Research into an expansive system of clam gardens along the Pacific Northwest coast is proving to be enlightening about the history of this region and its First Nations. It could also prove to be enlightening for our future.
A team of Simon Fraser University researchers has concluded that the clam gardens constructed by First Nations peoples date back more than 1,000 years, perhaps as much as 3,000 years. The researchers鈥� evidence indicates that the coastal peoples were marine farmers who used sophisticated cultivation techniques to increase clam production. This counters the perception that First Nations were foragers and hunters who lived passively in a wild, untended environment.
That perception fuelled the attitude of European settlers who regarded apparently uncultivated land as being empty. If it wasn鈥檛 obviously being farmed, they reasoned, it wasn鈥檛 being used.
Clam gardens are beach flats that have been cleared of rocks and walled off or terraced to create more living space and suitable habitat for clams.
They are a relatively new discovery for archeologists. The first one was found in the Broughton Archipelago, off the north end of Vancouver Island, in 1995. Since then, many of the gardens have been discovered along coastlines from Washington state to Alaska.
SFU鈥檚 Dana Lepofsky, lead author of an article on clam gardens published recently in the journal American Antiquity, said the idea that First Nations were hunter-gatherers made it easier for colonists to justify taking over the land because management of the resources differed from traditional European methods.
鈥淥nce you start calling someone a hunter-gatherer, there鈥檚 something implied 鈥� about not really being connected to the land or sea and not needing much from it,鈥� she said. 鈥淓ven if they aren鈥檛 formal agricultural plots in the way that Europeans recognized, they were still cultivating the landscape.鈥�
An example is the area that is now Beacon Hill Park 鈥� settlers saw only open meadows, but those meadows were areas tended by First Nations in the production of blue camas, an important food source.
So much of the history of European settlement in North America revolved around the 鈥渢aming鈥� of the landscape, the conquering of wilderness. While intensive cultivation has brought increased food production, it has also depleted ecosystems. The clam gardens, and other food-production practices of First Nations peoples, are an example of successfully working with nature, rather than trying to conquer it.
鈥淔or thousands of years, First Nations had access to an abundance of food, managing the natural resources found in the land and waters of Vancouver Island and adjoining islands, without depleting those resources,鈥� wrote North Island College undergraduate students Julia Davis and Emma Twidale in a paper called Cultivating Food Sovereignty: Indigenous Food Systems on Vancouver Island. They cited experts who point to practices of Northwest First Nations as examples of sustainability that could be applicable to current situations.
First Nations practised 鈥渟tewardship rather than ownership of natural resources,鈥� wrote Davis and Twidale, and 鈥渃reated a sustainable lifestyle for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.鈥�
What scientists are discovering, First Nations have long known, knowledge that has been held in First Nations songs, stories and traditions. Sustainability is talked about as if it鈥檚 something new, but it was a way of life for thousands of years on the West Coast.
We can鈥檛 turn the clock back and live exactly as the indigenous coastal peoples lived, but neither can we keep clearing forests, draining swamps, damming rivers, overfishing oceans and still expect the Earth to support us.
Research like that being done on clam gardens can deepen our understanding of the past. More important, it can help us make wiser decisions for the future.
