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

“My dad William Henderson Bowlby and my stepdad Clyde Maneval told of the Indians burn-
ing the prairies. The closest was Shuwah. No Beaver Prairie, then Shuwah, then Forks Prairie, then
Quillayute Prairie, then Little Prairie. And those are the ones on that end in the eastern part. And then
there was what we called Ahlstrom’s Prairie up past Ozette Lake and Roose’s Prairie. The Indians always
waited until it was very dry before they burned so it would be probably a hot day in August. They
burned once a year. When they started a fire it would burn everything that was there. And that was the
object to burn everything that was there and keep the trees off of the prairie and around the edges so that
the woods wouldn’t creep in on the elk pasture. And of course that would be the purpose of burning the
prairie in the first place, so the animals--elk and deer--would have some grass to eat” (Bob Bowlby pers.
comm. 2003).
“And, the prairies at the north end of the lake, which had been created by the Ozette Indians by
burning to provide grazing and hunting land for deer and cattle, were then, after 1900 partially occupied
by three bachelors. Lars Kristopher Ahlstrom came in 1902 and was the westernmost settler along the
Ozette trail to the ocean, while two cousins, Peter and Arthur Roose lived east of Ahlstrom from 1905
until 1930” (Fish 1983:18).
“Ahlstrom’s prairie, located on ONP’s coastal strip, halfway between Cape Alava and the north
end of Lake Ozette, belongs in the wet prairie category. It, too, has had a long fire history. In a recent inter-
view with Myra Vanderhoof, one of the last children born to homesteaders at the now-extinct Lake Ozette
settlement, she informed me that in the early 1900s the white settlers found an abundance of fire-scarred
trees in the forests adjoining Ahlstrom’s Prairie to the west. At that time most of the trees between Ozette
and Cape Alava also seemed smaller than they are today. The homesteaders assumed that the local Ozette
Indians had burned their prairies to eliminate trees and to keep down the salal understories. When Myra
first visited Ahlstrom’s Prairie, around 1927, she found it very sparsely forested” (Tisch 2002:1).
“Burning forests was indeed an ancient practice. The West End has a half-dozen or more prairies
created by burning. The Indians burned to create meadows which in turn would attract game. They
burned the prairies annually in the fall to keep the brush down. The Forks, Quillayute, and Ozette
Prairies were the largest. White settlers burned forests not only to open up land for farming but also to
encourage the growth of berries” (Douglas 1964:177).
“Ahlstrom gained prominence as the westernmost rancher in the United States. His prairie prob-
ably was an old burn created by Indians from Ozette village for a hunting ground” (McDonald 1961).
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