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Salmonberry in bloom
K. Lugthart photo |
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George and Millie Lagergren
Signs of Spring
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Whales
James G. Swan's
“blubber feast”
“..a whale was washed ashore on the beach between
Tokes's
Point and Gray's Harbor, and all the Indians about the Bay went to
get their share” (Swan 1857:360).

Contemporary image of
a stranded whale being divided.
(Photo taken in Alaska.)
Whaler’s hat;
see detail of whale in weaving.
Image courtesy Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, WA
“These people are also ingenious in the manufacture
of mats and rushes, and hats and baskets of grass. Some of their baskets
are water tight, and many of them are ornamented with devices of beasts,
birds, and flowers, worked in various colors” (Johnson and Winter 1932:60).
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Oystermen waiting for
the tide. James G. Swan sketch (Swan: 1857).
Courtesy of The University of Montana Mansfield Library, K. Ross Toole Archives,
Special Collections.
Aerial view of Long
Island in the Willapa Bay, looking north by northwest.
Michael Parker photo.
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Starry Flounder
Drawing from the historical collection, National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration
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Fireweed,
Epilobium
angustifolium; and bee “...if the fireweed was in
bloom...”
K. Lugthart photo

Blackberry
“...the blackberries were ripe.”

Salal, Gaultheria shallon
Salal
in bloom near Willapa Bay
K. Lugthart photo
Huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum
Br. Alfred Brousseau, Saint Mary's College
Courtesy Berkeley Digital Library Project

Shot huckleberry, Vaccinium
ovatum Walter Knight © California Academy of Sciences.
Courtesy Berkeley Digital Library Project |
© 2001-2003 Sheri C. Plyler
"Acorns in those sections of
the country where the oak is found are gathered and stored for winter
" (Gibbs 1877:194). |
Sketch of
camas
© Lynn Kitagawa
used with permission
Digging stick, for roots.
Courtesy Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Wa.
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 Fur Seals
National Marine Mammal Laboratory |
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Cedar bark and fiber
cape.
Courtesy Maryhill Museum of Art,
Goldendale, WA
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Dentalium cape.
Courtesy Maryhill Museum of Art,
Goldendale, WA
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Fort Clatsop > Culture > Seasonal Round
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Spring |
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Smelt
Courtesy USGS |
Smelt was the first fresh food anticipated by the people after a
long winter of dried food. The arrival of the oil-rich smelt brought
with them the anticipation of fresh greens and the long-awaited salmon. |
Shell fish were available year-round,
but they were especially pleasurable to gather after the long winter, and
old-timers never eat them during the heat of summer.
Although
an early run of Chinook salmon started soon after mid-winter, the Chinook
people waited to greet their namesake and to ceremonially honor their
return during the second run in the spring, when the salmon berries were
ripening.
Spring Greens
Equisetum arvense
-
Common Horsetail Rush
© 2002 Tony Morosco |
Angelica lucida
- Wild Celery
© Br. Alfred Brousseau, Saint Mary's College |
Cow Parsnip -
Heracleum sphondylium
NPS photo |
Salmonberry shoots are the absolute favorite first green. Before the
great Chinook Salmon run, shoots start to break the surface of the ground
and are “collected in bundles and brought into the lodge, where
they are denuded of their tough outer skin, and the center is as crisp
and tender as a cucumber, and being slightly acid, is delicious"
(Swan 1857:87). Young shoots and stems of Horsetail Rush, Wild Celery
and Cow Parsnip are eaten raw. These foods provide a welcome addition
to the dried salmon eggs extensively used in earliest spring" (Swan
1857:88).
“I remember one thing my grandmother used to do was dry
fish eggs. We’d hang them on a string, like a clothesline,
and hang them around the chimney. We’d take the smaller ones
because I suppose they dry a lot quicker. Dry your old fish eggs
on it and eat ‘em with the salmonberry sprouts. I love that" (Sammy Pickernell interview: 2002). |
Sammy Pickernell |
Greens from young leaves of Nettle and Fireweed also add to the spring
diet.
Plantago maritima
Goose-tongue
© Br. Alfred Brousseau,
Saint Mary's College |
“They had a green that they
called the goose tongue. It looks like a goose tongue and it grows
up about eight, ten inches tall. And, at the spring of the year,
that grows and grows fast, and they pick that and they can boil that
and eat that for a greens" (George Lagergren interview: 2002). |
Sea Mammals/Whales
Sea mammals were also important foods. Several species of porpoises and
whales migrated past the Columbia in spring and fall. Porpoises were hunted.
It is unclear whether whales were ever hunted or whether they were simply
scavenged when they washed ashore, like the one Clark investigated in February,
1806. Some of the cultural rules about whales were explained to Franz Boas
by Charles Cultee:
“When the people of Sealand find a whale they tell a youth
to go the town and to inform the people. A person who has to observe
taboos is asked to go up and down [in his canoe] below the whale. Then
he goes up and down below the whale. Thus also a person who cohabited
the preceding night goes up and down below the whale. If no person
who has to observe taboos would go up and down, it would drift away. |
Charles Cultee
(Boas:1894)
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"Those who found the whale do not cut it; they wait for
the chief. All the people reach the whale. Then the chief takes a stick
and measures the whale from the head to the tail. Then he tells the
people: ‘You will cut here; you will cut there.’ It is
distributed among those people. The common people cut from the tail
end. When it is all cut, it is carried to the town into the houses.
When the whale is measured, the chief tells the people to make the
[measuring] sticks two spans and one hand width long, if the whale
is large; [two spans wide if the whale is smaller]. The people are
told: ‘You cut here,’ and they cut the whale. Everything
is done this way A cut two spans and one hand width large is exchanged
for one blanket, or for a string of dentalia five shells longer than
a fatheom. When a cut two spans large is sold it is exchanged for a
ground-hog blanket" (Cultee in Boas 1894:262). |
First Salmon Ceremony
Chinook Salmon
National Park Service image
"The salmon season of those tribes towards the mouth of the Columbia,
commences in June: and its opening is an epoch looked forward to
with much anxiety, and
is attended with great formality. They have a public festival, and offer
sacrifices. The first salmon caught is a consecrated thing; and is
offered to the munificent
Spirit, who is the giver of plenty. They have a superstitious scruple
about he mode of cutting salmon' especially at the commencement of the
season,
before
they have an assurance of a plentiful supply. To cut it crosswise, and
to cast the heart into the water, they consider most unlucky, and likely
to bring on
a scarce season. Hence they are very reluctant to supply the traders
at the stations with any until the season is advanced, and they can calculate
on their probable
stock; lest an unlucky cross cut by the white men may mar all their prospects.
Their mode is to cut it along the back; they take out the back bone,
and
most
studiously avoid throwing the heart into the water. The heart they broil
and eat; but will not eat it after sun set" (Dunn: 1846).
Visit
the 2003 Salmon Ceremony page
on the official Chinook Nation website.

