The Historical Ecology, the Loss of Salmonids, and the Transformation of Coast Salish Culture

Abstract

The significance of salmon as ecological and cultural keystone species in the Pacific Northwest is well-recognized, but the magnitude of the historical reductions of salmon stocks, and the consequent negative impacts on the Indigenous people who have relied on them for millennia are far less appreciated. Relying on a range of ethnohistoric information – archaeological, historical, cartographic, scientific/regulatory, ethnographic, oral history, Indigenous place name and traditional use studies – we document an arc of change from a period of exceptional abundance in pre-contact and early historic times, to a state of greatly reduced abundance by the mid-20^th century. Recognizing these historically shifted baselines in salmon abundance highlights the infringement on Coast Salish peoples’ ability and rights to harvest them associated impacts on traditional Coast Salish culture.