Acres of Clams

Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest reclaim their culture with clam gardens

By Miranda Raines

Clam garden in Tla’amin Nation. Photo by John Harper

As they have for thousands of years, indigenous people along the coast of Washington and British Columbia assemble rock walls along the tideline.They do this at low tide, rolling rocks the size of basketballs along the pebbled beaches. These walls sit in a sweet spot where sediments pile up and helps create a gentler slope with more surface area — the perfect environment for clams. These walls and beaches are called clam gardens, and they’re more than a food source. They’re part of a long and continuing struggle for tribal sovereignty.

For 3,500 years this traditional practice has been passed down to First Nations members from Canada and indigenous tribes from the United States. By altering the slope of beaches, indigenous peoples created a nutrient rich environment for baby clams to grow faster and at higher rates. Before contact with European settlers, tribes along the coast used clam gardens to create a reliable food source.

Lethal diseases, violence, territory theft and government suppression forced many indigenous people to abandon their clam gardens and cultural practices.Yet, today organizations like The Clam Garden Network are working to reclaim ancient clam gardens through restoration projects along the Salish Sea.

The Clam Garden Network includes indigenous tribes, First Nations and resource managers across Canada and the US. Dana Lepofsky, a Clam Garden Network coordinator and anthropologist, described how the network started as a loose group of researchers doing work within indigenous communities coming together to form the network. Lepofsky described the organization mostly as an email list of people who have shown interest in clam garden restoration.

“Basically anybody who is interested in clam gardens is part of that email list and then is part of the discussion,” said Lepofsky.

Their mission is to reclaim the traditions of clam gardens and their cultural significance while also studying the garden’s ecological systems. Information gathered from clam gardens also questions previously held misconceptions that indigenous tribes exclusively used hunter-gatherer methods to find food, said Lepofsky.

“What’s neat about clam gardens is that it’s very in-your-face,” said Lepofsky. “You can’t deny that [the walls] are human built and that they had an intention involved. That it wasn’t accidental.”

While Lepofsky and her fellow researchers found that clam harvesting can be traced back to about 5,000 years ago, clam harvesting came into full swing around 3,500 years ago, when an increase in clam harvest coincided with an increase in human settlements. Clams became a reliable and important food source during harsh times of the year.

Clam gardens weren’t just good for the people who depended on them for food — they were good for the clams, too. Despite intensive harvesting, clam gardens enabled clams to thrive. Research conducted by Lepofsky and her fellow researchers suggests it was the creation of this new habitat, combined with cultivation methods and limited access to these locations, that made these beaches so successful at creating nutrient rich environments that clams thrive in.

Clam gardens weren’t just good for the people who depended on them for food — they were good for the clams, too.

Indigenous people were not only able to create productive beaches, they were able to create beaches where there hadn’t been any previously. Even where there were rocky slopes and bedrock, rock walls could be built to trap enough sediments to create nutrient rich beaches.

Marco Hatch, a marine ecologist, oceanographer and member of the Clam Garden Network, said these beaches are settled in a “Goldilocks zone” where they catch nutrient rich sediments along with crushed shells and barnacles that gather on the rock wall. This provides the necessary nutrients for clams to grow big and healthy.

The creation of clam gardens on bedrock was so effective that they account for 30% of studied clam gardens. Because the clam gardens filled with sands and gravels that the clams need, they were as healthy as the clams from natural beaches, said Lepofsky.

Lepofsky and her fellow researchers found that by expanding beaches, clam gardens provided enhanced growing conditions for clams. They found an increase in clam size, especially younger clams. Overall, clam gardens contained four times as many butter clams and over twice as many little neck clams compared to natural beaches.

Areal view of a clam garden in the Gulf Islands, close to the San Juan Islands in Lyackson territory. Photo taken by Marry Morris during a Parks Canada survey.

