About Huckleberry Way

AI search visibility,
built on authority

Huckleberry Way is an AI search visibility firm in Waterloo, Ontario, serving established Canadian businesses. We build and run a system of authority that connects who you are, what you do and what you have proven.
At its centre is the Authority Record™, your public system of record, kept current and actively published across your website and relevant external profiles. You own the record. We run the system.

The discipline

Huckleberry Way builds and runs verified entity infrastructure: the connected identity, relationships and evidence that help search engines and AI resolve your business, understand its capabilities and connect it to relevant buyer needs.

The architecture draws on information science. We apply authority control, classification and provenance to connect your organization, people, services, locations and credentials with the sources that support them.

Black-and-white view over the bow of a working boat, its deck and rail running toward a lighthouse on a headland.

01 — Since 2014

Same company. Same standard of proof. A new reader.

Huckleberry Way began in 2014 as Huckleberry Films Inc., building proof-of-expertise content for enterprise clients, among them Microsoft, Toyota and Maple Leaf Foods. When AI began deciding which businesses to recommend, the firm turned that craft, and its founder's training in information science, to the record machines read: the same facts a buyer reads, structured so that an assistant can verify them. It relaunched as Huckleberry Way in 2025.

2014

Huckleberry Films Inc.

Proof-of-expertise content for enterprise clients: the craft of making expertise legible to people.

2025

Huckleberry Way

The same craft, and the founder's training in information science, turned to the record machines read.

Today

A system of authority

The Authority Record™ and The Proof Engine™, run for Canadian businesses that buyers research before they call.

02 — The people you work with

The people below are the people on your engagement.

A senior team in Waterloo, Ontario. Not the people who sell the work and hand it on; the people who do it.

Von Darnell

Founder & Chief Strategist

Von Darnell

Pairs an Honours BA in English Language and Literature with a Master of Library and Information Science from Western University, where the research was on citation clustering and search engines. A decade in enterprise software at SAP BusinessObjects and Agfa HealthCare, then a decade leading Huckleberry Films, and now strategy and every client engagement at Huckleberry Way.

LinkedIn

Margaret Sampson

Chief Information Scientist

Margaret Sampson, PhD, MLIS

Designs the methodology behind the Authority Record and advises on the Proof Engine. A three-time Highly Cited Researcher with more than 213,000 Google Scholar citations, among them the PRESS Guideline for the peer review of search strategies, Margaret has spent a career on how evidence is found, screened and verified: the problem an assistant solves each time it decides whom to recommend.

Kate Colmer

Head of Studio

Kate Colmer

An award-winning visual designer and creative director whose eLearning work earned a Gold Stevie Award, and who led Huckleberry's Toyota work, including new-hire training built for 4K interactive touchscreens. Kate leads design, development and production: the websites, profiles and proof clients see.

katecolmer.comLinkedIn

How an engagement runs

Von Darnell leads it. Margaret Sampson sets the method your record is built and checked to. Kate Colmer's studio builds what you see.

Every engagement follows four steps, Report, Plan, Build, Run, and is built in stages from what you already have. Nothing publishes without your approval, and nothing about a customer without theirs. How it is built, for you ›

03 — The discipline

Information science, and the tools built for it.

The discipline underneath every Record is the one that keeps a great library's catalogue coherent across millions of entries. Both the founder and the Chief Information Scientist hold a Master of Library and Information Science; it is the training the work is built on, not a credential on the wall.

01

Authority control

So that one business is one entity everywhere it appears, and every mention of you resolves to you.

02

Classification

So that what you do is named the way machines name it, and matched to the questions buyers ask.

03

Provenance

So that every fact carries the source that verifies it, and a machine can check before it recommends.

Built for the method, not resold. Huckleberry Way builds its own tools rather than reselling a platform:

An engine that compiles a business into structured data for every page and profile

A story-capture system with three approval gates

A reporting engine that reads six data sources

A review-reply app built for a regulated financial institution

04 — On the record

Our own record is public.

Every fact on this page is in Huckleberry Way's own Authority Record, which anyone can browse and any AI agent can query. The facts below are compiled from it, so this page and the Record cannot disagree. Ask any assistant what credentials back our claims, then check its answer against the source.

Legal name

Huckleberry Films Inc., operating as Huckleberry Way

Founded

2014

Based in

486 Thorndale Drive, Waterloo, Ontario

05 — Questions

Questions about the firm.

What does Huckleberry Way do?
Huckleberry Way runs a system of authority that gives AI depth and certainty about your business, so that when a buyer asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google who to call, the answer is you. At its centre is The Authority Record™, your public system of record, kept true and published everywhere AI looks, with proof from your customers added through The Proof Engine™.
Is Huckleberry Way an SEO company?
Not in the usual sense, though the work lifts search results too. SEO works on rankings for keywords. Huckleberry Way works on what is true about your business in the places AI checks, your Google Business Profile, the knowledge graphs and your website's structured data, so that AI can verify you before it recommends you.
Who runs my engagement?
Von Darnell leads every engagement. Margaret Sampson sets the method your record is built and checked to. Kate Colmer's studio builds what you see. Nothing publishes without your approval.
Do I own what Huckleberry Way builds?
Yes. Your Authority Record is built on open standards, published on your own domain and yours to keep if we ever part. Huckleberry Way runs the system that keeps it true. The data is yours. The engine is the service ›
Where does Huckleberry Way work?
Huckleberry Way is based in Waterloo, Ontario, and works with businesses across Ontario and Canada.

What happens next

Get your score, read your report, then map the plan.

Step 1 — See your score

Run a free check of how clearly AI can resolve, trust, and cite you, scored out of 100 across six signals. Your report lands in your inbox, usually within minutes.

Step 2 — Map the plan

We walk through your report, show you where AI hesitates, and map what closing your gaps involves and what it costs. Interpretation and planning, not a sales pitch.