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Chapter 8 Documenting Precontact Plant Management on the Northwest Coast An Example of Prescribed Burning in the Central and Upper Fraser Valley, British Columbia dana lepofsky, douglas hallett, ken lertzman, rolf mathewes, albert (sonny) mchalsie, and kevin washbrook Ethnographic sources document the importance of prescribed burning practices among hunter-gatherers worldwide (e.g., Mills 1986; Pyne 1993). On the Northwest Coast, scattered references indicate that prescribed burning was widespread at the time of European contact and in the early historic era (e.g., Boyd 1986; Gottesfeld 1994a; Norton 1979b; Turner 1999; White 1992; Turner and Peacock, this volume). Controlled fires were set by Coastal First Nations to enhance the growth of early successional plant species, either for direct consumption or as forage for animals to be hunted. Despite well-documented evidence for prescribed burning in the early historic period, we know little about the precontact development of this practice on the Northwest Coast. However, the widespread geographic distribution of prescribed burning practices, in a diversity of ecosystems, suggests that such practices are well integrated into the traditional ecological knowledge of coastal First Nations. Such extensive and in-depth knowledge most likely results from a long history of prescribed burning on the coast. Documenting burning practices in the archaeological or paleoecological records, however, has proven di‹cult. Various kinds of empirical and theoretical arguments have been suggested asevidenceof prescribedburningintheprecontactera.Schalk(1988),onpurely theoretical grounds, proposed that burning on the Olympic Peninsula began as early as the early to mid-Holocene, when the development of closed-canopy 218 forests resulted in a decline in the productivity of important understory plants such as berries and animal forage. Schalk proposed that these early huntergatherers began burning in order to open forest patches to increase productivity of game and plant resources. To our knowledge, convincing empirical support for Schalk’s model is lacking. Indirect evidence for prescribed burning in precontact times comes from the existence of plant communities that are known to be fire-maintained, such as the Garry oak (Quercus garryana) parkland communities of southeastern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, parts of Puget Sound in Washington, and the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. Early historical documents that cite the prevalence of prescribed burning in these areas (see reviews in Boyd 1986, 1999; Norton 1979b; Turner 1999), combined with modern reductions in the geographical extent of these ecosystems, has led to the conclusion that prescribed burning enhanced the maintenance of these communities in precontacttimes (Agee1993;Boyd1986,1999;Johannesenetal.1971;Norton1979b). However, since both natural and cultural fires have been restricted since the early to mid-twentieth century, it is di‹cult to discern the role that either natural or cultural fires alone would have played in maintaining these communities. The presence of plants or communities outside of what appears to be their natural range may also provide indirect evidence for controlled burning in the precontact era (Lepofsky et al. 2003). The presence of camas (Camassia quamash) in Alaska (Pojar and MacKinnon 1994: 108), in western Vancouver Island (Turner et al. 1983), in the territories of the Tillamook of northern Oregon (Deur 1999), and in Stó:lò territory in the central Fraser Valley (Gould 1942), are examples of such range extensions. The natural range of camas is largely restricted to the Garry oak parkland community described above (Beckwith 2004). The presence of camas well beyond the range of the Garry oak community likely reflects introductions by humans. The creation of suitable habitat for camas in these areas (i.e., more open forests) was probably achieved in part through prescribed burning. The absence or near absence of camas in these areas today may be due to the fact that without prescribed burning forest openings are too small to maintain populations of camas (cf. Deur 1999). Expansion of the kinds of habitats in which a species can be found within its natural range provides additional indirect evidence for prescribed burning in the precontact period. This is demonstrated on southeastern Vancouver Island, where Garry oak can be found growing on sites that are not typically well suited for it. Garry oak usually grows on shallow soils, particularly on dry, rocky slopes or bluªs, whereas conifers or other hardwoods grow on the wetter sites and deeper soils in this area. Where large Garry oaks do occur on wetter, deeper soils, some other disturbance process has discouraged the encroaching conifers—most likely frequent prescribed burning by First Nations (Roemer 1992). Some of the occurrences clearly predate contact. For...

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