Prairies and the Snoqualmie Tribe
Over the last few years, the Snoqualmie Tribe has been working to return camas and related prairie plants to the upper Snoqualmie Valley, the sdukʷalbixʷ baqʷab (Snoqualmie Prairie). Motivated by restoring lost ecologies and the historical cultural connection to camas in the valley, the Snoqualmie Tribe began planting experimental pilot prairies in the upper Snoqualmie Valley. Over the last couple hundred years, 95-99% of prairie ecosystems have been destroyed by modern development, including the removal of camas from the landscape, an important first food to the Snoqualmie Tribe. The first camas bulbs for this project were brought back to the remnant Snoqualmie prairies in the Three Forks Natural Area in fall of 2023. With help from many people in the Snoqualmie Tribe, the ENR (Environmental & Natural Resources) Department planted a diverse set of native prairie plants, including over 3000 bulbs. The following spring, we were thrilled to see the iconic purple camas flowers come back to bloom in the prairie meadows of the upper Snoqualmie Valley, in solidarity with nodding onion, chocolate lily, budding Garry Oaks, and many other important returning species. These blooms represent a continuation of the Tribe and its members maintaining the traditional practices of camas restoration, harvesting, and cooking. ENR’s work in returning camas (and all its connections) continues through maintenance at the existing Three Forks plots and additional experimental prairie plots at Meadowbrook Farm and the Three Forks Natural Area in the fall. These plantings are in collaboration with the cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend.
See the similarity? The illustrated camas flower and bulb in front of Mt. Si has been brought to back life!
Visiting these sites now, walking the trails at Meadowbrook, you can even find a sign that describes part of the Snoqualmie Tribe’s relationship to prairies.
Mt. Si
Why are Camas Prairies Important?
Prairies have been stewarded by the Snoqualmie Tribe since time immemorial, who continue to manage these landscapes as farms, gardens, and ecosystems for people, pollinators, elk, and plants too. The loss of the upper valley prairie ecosystem due to settler enforced changes to land stewardship is an important factor of why this prairie restoration work is being taken on. The cultural connection to this place is another reason why the Tribe is making this investment in restoring native prairies. The Snoqualmie Tribe’s Creation Story talks specifically about the prairies nestled between qʷalbc (Mt. Si) and šə̌qaʔɫdaɫ & sqʷədʔ (Snoqualmie Falls Upper Lip & Under Part Where the Stream Plunges), where the spiritual and material landscapes are entangled.
Snoqualmie Falls Upper Lip
Under Part Where the Stream Plunges
From the Creation Story –
“There were two sisters from tultxw (Tolt/Carnation). They decided to go to baʔqwab (Meadowbrook Prairie) to dig fern roots (*tadi) on the prairie above the Falls. When they were done, they decided to sleep there for the night. That night the two sisters were looking up into the sky. They looked at the stars and wished they could marry one. While sleeping that night they were taken to land of the Sky People.”
*tadi is the Lushootseed word referring to the food that comes from Bracken Fern roots (Pteridum aquilinum).*
For more information on sacred sites and place names, and to hear their pronunciations, check out the Valley of the Snoqualmie Map. To read more of the Creation Story, visit the Snoqualmie Tribe’s Culture Website.
The landscape in the creation story is specifically echoed in the accounts of early explorers, when these prairies remained prominent in the Upper Snoqualmie Valley, as outlined in Ada Hill’s History of the Snoqualmie Valley:
“The upper Snoqualmie Valley, that portion above the Falls, was mainly a natural prairie reaching from the eastern limits of Snoqualmie to about a mile east of North Bend. The soil was black and rich, covered with tall bracken ferns and abounding in tiger lilies, camas, etc., the roots and tubers of which the Indians gathered for food.” (Hill, 1981)
Cultural stewardship practices, like regular burning and harvesting, kept prairies mostly treeless while also enabling the growth of more desirable, fire-tolerant plants (like bulbs and Garry Oaks) by providing nutrients and creating space. Prairie managers in the South Sound currently use seasonal controlled burns as a weeding practice for modern invasive plants like Scotch Broom, in addition to the other ecological benefits burning brings. As these prairie communities grew and changed with those who stewarded the land, edible plants were selected for, new plants moved in, plant-pollinator relations developed, seasonal blooms aligned, and locally unique prairie ecosystems were brought into existence across the Salish Sea. The stewardship and connection between prairies and tribes are woven into each of their existences, reflected in their culture and life histories.
