Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve Reading the Cultural Landscape

READING THE LANDSCAPE

Introduction

Historic settlement patterns, natural features and cultural elements are all important pieces in the landscape we see. Identifying these resources is the first step in learning to look at and "read" the whole landscape. One may consider them individually in order to see them clearly, but it is the relationship among these resources that most often describes the "character" of a landscape. It is these landscape patterns and relationships over time that imprint and reflect human history in the fabric of the land itself. The significance, meaning or value in the landscape depends on our ability to read and understand these patterns over time.

Identifying landscape relationships and components is discussed in the document Cultural Landscapes: Rural Historic Districts in the National Park System (see bibliography). The following section selects a few of those components and reviews portions of that discussion as it helps us "read" the landscape of the reserve.