ancient indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest whose diet was once thought to be almost all salmon
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The quote above must have been made by some armchair scientist type who had never been to the PNW never read any of the many ethnobiology books which source from elderly tribal types interviewed from the early 1900s to the 1950s
No they did not live on salmon alone - one reason is that the Canadian tribes would hold their annual slave raids in the fall when the salmon were returning. They would take all the salmon hung up to dry by the locals. Survivors had to make do with tail ends of the runs.
There is literally hundreds of things that can be eaten in the forests and rivers of the Pac NW.
The locals ate lots of deer; and the plentiful varieties of berries which were mashed into balls and sun dried.
Interestingly, despite plentiful crab, clams and oysters, they would only be eaten in times of starvation.
“Interestingly, despite plentiful crab, clams and oysters, they would only be eaten in times of starvation”
Possibly because they didn’t have butter.