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Images from First Salmon
Ceremony 2003
Courtesy official Chinook Nation website
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Seasonal
Promptings
"And where there was a little stream, that's where all the old
Indian camps were. They could get in there with a canoe at certain stages
of the
tide. Some of them were harder to get in on the tides, but most of
the time, the people were not in a big hurry to get somewhere. They waited
and they went, and they used the tide and they had their mind on that
water.
When that tide was getting right, they'd go and get in their canoes,
and go out and get their clams or catch fish or whatever they wanted
to do.
“And they migrated a quite a bit, they had to travel and migrate
from one stream to the other to get their fish. And there were certain
places that they went and their fish were easier to catch for them and
they knew where those places were. And they would come at the season when
the fish would run. And that’s where they’d gather and smoke
and prepare their fish, you know. And that’s the way, that was
the way they done in those days, they went. They would come at the
season when
the fish would run. And that's where they'd gather and smoke and prepare
their fish. At these certain places the Indian people would come and
they'd camp and prepare their fish, and their food, and pick the berries,
and
prepare their winter food.
"The group that lived at Long Island, they were all canoe people.
The only way in and out of there was by canoe, and they had almost
anything that they wanted there, but they would travel around to catch
their fish.
They knew when the fish runs were coming, and they knew when they should
be here and when they should be there. Oysters and clams were available
all year round, anytime. The tides were all they had to go by. But
in order to catch the fish and then the berries, they had to travel in
that season
when the berries were ripe and then when the fish runs came in" (George
Lagergren interview: 2002).
Read about fishing seasons and methods.
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Summer |
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Summer was a time of great abundance. After the First Salmon Ceremony, the
Chinook Salmon continued to run for several weeks, followed by another
run that began in late July. The Silver Salmon also ran at this time “but
does not long remain near the mouth of the river" (Ray 1938:107).
The Dog Salmon followed close behind, beginning around mid-August. Steelhead
trout were abundant in the Columbia River and they weighed up to 45 pounds.
A single sturgeon could provide a feast for a large village.
“And in those days, you see, there was a run of Chinook Salmon
that came in about the, around the fourth of July, the first part of
July, there was a really beautiful nice Chinook Salmon that came in at
that time, but they’re gone now. There’s none of those
left that I have seen" (George Lagergren interview: 2002).
Women enjoyed gathering flounder by wading barefoot in the shallows
and feeling them out with their feet.
“The turbot and flounders are caught while wading in the water
by means of the feet. The Indian wades along slowly, and, as soon
as he feels a fish with his feet, he steps quickly on it and holds
it firmly
till he can reach hold of it with his hand, when he gives it a jerk,
an away it flies far into the flats. This process is repeated till
enough fish are caught, when they are picked up, put in a basket, and
carried
to the canoe. The turbot are much like the English turbot, but smaller;
the largest. have ever seen weighed twenty pounds. The flounder are
similar to those of the Atlantic at New York or Bos ton. They are easily
taken
by this method of the Indians, as their rough backs prevent them
slipping from under the feet. The catching affords a deal of fun, as
usually quite
a number are engaged in the sport, am their splashing, slipping,
screaming, and laughing make a lively time. These fish, like all the
fish in the
Bay, are very fine and well flavored" (Swan 1857:83).
Background:
Starry Flounder, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
Summer was a luscious succession of one ripening fruit
and root after another. Roots “furnish a considerable proportion
of the subsistence…" and they were highly valued and
disposed of sparingly (Lewis in Moulton, V.6,1990:224). One of their
most important
roots, the wapato, was “found only in one corner of Lower Chinook
territory, the south side of the Columbia river opposite and above
Puget Island. Therefore most of the roots were obtained by trade,
principally from the Klatskanie" (Ray 1938:119). Lewis and
Clark called it the principal item of trade between the upriver peoples
and those on the coast. (Clark in Moulton, V.6,1990:229) |
Wappato was gathered in fall and spring, when roots are strongest.
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Berries

