Resource Guide

The Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) is a confederation of several tribes that have inhabited the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state for several thousand years. Traditionally, they have relied on seafood but mostly salmon as the major economic and culinary staple supplemented with hunting and gathering in the dense temperate rainforests of their homelands. Indigenous peoples were devastated in the Pacific Northwest by disease and discrimination, and ceded most of their land in 1855. Populations are beginning to reach pre-contact levels in the early twenty-first century. They are soon to be climate refugees as their main community on the Pacific coast, Taholah, will need to be relocated inland due to rising Pacific tides.

I sought to find out what strategies the QIN was taking to mitigate the impacts of ACC and extractive industries, but found that to make a living QIN members were largely co-opted by timber and fishing industries and it is already too late to save their ancestral coastal settlements. Currently, QIN is trying to prevent the construction of oil terminals and increased oil rail traffic through their land. I will begin the resource guide with the multimedia sources followed by scholarly works.

Decker, Jerry. "Paddle to Quinault Tribal Canoe Arrival". KSQM station 91.5 FM, Port Angeles, WA. Accessed 11/10/2015.

This is a brief news story summarizing the "Paddle to Quinault" event hosted by the QIN. It brought members from tribals all along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Oregon. The canoe, carved from a single, massive cedar, was an essential element of QIN culture because the massive ocean-going crafts not only allowed from the hunting of whales, but also helped establish a vibrant trade network that ran along the coast. This system would not have worked if they relied on going afoot due to dense rainforest. The practice of ocean-going canoes has been revived since the 1980s after a long absence.

Johnston, Tyson. "Quinault Indian Nation: Standing Up to Big Oil". Standing Up to Big Oil (9/24/2015). Accessed 11/10/2015.

Big Oil wants to add crude oil storage terminals and significantly increase rail traffic in Grays Harbor County, WA where the QIN has made its home since time immemorial. Despite the fact that ACC due to burning carbon is forcing QIN to move communities in the face of rising tides, oil company called "Imperium Renewables" and storage company Westway Terminals want to increase oil development on QIN lands. QIN Vice President Tyson Johnston elucidates the tribal position: they want no increase in oil transport through or storage on their lands. He argues that treaty rights and court precedents support the independence of the Quinault and their federal trust relationship with the federal government give them the right to prevent increased oil development. You can add your opposition to increased oil development on Quinault lands to a petition, here.

Matsukawa, Lori. "Quinault Tribe Explores Moving Town of Taholah". King County 5 News NBC, 2014. Accessed 11/10/2015.

This is a local news story that demonstrates the devastating impacts of ACC on the QIN and its cultural heritage. The main community for the QIN within its reservation, Taholah will have to be moved inland in its entirety. The QIN has to figure out how to move 1,700 residents, numerous artifacts and cultural heritage to higher ground. It is yet another example in the litanty of marginalized groups paying the highest costs of ACC while having enjoyed little of the benefits.


Find my scholarly, peer-reviewed sources below:

Brandt, Patric, Abson, David J. Dellasalla, Dominick et al “Multifunctionality and biodiversity: Ecosystem services in temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, USA”. Biological Conservation Vol. 169, 2014, 362-371.

This source describes the benefits and status of temperate rainforests. Pacific Northwest temperate rainforests provide myriad ecosystem services such as lumber, salmon, water regulation and recreation etc. They found high positive correlation between diverse ecosystem services and biodiversity. They argue that ecosystems must be managed for multifunction ecosystem services.

Eliot, Samuel A. “Conditions Among the Indians of the Northwest Coast”. Board of Indian Commissioners. (1915) 6-12.

Eliot was a member of the "Board of Indian Commissioners" which was tasked with implementing congressional mandates in the Allottment Act. This is a primary source that demonstrates the casual racism of the time, and the report openly admits that alloment cannot and will not work in QIN because the rainforest is too dense and ground too hilly and stony for productive agriculture.

Ernst, Alice Henson. The Wolf Ritual of the Northwest Coast. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1952. 1-6, 64-102.

The spiritual connection between QIN members and their coastal rainforest home is undeniable. The Quileute tribe's creation story involves the "Great Changer" creating the Quinault from wolves. This leads me to questions regarding large predators and the health of temperate rainforests.

