November 29, 2022 — A seed-grading machine whirred obnoxiously as tiny oyster shells shimmied through three levels of screens and were shot out into empty buckets last week.
The contraption separates baby oysters by size, helping seafood workers determine which are ready to be “planted” off Littleneck Beach in Sequim Bay, sold to other shellfish farmers or plunged back into metal buckets full of cool harbor water to grow.
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe relies on shellfish for sustenance, said Chair Ron Allen. And they have for millennia — it just didn’t always look like this.
Across the Salish Sea, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s clam garden was tucked within a grayish high tide. Raindrops sent ripples across the water off the shore of Kiket Island.
Traditional cultural ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest have long included forms of aquaculture, like clam gardens, where people create optimal habitat for the mollusks in hopes of boosting productivity. Today, it’s one piece of the complex, ever-evolving picture of fish farming in Washington state. But the commercial finfish farming of today shares little in common with the traditional Indigenous methods that long preceded it.