Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve Reading the Cultural Landscape

LANDSCAPE DEVELOPMENT AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

The Salish 1300-1850

More than 500 years before white settlement, the Skagit, Snohomish, Kikalos, and Clallam tribes occupied the land and shared the resources of Central Whidbey Island. Attracted to the inland waters and low sandy beaches that made canoe landing safe, the Skagit established three permanent settlements along the shores of Penn Cove. Although different in size, these villages were sited on extended points of land with the largest at Snakelum Point, one on Long Point, and one across the cove at Monroe's Landing.

The Skagit were not a nomadic tribe, but populations in the villages could fluctuate dramatically according to seasonal supplies of fish and game and the harvest of camus and fern which provided their primary diet. In gathering their food crops the Skagit generally lived within the natural balance of the island's food resources. They did, however, practice field burning to enhance the production of camus, bracken fern and nettles which were not naturally abundant in the prairies. Their agricultural practices also included transplanting plant materials to increase production, mulching their crops with organic matter to increase fertility, and cultivating crops like wild carrot and lily by dividing the roots and bulbs.

These land practices, though rather contained, altered the native plant communities of Central Whidbey over time. When the Hudson's Bay Company introduced the potato for cultivation in the early 1800s, several tribes tested the agricultural potential of the prairies around Penn Cove. Their great success signaled what was to become a significant and permanent change, the transformation of the prairies into permanent crop-producing lands.

Only a few markers remain in the landscape of the reserve to remind us of the Indian culture and presence on Central Whidbey.

Low sandy beaches, like this one on Penn Cove, made canoe landings relatively safe for the Indians of Central Whidbey.