NORTHWEST COAST

Northwest Coast

Northwest Coast

Describe the Northwest Coast, the key features of the coast's culture

The Northwest Coast culture area consists primarily of the coastal areas of Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon and has been described as a culture area that is 1,500 miles long and one mile wide. (Kenneth 2003) While such a description isn't exactly true, it speaks to one of the unique facts about the Northwest Coast. Nowhere is the region broader than about 50 miles, confined as it is between the Coast Mountains of Canada and the Cascade Mountains of the U.S. on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. (Turner 2005) The area also includes many large and small islands, of which the most important are the Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Island.

The Northwest Coast people are not really into complex societies and agriculture, while it is inferred that the Coast Salish people do much agriculture due to the fact that the coast was one of the richest areas for animal and plant life on the entire Northwest Coast. (Sitton 2005) The social organization is very different between the two native groups. The northwest coast people believe that the family status and name determines your rank as an individual and it is mutually impossible to change it.

The region is warmed by the Japanese Current while the mountains block off most cold air coming from the interior. The moutains are clothed with temperate-zone rain forests of giant Douglas fir, cedar, spruce, and hemlock, all of which were used by the native peoples as sources of firewood and building materials, materials for cordage, (Smith 2001) clothing and bedding, canoes, boxes, and a wide variety of tools. The forest's margins were home to many game animals (deer, moose, elk, bear, mountain goats and sheep) and fur-bearing ...