Today, research into the history of clam gardens has been important to First Nations such as the Heiltsuk in Bella Bella, BC who are in treaty negotiations with the Canadian government. Unlike tribes in the United States, only a few tribes have treaties with the Canadian government or have signed them more recently. The Heiltsuk seek to use clam garden research to aid in signing a treaty that enables them to have access to lands outside their reserve for commercial and cultural purposes, said Hatch.

Because widespread treaties were never reached, many tribes are either negotiating treaties with Canada or they are creating agreements over particular resources and land, said Jennifer Silver, a member of the Clam Garden Network and social scientist with coastal communities at the University of Guelph, Canada.

“If they can demonstrate through archeology and oral history and various other things that they’ve been using and occupying spaces for thousands of years, especially if they can demonstrate that before European arrival, then it’s helpful in the court claims that they might have to make,” said Silver.

By using data collected on the methods of management and dating showing that gardens have been successfully managed for thousands of years, they hope a treaty can be signed, said Hatch. Without permits from the federal government, tribes such as the Heiltsuk are currently unable to manage shellfish beaches for commercial or cultural purposes.

“First Nations have ceremonious systems rights, but the commercial harvest of species off reserve remains a legal grey area,” said Hatch.

Without permits from the federal government, tribes such as the Heiltsuk are currently unable to manage shellfish beaches for commercial or cultural purposes.

An indirect regulation affecting clam garden harvest is due to seasonal algal blooms or “red tides.” During red tides, the consumption of clams and other shellfish can lead to shellfish poisoning, which can be lethal. While red tides in Washington are actively monitored and shut down individually, Canada’s beach closures rely on massive seasonal closures to insure the health and safety of its citizens. Canada’s approach is more drastic because their coastline, the world’s longest, is drastically larger.

Whether or not these regulations should apply to First Nations in relation to clam harvesting is up for debate.

According to Hatch, red tides aren’t new to First Nations, and opinions vary on how they should be allowed to manage clam gardens in the face of government restrictions. Through experience and oral history, indigenous communities have historically relied on traditional knowledge to assess when it is safe to harvest clams.

Traditional knowledge has also proven to be a useful solution to a modern dilemma: ocean acidification. As the ocean’s pH (acid levels) increase, clams have a difficult time creating shells. However, clams in clam gardens have higher levels of calcium, thanks to the broken shells from barnacles that cling to the garden’s rock wall. The higher levels of calcium that the broken shells provide could make clam gardens to more efficient nurseries in acidic seas, said Lepofsky.

Clam gardens may be able to provide some protection from ocean acidification, but it’s currently unclear how much support they could provide.

“It’d be a real shame if there are communities out there that are revitalizing clam gardens or relying on intertidal shellfish increasingly for a local food source and then that food source or that clam garden is negatively impacted by a sort of [ocean acidification] hotspot,” said Silver.

Clam gardens covering miles of coastline along the Broughton Archipelago, near the north end of Vancouver Island in Kwakwak’wakw territory. Photo taken by Marry Morris during a Province of British Columbia survey.

Despite numerous challenges, indigenous communities and the Clam Garden Network continue to advocate for clam garden restoration. Education within indigenous communities as well as outreach to others outside the community plays an important role in revitalization.

Education efforts within the indigenous community include large youth programs that enable kids to get back on the land and maintain their ancestral gardens. In order for clam gardens to be successful, they need regular maintenance to repair rock walls and till the soil. This tilling fluffs up the soil, makes it less compact and gets rid of fine grains and organics, thereby enabling water to filter through the sand more quickly and keep oxygen levels high, said Hatch.

Community days led by the Clam Garden Network’s project coordinator Skye Augustine, who also works with Parks Canada, invites all members of the public to share in this knowledge of clam gardens as well. This practice of sharing knowledge ties back to the heart of clam garden restoration efforts. It promotes the ideas of restoring history and culture while sharing those practices with a community.

Restoring ancestral clam gardens means more than improved food security, greater shared knowledge or a healthier environment. They’re part of a long pursuit of justice and solidarity.

”The primary driver,” Hatch said, “is restoration of rights and title, exerting rights on the landscape, and getting youth and community members involved.”