The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

It is possible that the Ozettes visited all six wetlands to hunt and to gather foods, basketry materi-
als, medicines, and cordage materials because they all contain culturally significant plants that would
have been useful to the people (see Appendix 1). Manny’s Prairie was northeast of the old village; West
Prairie was southeast (and one-quarter of a mile west of Ahlstrom’s Prairie). Ahlstrom’s and Roose’s
Prairies were also southeast of the village, and about a half mile from the Ozette River (because of this
proximity to the river, they were probably accessed both by trail and by canoeing up the river and then
going overland). Sand Point Prairie is west of Ozette Lake and Allen’s Prairie is at the south end of Ozette
Lake; it may have been shared with the Quileute (see Figure 17).
It is feasible that Ozette families accessed the Ozette Prairies not only by land but also by the
Ozette River coming up at various times of the year to fish, hunt, and gather plants. According to Larry
Sears (pers. comm. 2007) Roose had a trail to the Ozette River and a fish camp, which consisted of “four
poles and a metal roof” and it is probable that this camp was accessed by an Indian trail or Indians at
least had some kind of trail to Roose’s Prairie from the river. According to Ruby El Hult (1956), “They [the
Ozette] pushed their long dugout canoes up
the Ozette River four miles inland to Lake
Ozette to take blueback salmon, which they
dried in quantity.” Years later when the
Ozette Reservation was established “one
corner of the reservation took in a bend of
the Ozette River, so they might continue
to take their staple sockeye salmon” (Hult
1956). The reservation also was drawn up
to encompass the northern end of Roose’s
Prairie, perhaps because of its valuable
Figure 18. Bud and Vera Klock. Photographed by George McCormick which
plant resources. Vera Klock’s grandmother appeared in the Forks Forum article “Klocks are grand pioneers for Fun
Days”, July 10, 2000.
was Johanna Erickson who married Anders
Nylund and they took a homestead at the north end of Ozette Lake in 1895 and then moved to Royal
(see Figure 18). “My mother [Inga Nylund Evans] used to tell how they [the Ozette] would come up the
Ozette River in their canoes and they [my mother and her sisters] would stand on the banks and holler
at them” (pers. comm. 2002). Inga Nylund Evans wrote a newspaper article (circa early 1940s Vera Klock
pers. comm. 2009) recalling that: “The Indians used to paddle up the river past our place in their canoes,
and into the lake. The Indians would camp along the lake shore, mostly at the south end” (Evans n.d.).
In a 1981 newspaper article by Mary Petroff, Hulda Sullivan Nylund (Inga’s sister) also recalled
that “the Ozette Indians, who were always friendly to the white man, travelled by canoe up the Ozette
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