While the scientific community is astonished at the extensive nature of traditional coastal mariculture (information shattered the long-held stereotype that they were a population of unsuspecting hunter-gatherers), Nicole Norris, a knowledge holder of the Hul’q’umi’num nation and aquaculture specialist, says the communities themselves do not had never forgotten. “These were our grocery stores,” she said.
What To What surprised Norris during the years she spent exploring the coast of British Columbia was how much technology differs from country to country, yet is perfectly suited to each location. While the K’ómoks people used stakes with trellis fences to manage and maintain what was once one of the most productive fish ranges in the region, in their own land around the Gulf Islands, the Hul ‘peoples q’umi’num and W̱SÁNEĆ stacked rocks “like Tetris” to build low walls parallel to the shore. These walls were designed to trap silt, which altered the slope of the beach to create “sea gardens” – large, flat intertidal areas which, once cleared of large boulders, were carefully maintained to create habitat. ideal for clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, rockfish, octopus, whelks and other marine animals.
In the inlets and winding islets of the Broughton Archipelago Provincial park, technology is still changing. Here, the Kwakwaka’wakw people built monumental rock walls, large enough to be seen from space, to create the perfect water depth to encourage clam growth in the shallow bays. Norris says they also built the rock walls in spiral-shaped gardens which created flattened areas that could take advantage of the area’s unique swirling currents.
Even further north, in the inland waterways and islands that are part of Heiltsuk territory, archaeologist Haíɫzaqv Q̓íx̌itasu, also known as Elroy White, says his ancestors built clam / sea gardens in stone walls (called λápac̓i) and a wide variety of stone fish. traps (called Ckvá) which were specifically designed according to whether they were “on a plateau, or in a stream or at the mouth of a river”.
“They were built so solidly that they did not collapse under the action of a river, or by the tide or if a canoe struck it,” he said.
For his thesis, “Heiltsuk Stone Fish Traps“White combined archeology with oral history to gradually unravel the interconnection of rock-walled fish traps and his ancestors’ relationship to salmon. He explained that when he first started visiting the sites, he saw how the old fish trap technology and resource management system worked, they didn’t just shape the tidal landscape, they shaped its culture and heritage.
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