George and Millie Lagergren
Millie: “When I was just a young girl my grandmother told me that
when they were getting ready to harvest the little wild blackberries,
they would send a scout ahead to see if the berries were ready. They
would go up the rivers, then, from the canoe, just look up on the hillsides
and if the fireweed was in bloom the blackberries were ripe. And that
way they didn’t have to climb the hills to look, they could just
tell from the fireweed. When the blooms came out, they knew it was
time to go out and gather their wild blackberries.
“They’re really sweet when they’re ripe. Everybody
thinks it’s a real treat to get wild blackberry pie. It’s
usually late July when the wild blackberries come out.
George: “Salal berries and huckleberries, they come on in July,
and there’s a late berry that we call a shot berry. It’s
like a little beebee.
“Down in this part of the country here, we got the red huckleberry
and then we got the blue huckleberry and then we got the black huckleberry.
And the black one is not so sweet, and the blue one is the better
one. The red ones are clusters of red berries.
“We call it the shot berry. An evergreen huckleberry they call
it. They, they buy that for the florists, for their flowers. A lot of
people around the country, they have a job of doing that for their livelihood.
There is some legend about it, but I couldn’t repeat it
“Of the berries, such as the strawberry, salmon-berry, raspberry,
and others which are not suitable for drying, are consumed at once;
but
the huckleberry, of which there are several kinds, sallal, &c., are
dried and stored for winter’s use. The salmon-berry, a large and
somewhat coarse species of raspberry, is abundant in the river bottoms,
and grows to about an inch in length. There are two varieties, the yellow
and purple. It obtains its name from its ripening about the same time
with the height of the salmon season on the Columbia, and its association
with that fish in Indian superstition" (Gibbs
1877:194).
Summer’s End, Celebration and Preparation
"Though they occasionally can procure the flesh of elks, deer,
and the waterfowls of the ponds and rivers, their chief subsistence
if fish,
chiefly salmon, which abounds in the river, and inlets; and roots,
and berries, which the women go a gipsying in groups at the proper
season
to collect in the upper part of the country. This season is a time
of hilarity; and the women bepaint their faces and persons with a sort
of
vermillion paint, partly to protect them form the sun, and partly
to present a gay and fantastic appearance. These roots and berries
they make into
cakes, which they dry in the sun. These cakes, and preserved fish,
with a n accompaniment of venison, form their winter store, of which
they generally
have no lack" (Dunn: 1846).
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Fall |
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Chum or dog salmon
NPS photo |

