Montana and Wyoming gathered in the Indian Heaven area during the summers for annual huckleberry feasts. During these gatherings, they celebrated, traded, and performed rituals; they also raced horses, played various games, constructed baskets, dried meat, tanned hides, and fished in the local lakes. In 1932, the Yakama Nation and the United States Forest Service agreed to set aside a portion of the Berry Fields for exclusive Indian use; the harvest remains an important local tradition. Today, the marks from the Race Track, a meadow used by Native Americans for horse racing, can be seen about off the segment of the Pacific Crest Trail that crosses through the Indian Heaven wilderness. Trees within the area have scars from where their bark was peeled for wood to make baskets. The area is also rich with large game animals and supports a number of roots and tuber plant species.