SHARPE COVE, Deception Pass State Park — Once you know what to look for, you might see them on beaches everywhere.
Keep an eye out for dark soil, unnaturally thick layers of shells piled high, brittle rocks charred dark from fires that burned hundreds — maybe thousands — of years ago. This particular combination amounts to a shell midden site. In essence it’s an old trash pile, set aside by the people who lived here well before settlers called these lands home.
Tread lightly if you stumble across one of these sites. Don’t disturb what you find. These places can offer a window back into the past. And as climate change brings rising sea levels, intensifying storm surges and erosion into the beaches of Puget Sound, the windows are closing, deteriorating before we’ve fully had a chance to understand their significance.
One small team with the Samish Indian Nation is racing to find as many of these shell midden sites as they can and document them before they’re lost forever.
“We’ve got to do it now, it’s only going to get worse,” said Jackie Ferry, tribal historic preservation officer.
Last year, the Samish Indian Nation received a grant for $116,000 from then-President Joe Biden’s administration as part of a larger effort for tribes across the country trying to preserve their culture and guard against climate change. This grant, while relatively small, was enough to hire Katie Lewis, a shoreline archaeologist, who walks beaches across the tribe’s traditional territory, searching out new sites and documenting how previously mapped ones have deteriorated from rising ocean waters and worsening storms.
Lewis travels by foot, car and ferries. Sometimes she hitches a ride with other tribal members as they boat across the San Juan archipelago. Since starting her work in early January, she’s found more than half a dozen new sites and revisited many others of the hundreds known throughout the area.
The sun at her back and Ferry by her side, Lewis stands on Red Rock Beach, arms outstretched. This particular shell midden site spans almost the entire length of the area, she said. Hikers and picnickers walk by nearly every day, a wooden sculpture depicting the Maiden of Deception Pass looming tall overhead, a reminder of the Samish legend about the area and the tribe’s connection with the sea. Often they have no idea what’s below their feet.
But try to imagine a village of 100 to 300 people living just north of the isthmus on what is now Rosario Beach, Lewis said. There could even have been many more. They would have built longhouses, drying racks, hearths and fire pits.
You might head north to Anacortes or the San Juan Islands one of these days and stand at a particularly beautiful spot, thinking to yourself that you might like to live right there, said Samish Tribal Chairman Tom Wooten.
“Well, guess what,” Wooten said with a chuckle. “Someone was living there before you.”
To be grounded in this region is to feel a deep connection with your ancestors, Wooten said. But also to feel a responsibility to protect what remains, which gives a sense of urgency and importance to this type of work.
Lewis calls herself the happiest human on the planet. She walks these beaches around twice a week, aiming for low tides to maximize her potential finds. Moving from place to place, she hearkens back to these ancient communities.
“I say a little prayer to whoever may have lived here,” Lewis said. “I ask their permission and let them know I’m here with good intentions.”
Call it spiritual or whatever else you’d like, Lewis said. The system works. She finds a site every time she explores a beach.
But the last person to map out these places had years to finish the job. Not only are her funds limited and unlikely to be renewed under President Donald Trump’s watch but climate change is accelerating in these waters, eating away at these slices of history.
What is a shell midden?
For lack of a better phrase, a shell midden is a trash pile, Lewis said. When people, in this case the ancient Samish, live in a place for long enough, their rubbish accumulates.
As with people today, this eons-old garbage can offer quite a bit of insight into these tribal communities, Ferry said.
First, the very existence of a shell midden is a good sign that people lived in the area. Finding a site means you’re on the right trail.
The size of a midden pile can tell you about how many people lived in a given community and offer a sense of how long they stayed there, Ferry said. The contents can tell you what they ate. You’ll often find a variety of shells from clams or oysters. But you might also find the bones of larger creatures.
Depending on the types of shells, bones and more, Lewis and Ferry can guess as to whether a particular site was occupied year-round or if it served as a type of seasonal retreat.
Every once in a while they’ll find tools, often broken but sometimes still in good condition (people back then also accidentally dropped things in the trash, Lewis notes). These can include rock tools or even projectile points like spear or arrow heads.
Lewis relies on her own most basic tools for this type of archaeology: her feet and her eyes. She’ll move from beach to beach scanning the soils to see what she can find and document the site as it is. She doesn’t dig. Once a site is disturbed in that way, she said, the archaeological insights that might have been there can quickly be lost.
If you happen across a shell midden pile, Lewis said, don’t disturb it. Appreciate it from a respectful distance and try to imagine what wonders the area might have held in centuries past.
Why document these sites?
You can walk most any beach across the traditional Samish territory and stumble across something of historical or cultural significance, said Todd Woodard, executive director of the tribe’s infrastructure and resources. The Indigenous people of the area spread out among the islands over millennia, moving easily across the waters and making their homes in many different places.
A similar survey of shell midden sites in the 1980s mapped out hundreds of locations across the archipelago over the course of several different years, Woodard said.
Not only do these sites offer insight into the tribe’s past and culture but Woodard said it’s important to revisit them now to understand how they’re changing.
Already, ocean waters around Puget Sound have risen some 9 inches since 1899 and climatologists expect the waters to rise perhaps a foot more by 2050. This will cause coastal flooding and erosion, both of which will also be made worse by intensifying storms throughout the region.
Many shell midden piles and adjacent archaeological sites are deteriorating with this increased pressure from the ocean, Woodard said. Quantifying damage already inflicted can be difficult but data collected by Lewis can help guide restoration efforts.
The tribe is doing similar work mapping out declining bull kelp beds and using their findings to consider ways of guarding against worsening climate change.
Not every site will need a restoration strategy. Some should be allowed to erode naturally. But Lewis’ work helps the tribe understand which areas have a stronger connection to significant ancient communities or even burial sites, which merit protection.
The data can also help safeguard these sites against human development, Lewis said.
Decades ago, people often weren’t as concerned with understanding the history and legacy of the region, Chairman Wooten said. But he’s heartened now by such widespread interest and the willingness of local and state governments to partner with the tribe.
The tribe held a general membership meeting this month and Wooten said he enjoyed catching up with people returning from far-flung places. He’s traveled a bit in his time too but said growing up and hearing the stories passed down from his ancestors about this particular region, makes him feel fortunate to call the area home.
“There’s no place as beautiful as right here,” Wooten said.
