The Giving Tree: The Story and Archaeology of the Western Redcedar on Washington’s Department of Natural Resources Lands

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages over 2.4 million acres of trust lands, which must generate revenue for the state’s beneficiaries. Therefore, DNR harvests three-billion board-feet of lumber annually. Long before these forests were managed by DNR, they provided life giving assets to Indigenous peoples of the lands of Washington. The special properties of the Western redcedar in particular, provided materials for textiles, and lumber, among other things. Indigenous use of redcedar extends from time immemorial through now. The remains of that use persist on the landscape as culturally modified trees (CMTs). This paper explores DNR’s management of redcedars and CMTs during timber sale projects. Plus, our relationships with our tribal partners in relation to CMTs, and the use of redcedars by Indigenous practitioners on DNR lands. We will also explore issues of survivance, Indigenous organization of redcedar harvest through seasonality, forest health, story, treaty rights, and place-based knowledge.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow