Forestry matters — Part 2
Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 16, 2026
How did the Native Americans manage the lands for the past 10,000 years?
The answer is, first and foremost, fire.
Indigenous Peoples were not passive inhabitants of these landscapes. They were sophisticated ecological engineers who used burning, harvesting, transplanting and other tools to maintain open, resilient and productive forests. For thousands of years prior, the forests were shaped by people who understood that fire was essential to maintaining ecological balance, wildlife abundance and food security.
Initially, it was thought that Indigenous People were hunter/gathers much like our more prehistoric ancestors. While not purely agriculturalists like modern society, research has now shown that the Indigenous People were diligent managers of numerous food and material sources. Unlike today’s farmers who intensively manage a consolidated acreage for the production of one, or a few species, the Indigenous People managed the desired crops in situ and traveled to where the crops grew naturally, in many cases following a regular migration each year to fulfill their needs.
The Indigenous population had an intimate relationship with their environment, and their only significant tool to cultivate and manage the plants and animals upon which they depended was fire.
Indigenous fire served dozens of functions, including:
Maintaining berry fields (huckleberry, serviceberry, salmonberry)
Enhancing root crops (camas, wapato, biscuitroot)
Improving forage for deer, elk, and bison
Maintaining spaced oak and hazelnut stands free of underbrush
Encouraging basketry plants such as beargrass and willow
Nurturing medicinals: yarrow, Oregon grape, wild ginger
Maintaining wetland plants: tule and cattail
Reducing pests and pathogens
Maintaining travel corridors and visibility
Protecting villages by reducing nearby fuels
These were not incidental benefits — they were the intended outcomes of a deliberate management system.
Native Americans probably knew as much if not more about specific plant sequences in local communities, what we refer to now as plant succession, as contemporary forest and rangeland specialists. They were also fully aware that many of the plant and animal species that they relied on would disappear if they allowed normal plant succession. The oak groves they relied on for acorns would be taken over by Douglas fir, which would later be superseded by hemlock and cedar. Huckleberry patches could not exist under a dense forest canopy, so the continual use of fire was necessary to preserve an important component of their food supply. The same reasoning applies to many of the other plant species listed above.
Under Indigenous management, the old growth stands looked dramatically different than what we see today. They contained very old, large trees, but only a few per acre. The stands were open and frequently the forest floor was filled with grass that supported deer, elk and a broader animal population. The Native Americans would have likely viewed today’s old growth stands as deserts in their ability to provided food and materials. Paleoecological records, early explorer accounts, and modern fire-scar data all converge on the same conclusion: historical forests were far more open and less dense than contemporary stands. In many regions of the West, particularly in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, tree densities were often 10-20% of current levels. Large, fire-resistant trees dominated the canopy while the understory was sparse with limited ladder fuels.
In May and June of 1792, Captain George Vancouver’s expedition entered Puget Sound expecting a wilderness populated with unsophisticated natives. Viewing the Penn Cove area on Whidby Island the following report was written:
“The surrounding country, for several miles in most points of view, presented a delightful prospect consisting chiefly of spacious meadows elegantly adorned with clumps of trees which the oak bore a very serious proportion, in size from four to six feet in circumference. In these beautiful pastures…the deer were seen playing about in great numbers. Nature had here provided the well-stocked park and wanted only the assistance of art to constitute that desirable assemblage of surface, which is so much sought in other countries, and only to be acquired by an immoderate experience in manual labor. (George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery in the Pacific Northwest and Round the World, 1791-1795, Vol. 2. Kaye Lamb ed. (London, 1984) pg.568.)
Next topic: Lifestyles of the Rational and Indigenous.
Don Healy lives in Lynnwood. He graduated with a B.S. Degree in Forest Management from Oregon State University in 1968, spent 10 years in the field and has followed forestry matters avidly during retirement.