Camas Bulb
Going back just 200 years, the Upper Snoqualmie Valley would look more similar to its thousand-years-ago-form than what we see today. Documents from our Culture Department’s website recount blooming fields of camas being mistaken for lakes when observed from a distance (imagine a field of blue and purple blooms waving in the wind). Samuel Hancock offers another account of this area, from when his party traveled up the Snoqualmie River in 1849 & 1850 –
“Finally we launched our canoe in the river above the Falls… After proceeding about two miles we came to where the banks were very high and had the appearance of an open country. I questioned my Indians as to our whereabouts and was told that here was “highas close Illihes”; that is [translated to] that here the land was good, so I told them to put the canoe ashore, as I wanted to see all the good land in these parts. On ascending the banks, I was highly gratified with a view of a very extensive and fertile prairie, so I determined to pitch my tent and remain till morning.” (Hancock, pg. 121)
Wildflowers blooming in the prairie plots planted in 2023. In our first year, we saw Taper-tip Onion, Seablush, Western Blue-Eyed Grass, Camas (C. quamash & leichtlinii), White Brodiaea, & Chocolate Lily (from left to right), and many more.
“This land cannot be surpassed, in any country, for grazing and agricultural purposes; this prairie proper I should think was five miles long, with perhaps and average breadth of a mile and a half, and the Prairie, I visited on the opposite side of the river, is equally extensive, and the two might be considered the same, with this beautiful little branch of the river flowing through it, pure and sparkling right from the mountains close by.” (Hancock, pg. 122)
And if the landscapes described above aren’t evoking enough of the once present and plentiful prairie ecosystems, perhaps this inspired depiction of the valley plucks you from your screen and revives one of your recent experiences in the Snoqualmie Valley…
“I laid down, feeling satisfied that I was here, and slept comfortably till morning, rising in time to see the sun casting his first rays upon the hoary heads of the snow capped mountains around, while the air echoed with the music of birds, and on the beautiful prairie could be seen the deer quietly feeding. The scene was one of enchantment, and I earnestly wished some of my distant friends could be here to enjoy a life at this desirable place.” (Hancock, pg. 122 – 123)
However, these once common prairie ecosystems have become less abundant than the expanses described in these accounts. So where are they? Where did they go? And why? An excerpt from Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late 19th Century (2005) states the conflict at the heart of prairie loss very plainly –
“The double irony in this is that the land management techniques that white settlers overlooked, what rendered the indigenous landscape, is what made the land so appealing to them”
While early settlers clearly noticed the abundance and beauty of camas prairies, they were unable to see the deep-time relationships that created them, and unable to know them for the gardens, farms, and ecosystems they were. New tools and practices forced prairies to turn from one eco-agricultural system into a new foreign one, quickly destroying them in the process.
Prairie Loss and Regeneration
Unfortunately, since these descriptions were written, estimates state that 95-99% of native prairie habitat and oak woodlands have been destroyed, developed, or otherwise lost, in many of the ways early settlers predicted in their accounts. Today, only ~2% of the original 2 million acres (about the area of Puerto Rico) remain scattered throughout their former range (Hamman et al., 2011).
The Tribe’s Valley of the Snoqualmie Map details some of this loss –
“When colonizers arrived in the Valley, the Snoqualmie people went through great hardships to remain in our ancestral lands including working in the hops fields which damaged and harmed our traditional prairie. While hops and other industries have come and gone from the Valley, the Snoqualmie people remain.” (Valley of the Snoqualmie Map, Landmark 1)
Meadowbrook & Tollgate
Some prairie loss is a result of natural processes continuing with the removal of the Tribe’s cultural and stewardship ties to the prairies. Left unmanaged, without cultural burning and harvesting practices once widespread, prairie adapted plants can be outcompeted by shrubs and conifers, as a subtle change in stewardship practice paves the way for transition into floodplain forests. As Douglas Firs, Cottonwoods, and other trees move to the valley floor, they become dominant species, displacing others, unless stewardship practices remove them. As prairie plants are displaced, so are dependent insects, birds, and other animals.
