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

River from their village
to Eagle Point
where they caught,
dried and smoked
salmon.”
The Ozette
Prairies were probably
visited all year
round, because every
season offered a particular
set of foods
or useful materials.
In spring there was Figure 19. Salal (Gaultheria shallon) berries on Roose’s Prairie. Photograph by Kat Anderson, 2007.
young Indian tea and
good hunting; in summer the various berries took their turns ripening and basketry materials and Indian
tea could be collected; in fall there were cranberries,
Indian tea, bracken fern rhizomes, and basketry materials
ready for harvesting; in winter Roosevelt elk and
deer could be hunted (Anderson 2002-2007; Gunther
1936; Singh 1966:66).
Through oral interviews and a review of the
ethnographic and historical literature, we know that at
least nine kinds of plants were gathered on the Ozette
Prairies (see Table 4). In addition, based on what we
know about the plants used by the Makah and what
grows today on the wetlands, we can say another
twenty-one plant species were likely gathered on the
wetlands and/or ecotones (see Table 5). These plants
are discussed below, grouped into the general categories
of berries, leaves for tea, root foods, basketry
materials, and plants used for other purposes.
Four kinds of berries were gathered on the
Ozette Prairies: bog cranberries and bog blueberries
25
Figure 20. Salal berries are still gathered by Indians and
non-Indians alike. Elizabeth Barlow, Hoh River resident, and
granddaughter of John Huelsdonk, using salal sauce as a topping
on vanilla ice cream.