New research between the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation) and the University of British Columbia shows how the nation’s diet was varied and rich in nutrition and came from abundant food sources in what is now southwestern B.C.
While the nation’s diet spanned all manner of mammals, marine life and fowl, the research — which used archeological records and Indigenous oral histories to piece together what was on the menu between AD 1000 and European contact in the late 18th century — found its four main pillars were salmon, forage fish, shellfish and marine birds.
The study’s lead author, UBC PhD candidate Meaghan Efford, said the Burrard Inlet provided ceaseless nourishment before settlers arrived, with thriving populations of Pacific salmon, Pacific herring, eulachon, surf smelt, anchovies, flatfish and sturgeon untouched by colonization and industrialization.
The inlet, which today separates Vancouver from the North Shore, “provided so much food for thousands of years, mainly because the Tsleil-Waututh Nation were using specific stewardship and cultivation techniques that ensured their harvest was sustainable over that period of time,” she said.
Efford said the ancestral diet would have been incredibly high in protein, with each person consuming over 200 grams per day, on average. Today, the recommended allowance for protein is around 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, equating to around 60 grams for a person weighing 75 kilograms (165 pounds).
As a result of the consumption of marine fowl like dabbling ducks, large amounts of fat in the diet would have combated the cardiovascular diseases, blood vessel disorders and organ issues that can be brought on by high-protein diets, said Efford.
‘When the tide was out, the table was set’
The study, A Fish-Focused Menu: An Interdisciplinary Reconstruction of Ancestral Tsleil-Waututh Diets, is part of wider PhD research Efford has carried out alongside the nation to learn about more of its pre-colonial existence.
The majority of the findings confirm much of what the Tsleil-Waututh have been proclaiming for decades, said Efford.
Michelle George, a cultural and technical specialist at the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, said stories of a Burrard Inlet teeming with life have been passed down from generation to generation, but the picture painted is so different to what remains today that the stories feel more like folk tales than fact.
“My family always told me that when the tide was out, the table was set, and there would be more than enough food to feed a family, feed a large community, and have leftovers to feed on the next day,” she said.
“That was continuous, every day. All of Burrard Inlet was a clam bed.”
George said Efford’s research provided support and reassurance to the nation, which says its oral history has long been ignored in favour of Western science.
The scientific “back-up” should spur a more serious response from local communities and environmental groups, who often need official stats and figures to feel compelled to make a change, she said.
While there is “still a lot of work to do,” George said, efforts to rewild and restore the inlet have gained traction in recent years and the fruits of those efforts are starting to become apparent.
Last spring, the nation’s Treaty, Lands and Resources department completed a four-year marine restoration project designed to protect and preserve the inlet. The undertaking included eelgrass and native plant restoration alongside the removal of creosote waste and marine debris.
Healthy habitats will encourage the bounce-back of marine life, which in turn will replenish the Tsleil-Waututh diet and help educate the community about their own culture, said George.
These scientists and volunteers are harvesting and transplanting eelgrass, which they believe to be a front-line defence against climate change.
“We have a lot of elders returning to reserves after a lifetime spent away. They’re coming back and finding their family, and a lot of those people want to be taught about their Tsleil-Waututh diet,” she said.
“Information like this is crucial because then we get to teach them what their family used to eat. Maybe then those people can go on to try seafood for the first time. It’s about bringing this culture, this way of living, back to our people.”
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