Freundenburg, William R., Wilson, Lisa J., and O’Leary, Daniel J. “Forty Years of Spotted Owls? A Longitudinal Analysis of Logging Industry Job Losses”. Sociological Perspectives Vol. 41, No. 1 1998, 1-26 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1389351

After 40 years of controversy over the spotted owl, there is no evidence that protection of the raptor directly contributed to losses in jobs in the timber industry. This source demonstrates that saving the ecological integrity of the rainforest and its biodiversity does not necessarily lead to job losses.

 Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee, ed. Wray, Jacilee. Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. 99-150.

Written by a group of representatives of Olympic indigenous peoples, it demonstrates the history of these coastal tribes from their own perspective. It has a section for every relevant nation I wish to examine. This fact makes this source invaluable because it is not simply how white people interpreting someone else's history, but native peoples telling their own story.

Menzies, Charles R. and Butler, Caroline F. “The Indigenous Foundation of the Economy of BC’s North Coast.” Labour Vol. 61, 2008, 131-149   http://www.jstor.org/stable/25149857.

In contrast to often idyllic, romantic portrayals of indigenous people, this article focuses on the modern, contemporary place of coastal indigenous people in northern British Columbia coast.  It focuses on the Ts’msyen and Gitxaała and how they have been fundamental in the development of capitalist industry in British Columbia, not just helpless victims who are acted upon by outside forces. The development of capitalism on the BC coast was dependent upon indigenous peoples, first as independent producers in the traditional economy, then as labor in the industrial economy. By the late 20th century, the Ts’msyen and Gitxaała peoples had simultaneously adopted capitalismwhile also working to manipulate it and protest its most negative consequences.

Naiman, Robert J., Bechtold, J. Scott, Beechie, Timothy J. et al. “A Process-Based View of Floodplain Forest Patterns in Coastal River Valleys of the Pacific Northwest”. Ecosystems, Vol. 13. No. 2 2010 1-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25622895.

The rich, biodiverse coastal temperate rainforests are the result of constantly eroding mountain slopes. These ecosystems are highly impacted by changes caused by agriculture and water flow manipulation. As a result, one of the most important facets of these ecosystems, andromous salmon, is in significant decline. This article focuses on the role of erosion in creating this ecosystem and how this process interacts with nutrients in the soil, including dead trees influence growth of trees and other vegetation biomass.

Olson, Ronald L. The Quinault Indians. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967.

This ethnography was essential because it was the first exhaustive anthropological examination of the Quinault people. It was very useful because it covers multiple layers on the onion of indigenous culture that existed pre-Contact. As with all old sources (this was originally published in the 1930s) there are some places that demonstrate a lack of cultural relativism.

Powell, J. V., and Vickie Jensen. Quileute: An Introduction to the Indians of La Push. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.

This ethnography focuses specifically on the Quileute, the tribe most connected the wolf as a spiritual symbol. There are currently no wolves in the Olympic Peninsula but they were once so abundant they had an essential role in the Quileute mythology as the creatures humans were made from. 

Shanley, Colin S., Sanjay, Pyare, Michael I. Goldstein et al. "Climate Change Impications in Northern Coastal Temperate Rainforest of North America". Climatic Change, 2015, 155-70.

Temperate rainforests are vulnerable in the face of ACC, and changes to its ecosystems are now inevitable. Predicted changes are anticipated to cause a cascade of ecosystem-level effects such as: increased  flooding and rain-on-snow events; retreat of the snowline to higher elevations, reduced snowpack; changes in the timing and strength of stream-flow, freshwater and riverine nutrient exports; shrinking alpine habitats; altitudinal and latitudinal expansion of lowland and subalpine forest types; changes in suitable habitat boundaries for wildlife and plant communities; negative impacts on species with rare ecological niches or limited "dispersibility"; and shifts in salmon distribution and productivity.

Wilkinson, Charles F. Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations. New York: Norton, 2005. 170-173, 200-205.

This work focuses on the struggles of American Indians to retain treaty rights to hunting, fishing and other natural resources. Wilkinson examines the Quinault through the lens of fishing rights as their culture is reliant on salmon and other seafood. At the same time, there are also relevant court cases the author describes.