Food & Culture of Pacific Northwest Natives | Teacher Resource

Essential Connections Between Food and Culture

We have not always gotten our foods from grocery stores or
restaurants. Nor have we always been accustomed to eating
out-of-season or imported exotic foods. Before shipping,
plastic wrap, and packaged meats, we ate what our local
environments provided. And we built our worlds accordingly.

The food practices of the Native Nations of the Pacific
Northwest do not just reflect their identities; they
define their identities. Who we are as a people is
reflected in our relationship with the environment, the
foods that environment provides, and the individual and
collective responsibilities undertaken to care for natural
resources. Natural resources are not simply viewed by Native
people as commodities to be bought and sold; instead, they
are viewed as relatives to be cherished and cared for.
Culturally important foods, such as salmon and other fish,
reflect the unique histories and experiences of Native
peoples, especially the histories and experiences that are
connected to landscapes and water.

Because our lives and identities are so intertwined with
salmon, many Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest call
themselves the Salmon People. From the late
eighteenth-century on, European and American arrivals in the
Pacific Northwest made it increasingly difficult for our
ancestors to maintain their food practices, especially once
non-Native diets became so prevalent. The influx of
non-Native settlers in the Pacific Northwest, thus,
threatened our very identity as Salmon People. Over time,
the activities of non-Indian settlers brought about
commercial fishing, pollution, habitat loss, hydroelectric
dams, and other factors that had a very negative impact on
the salmon population and the environment as a whole.
Instead of respectfully using and managing existing
resources, the newcomers altered the landscape and depleted
resources. They also denied Indians access to millennia-old
hunting, fishing, and gathering sites.

Despite these challenges, tribal nations have been able to
maintain their traditional food practices to varying degrees
of success. Today, we see a renewed resurgence of and
respect for traditional Native food practices. This
resurgence not only complements the survival of tribal
peoples, their collective identities, and their sovereignty,
but it also supports the changing viewpoints of non-Indian
people, who now more frequently accept the essential and
sustainable value in the very food practices they once
sought to eliminate altogether.

A number of contemporary practices and events reflect and
strengthen the revival of traditional indigenous food
practices. One such event, the annual Canoe Journey along
the Pacific coastline of Alaska, British Columbia, and
Washington, illustrates the renaissance our nations are
experiencing. Once a year, canoes filled with indigenous
peoples from all over the world converge on the Pacific
Northwest. Native Nations here host these events, and share
their stories, songs, foods, and food practices with
everyone who has gathered for the occasion. Indigenous
participants and canoe families exchange cultural protocols
to demonstrate the mutual respect for “homelands” among the
gathered people, and particularly for the homelands of the
people being visited. Inaugurated by Native leaders in 1989,
the annual Canoe Journey event was developed to help tribal
youth strengthen their connections with their past and
present cultures and environments and, by doing so,
strengthen personal identities for the future.

Through the activities and resources of this lesson, you
will witness the incredible resiliency and innovation of the
Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest in their efforts to
protect and cultivate healthy relationships with their
relatives—salmon, water, and homelands. And, you will
see how foods can define not only who we are, but also who
we wish to be.