JUNE 1, 2001
Smoke Signals 5
Tradliftroral Food Festival
The Tribe's Cultural and Fish
and Wildlife departments are
teaming together to hold a tradi
tional foods festival at the Cultural
Site at noon on Friday, June 22.
Everyone is invited to come sample
a number of traditional foods pre
pared in traditional and modern
ways. There will be skwak-wal or
eels, camas, and hopefully some
salmon and fry bread.
We are also looking for volun
teers willing to help gather the
camas. Don't miss out on this won
derful opportunity to use a shovel.
The camas dig is scheduled for
June 8, we will meet at the Cul
tural department's office at 9 a.m.
and carpool to the site. Reyn and
Shonn Leno have generously do
nated the camas from their prop
erty just north of Willamina. De
pending upon the number of vol
unteers, the dig should last 3 to 4
hours.
Camas produces a bulb that was
a very important food stuff for
Tribes of the West. Camas is a
member of the lily family and has
attractive blue flowers. The bulb
was prepared in a number of ways
but one of the most common meth
ods was the camas oven. The camas
oven commonly consisted of a pit lined
with river rock. A large fire was built
over the pit and once the fire had died
down and the rocks were sufficiently
heated, the pit was lined with skunk
cabbage leaves. Camas bulbs were
then placed on the leaves and one
additional layer of leaves was placed
over the camas. Then a final layer
of soil was placed over the leaves and
the camas was left to cook for sev
eral days. The cooked camas was of
ten pounded into "cakes," or dried for
storage.
We will be building a traditional
camas oven at the Cultural Site.
Don't miss your chance to taste ca
mas from a traditional camas oven
and see how it works.
Members of the Fish and Wildlife
and Timber Committees will gather
the eels at Willamette Falls. North
west Tribes have been gathering
skwak-wal or eels for hundreds of
years at the Falls. The eels congre
gate at the falls during their spawn
ing migration up the Willamette
River. Eels have traditionally been
netted in pools below the falls or
plucked from the rocks as they use
their mouths to inch up the wall of
the falls. The upcoming fishing trip
represents the first major return of the
Grand Rondes to the falls in many
years, although a number of indi
vidual Tribal members have contin
ued to gather through the years. June
22 is your chance to taste skwak-wal
prepared several different ways or to
hear from the committees about the
one(s) that got away!
If we have enough interest, we
would like to continue and expand
the Traditional Food Festival on an
annual basis. We've received a lot
of positive feed-back and informa
tion on traditional foods and their
preparation from many Tribal mem
bers while planning this gathering,
but we would like to hear more. If
you have information or recipes for
traditional foods please contact the
Cultural or Fish and Wildlife depart
ments at 503-879-2249 or 503-879-2382.
,'
We are very excited about provid
ing the membership a taste of these
traditional foods, so mark your cal
endar for noon on June 22 and join
us at the Cultural Site.
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Camas for Lunch?
The bulbs of the camas plant are Just
one of the many traditional foods that
will be part of the Culture and Natural
Resource's food festival scheduled for
Friday, June 22. The food festival will
be held at the Tribe's Cultural Site. The
camas will be cooked In a traditional
camas oven that will be constructed
just for the occasion.
Riparian Zones and Agency Creek Restoration
By Rod Thompson, Water Quality Specialist
In recent months riparian areas have been a
common subject among the Natural Resources staff
and the Tribal committees working on the Natu
ral Resource 10 year management plan. Riparian
areas are important not only to the stream but also
to fish and wildlife. Approximately 157 species in
the Oregon Coast Range use riparian areas pri
marily for foraging and nesting habitat and an
other 32 species use the area secondarily. That is
189 species, out of 204 species (93), that use the
riparian zone for foraging andor nesting! (Brown
et al. 1985). We have also confirmed coho salmon
spawning in Agency Creek, North and West Fork
of Agency Creek, Wind River, Joe Creek, and Coast
Creek.
Riparian areas provide large woody debris
(LWD), shade, sediment control, bank stability,
and nutrients to the stream. Large woody debris
(logs within the stream) can slow water flows, trap
sediment, form pools, provide cover for fish from
predators and high flows, and are food for
macroinvertebrates (water insects). Riparian trees
and shrubs can provide shade to keep water tem
peratures cool, act as a filter by trapping sediment,
and stabilize banks with their roots. Litter fall and
woody debris from riparian vegetation supply the
stream with nutrients and macroinvertebrates with
food.
The riparian area also provides travel corridors,
thermal protection, foraging and nesting areas, for
wildlife. Continuous riparian areas can provide
"paths" or "travel corridors" for birds and animals
to travel with protective cover from predators and
adverse weather conditions. Riparian vegetation
provides thermal cover by regulating the tempera
ture within the canopy and reduces large fluctua
tions in day and night temperatures. Riparian
areas are important forage and nesting areas for
amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. (Ie.
macroinvertebrates for amphibians, reptiles, small
mammals, and birds and vegetation and berries
for birds, bears, deer, and elk.) Downed woody
debris (logs) provide food for macroinvertebrates
and foraging sites, cover, and denning areas for
amphibians; reptiles, and small mammals.
Functions provided by riparian areas also depend
on distanceJxom the stream! For example, bank . vi:
stability is a function that occurs primarily within
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Photos by Rod Thompson
Spawned Out This spawned out Coho
salmon will provide nutrients back into the
stream, which is food for juvenile fish com
pleting the cycle. Pictured at right is a Coho
male that spawned out on agency creek a half
mile below the forks.
Habitat - This fallen
log on Coast Creek is a
good example of how
natural resources in a fish
habitat area can provide
important things like
shade, deeper pools of
water and even food for
macro invertebrates which
in turn feed the fish. The
upstream side of the log
collects sediment and as
the water flows over and
under the log it creates a
pool.
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30 feet of the stream. The occurrence of large
woody debris is dependant on the potential tree
height for that species of tree and area. For ex
ample, if a Douglas fir tree has the potential to
grow 250 feet tall it has to be within 250 feet of
the stream for it to become LWD (independent of
steep slopes or ground movement). These are just
a couple of examples why riparian area widths
are important when planning forest management
activities and stream restoration.
The Natural Resource Department over the last
few years has been conducting surveys and gath
ering data to help the Tribe gain important stream
and riparian information. These include stream
habitat surveys, stream temperature monitoring,
culvert inventory, fish surveys, macroinvertebrate
surveys, and water quality monitoring. All this
data will be used to develop the Natural Resource
10 year management plan and to manage and
restore our riparian areas.
The Tribe hopes to conduct more stream resto
ration projects in the next few years. One resto
ration project, that has been prioritized by the Fish
and Wildlife Committee, is the Agency Creek Res
toration project along Agency Creek and the South
Yamhill River below the pow wow grounds. This
area has some very large bank erosion problems
and is cause for safety concerns along the high
banks. The Tribe is considering bank stabiliza
tion and riparian plantings to improve conditions
along Agency Creek and the South Yamhill River.
The project should reduce the amount of pediment
being introduced into the1 stream, improve ripar
ian conditions, and improve safety.