Elwha Watershed Information Resource

In historic times, the Tribe was entirely dependent on the environment for food, shelter, and clothing. Luckily, the Klallam people were blessed with abundant natural resources near their settlements. They relied on the mountains, river, and surrounding waters to provide for them. The Klallam viewed these resources with respect and practiced conservation to ensure that the resources would continue to be plentiful. Klallam stories and legends often focus on the Tribe’s relationship with the resources. Some resources, such as salmon, were so precious to the tribe that they had additional restrictions for proper handling and harvesting of that resource. 

Olympic Mountains

The Tribe used the mountains frequently. Not only were the mountains an ideal place to gather food and other supplies, but they also contained sites that were considered sacred or of historical importance to the Tribe. In the past, some people argued that the Klallam did not use the mountains. Some of these people may have assumed incorrectly that because the early anthropological and other historical documents do not mention the Tribe’s relationship with the mountains that such a relationship did not exist. However, tribal interviews and artifacts have proven otherwise, and a review of the anthropologists’ field notes confirmed that the Tribe used the mountains regularly. In fact, one anthropologist noted that the Klallam name for the Olympic Mountains meant belongs to the Klallam (Wray 1997).

The mountains provided many resources for the Tribe:

• The women of the Tribe gathered a variety of vegetation (such as ferns, tiger lilies, and berries) from the mountains and the neighboring foothills. Historically, the Tribe did not cultivate any of their own food, choosing instead to gather their vegetation (Gunther 1927).
• Certain men of the Tribe were designated as hunters, and they would hunt deer, elk, and sometimes bear in the mountains. The hunters would build temporary shelters, and the hunters’ families sometimes accompanied them into the mountains in the spring to help prepare any meat that they caught (Gunther 1927).
• The mountains also provided medicinal resources. The Tribe routinely gathered medicinal plants, but the mountain had other healing qualities as well. For example, the Tribe’s last medicine man, Boston Charlie, used the Olympic Hot Springs for spiritual cleansing, and at least one family is known to have been living on Hurricane Hill ridge year round to help cure their son of tuberculosis (Wray 1997).

Today, many of the places where traditional resources were gathered are located within the boundaries of the Olympic National Park. However, the Tribe does have access to certain areas of the park where they can gather traditional resources (Wray 1997).

Elwha River

The Tribe traditionally spent a lot of time on the Elwha River because much of the tribe’s primary food source, salmon, was caught there. The Elwha River, which used to contain salmon as large as 100 pounds, was known as one of the best fishing rivers in the area until well into the 19th century. Tribal fisherman used a variety of methods to catch the fish, but they also practiced conservation. They did not take more fish than they needed, and the traps allowed some fish to go through and continue upriver to spawn. The Elwha River was also believed to be the home of Thunderbird, a protector who would chase the salmon upriver so that the tribe could catch them. Today, Thunderbird is commemorated by the tribe on their logo (Cultural Advisory Committee 2003).

The Elwha River is the location of one of the Tribe’s most sacred places: the creation site. The Tribe’s creation story is similar to some Christian creation stories where God formed man from the earth. In the Tribe’s story, the Creator made people with dirt scooped from a large rock along the Elwha River. Afterwards, two holes remained in the rock. The Tribe calls these holes “coiled baskets.” Tribal members would traditionally visit the creation site and place their hand in one of the holes--if they pulled something out of the hole (such as a shell) it could foretell their future (Cultural Advisory Committee 2003). For example, pulling out a piece of shell foretold wealth. Today, the Tribe can no longer access the creation site because it was flooded during the construction of the Elwha Dam in the early 1900’s (Wray 1997). 

The dams on the Elwha River drastically changed the way the Tribe interacted with the river. In addition to the creation sites, other sacred sites and sites of historical importance were either destroyed or made inaccessible as the flow of the river changed and lakes were created behind the dams. Additionally, the dams prevented salmon from traveling upriver to the tribe’s “usual and accustomed” fishing spots. Once the dams were completed, the tribe’s ability to catch salmon in the river was severely restricted. The planned removal of the dams offers hope: returning salmon runs and access to sites that have been hidden for nearly a century.

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References 

1. Gunther, E. 1927. "Klallam Ethnography." University of Washington Publication in Anthropology. Volume 1, Number 5. Pages 171 to 314. 

2. Olympic Peninsula Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee. 2003. Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula. Edited by Jacilee Wray. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman, OK.

3. Wray, J. 1997. Ethnographic Overview and Assessment. Prepared for Olympic National Park.