Humans have an amazing ability to develop and change their landscape, not only to build roads and schools, but also to develop ecosystems. We can (and do) build beneficial infrastructure in the natural world too. In this way, over time, prairie stewards living in the Salish Sea Region became a keystone species for the prairie ecosystem, living in relation with the camas meadows as they learned to fit each other’s needs. Then and now, edible plants grow in the prairies, maintained by the cultural burns and harvests of the first foods, both of which make room for new plants and keep encroaching trees at bay. At the same time, pollinators feed from spring through summer on the revolving door of wildflower blooms in these unique ecosystems. In this way, over time, a whole new prairie ecology was developed, and continues in the present, growing and changing into the future.
For more information on the loss of prairies and the endangered animals associated with them, check out this story map from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.
Planting Prairies Now
In the Tribe’s efforts to bring prairie species back to the Upper Snoqualmie Valley, the Tribe’s ENR Restoration Team, with help from other Tribal Government Departments and community volunteers, planted over 4,500 plants and seeded in over 20 pounds of native grasses and wildflowers in fall of 2023. ENR also planted 50 Garry Oaks and built sturdy elk exclusion fencing to protect young oaks from herbivory as they establish themselves. Camas and other bulbs were purchased from the Pacific Rim Institute, Oxbow Farms, and 4th Corner Nursery with grant funding from the US Fish & Wildlife Service. As these prairie plots grow, we are hoping they will reseed themselves. The prairie plantings will recover in place, not to be harvested, with the goal of re-establishing sustainable populations for the future.
As we continue plantings through the end of 2024, the Tribe will continue to maintain these prairies for years to come, learning which plants thrive and how to maintain these prairie plots in the modern legal and natural landscape. Although volunteer opportunities may be few for this particular project, you are welcome to join our mailing list to stay up to date on when stewardship opportunities arrive.
These projects aren’t just about planting camas or re-establishing prairies in places they used to be. It’s not just about going back. It’s also about protecting cultural systems that have been taken from the Snoqualmie Tribe. Although full landscape transformation to a pre-settlement condition is not possible, camas has become a living symbol of resilience and a tie to past relations and landscapes. This project is bringing patches of camas and pollinator habitat back to the sdukʷalbixʷ baqʷab, but it’s also returning cultural practices that have been outlawed and dismantled over the last two-hundred years. It’s a step towards protecting ecosystems of camas, people, salmon, and all non-human relatives, and reinvigorating the essential connections between them.
This work wouldn’t have been possible without support from many groups within the Snoqualmie Tribe, as well as grant funding for the entire first phase of this project from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through their Tribal Wildlife Grant Program. We also thank our partners at King County Parks, the City of Snoqualmie, the City of North Bend, Si View Metropolitan Park District, and Meadowbrook Farm Preservation Association that granted access to land and planning assistance for our experimental prairie plots. Thank you to Ecostudies Institute for applying your own experience and research, helping to consult and monitor this project. And of course, gratitude to the generous volunteers who continue to support the Tribe’s labor and vision, consistently helping move these stewardship projects forward.
Staff from the Snoqualmie Tribe’s ENR Department and Ecostudies Institute collecting baseline data on the prairies before planting begins.
References
- cək’ʷdup ʔətiit sdukʷalbixʷ (Valley of the Snoqualmie) Map, 2023. Snoqualmie Indian Tribe. <https://snoqualmietribe.us/valley-of-the-snoqualmie-map/>
- Disappearing Prairies of the South Sound, Washington, USFWS, Public Domain, <https://www.fws.gov/media/disappearing-prairies-south-sound-washington>
- Hammond, S., Dunwiddie, P., Nuckols, J., McKinley, M. (July 2011). Fire as a Restoration Tool in Pacific Northwest Prairies and Oak Woodlands: Challenges, Successes, and Future Directions. Northwest Science, 85(2):317-328. https://doi.org/10.3955/046.085.0218
- Hancock, Samuel, The Narrative of Samuel Hancock 1845 – 1860. New York; P.M. McBride & Company, 1927, pg. 115 – 129.
- Hill, Ada Snyder, A History of the Snoqualmie Valley (5th Edition). Snoqualmie Valley Historical Society, 1981, pg. 1.
- Raibmon, Paige, Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (a John Hope Franklin Center Book). Duke University Press, 2005.