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

Ram Singh discussed the importance of prairies to the peoples of the Peninsula in aboriginal times:
In prairies there are camas and ferns with edible roots. There are a few prairies in Quileute and Quinault
country; the Makah had none. The Ozette used one prairie but it was only slightly productive. Camas
and ferns grew profusely in these prairies; the former were economically important and the amount produced
did not meet the demand. It was so highly valued that it was one of the few items purchased by
the Makah and Ozette from the Quileute and Quinault. Camas had a special place at feasts and potlatches
[p.25].
The inquisitive and observant Albert Reagan, who once interrupted a Shaker ceremony at LaPush to take
the pulse of participants, was also not content to simply note that the prairies of Quileute country were
rich and fertile. He described them as follows:
As far as the writer knows, the soil of the prairies, treeless areas covering 4,000 acres, has never been
analyzed. It is a black loam two or more feet in thickness. It is composed of decayed fern roots that have
been collected since the retreat of the great ice sheet. This soil is known to be as good as any in the state.
In fact, the writer has examined the soil in various parts of the United States and he has found none better
(Reagan 1908:21).
Reagan had lived in LaPush with many older Quileute who had been alive in the days before traders and
officials and settlers arrived and everything began to change. He was interested in what we now call
“ethnobotany,” and he interviewed knowledgeable elders about what plants were used and how the old
people used them.
While in charge of different tribes of West Coast Indians from 1905 to 1909 and in 1928, the writer made
a study of the plants used by them. This included a study of the plants they used for food and medicine
and those used in making baskets, mats, in house building, etc. The use of more than eighty plants are
given, their descriptions, and uses to which the Indian put them...These Indians were great users of the
plants of the region in the old days, and still do use some of them (Reagan 1934:55).
Reagan was not only interested in the fact that the Quileute used a particular plant found in their prairies,
but in how it was used. For instance, he describes the crucially important and highly valued bracken
fern, one of the prairie root-plants used by the old people, as follows:
Fern Family. Bracken Fern. Indian name: kakwaput, kah-a-kwa, wot-tsa-a-balk. This fern grows in the
“prairies” of the region and burned-over places, especially in the middle upland regions. It is the fern of
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