Soho or silver salmon
NPS photo |
Fishing declined as the days grew shorter. The last of the Chinook
Salmon runs came in late July and lasted to early October. The Dog Salmon
and Silver Salmon ran to November, but these runs were less important
than the earlier runs of Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Trout.
Read
about salmon spawning and migration in the Columbia River,
and winter
supplies for the “Tsinuk", by George Gibbs.
Men shifted the attention to hunting elk and deer. "When the
salmon begin to decline in the latter end of summer and autumn the natives
leave the river, at least a majority, and remove to the plains at some
distance for the purpose of hunting the antelope" (Lewis in Moulton, V.6,1990:336).
“When a hunter has killed a male elk far away, then twelve men go
to fetch it. When he has killed a female elk, eight go to fetch it.
When a hunter has killed two elks, many people go to fetch it. When he has
killed many, then it is dried in the woods [it is not carried away].
The people go home when it is dry, and the hunter distributes the meat among
all the people" (Cultee in Boaz 1894:264-5).
Many species of small game animals were also hunted or snared.
Camas roots were dug in September and October, as well as in the spring
“The roots used are numerous; but the wappatu, or sagittaria, and
the kamas are the principal. These are found in great quantities, the
former in ponds, the latter in the prairies, particularly such as are
wet; and they were formerly a great article of trade with the interior.
Besides these, the roots of the sunflower and fern are largely used,,
and a small white root of rather insipid, taste. From the fern, ‘they
make a species of flour which is baked into bread. The kamas season
is
in the latter part of May and June, and then as well as in the fall
when the sunflower is dug, the prairies are dotted over with squaws,
each armed
with a sharp stake and a basket, busily engaged in digging them. At
these times, camps are generally found near the skirts of timber which
border
the open lands for the convenience of gathering and preserving. The
kamas is baked in the ground, a hole being first dug and heated with
stones,
and the root covered over with twigs and earth. There are numerous
other roots and plants used in their fresh state" (Gibbs 1877:193-4).
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Winter |
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“The summer camps were abandoned by the time the days grew short
and the rain fell with great regularity. The people returned to their
protected
villages, away from the river winds, settling into their longhouse
life once again. Winter winds and storms come out of the southeast
and southwest and so villages were located on the protected north sides
of hills… They wanted to have the protected areas where they
lived because that’s where their children were born and it
made an easier life for them" (George Lagergren 2002).
People didn’t just stay inside all winter long. Sometimes
men and women went in search of food during the winter, because their
stores of food were running low. Women could gather mussels and men
could hunt various mammals of the land and sea. Hair Seals, an important
source of food as well as clothing, migrated through from December
until spring. (Swan 1857:84) |

Fur-seal. Callorhinus
ursinus
Drawing from the historical collection, National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration |
Men also hunted elk and deer during the winter season,
and sea lions were another source of winter food. This was the case in
one of the stories
told to Franz Boas by Charles Cultee. In this myth about Blue-Jay and
his wife, Stikua’, the men go in search of sea lions to quell their
hunger.
“Many people were living at Nakot !a’t (Seaside). Now their
chief died. He had [left] a son who was almost grown up. It was winter
and the people were hungry. They had only mussels and roots to eat. Once
upon a time a hunter said: ‘Make yourselves ready.’ All the
men made themselves ready and went seaward in two canoes. Then the hunter
speared a sealion. It jumped and drifted on the water [dead]. They hauled
it ashore. Blue-Jay said: ‘Let us boil it here.’ They made
a fire and singed it. They cut it and boiled it. Blue-Jay said: ‘Let
us eat it here, let us eat all of it!’ Then the people ate…" (Cultee
in Boas 1894:140).
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Background: Portion of James
G. Swan sketch “Point
Grenville" (Swan:1857)
Courtesy of The University of Montana Mansfield Library, K. Ross Toole Archives,
Special Collections.
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