Most tools that the Northwest Coast people used were made out of cedar wood, stone, and shells. The women prepared fish in two ways: some fish was eaten fresh, but most of it was dried and saved for the winter months.Instead, they heated rocks in the fire then put the hot rocks into a cedar box or basket full of water, which would boil the water and cook the food. Food, including meats and vegetables, were baked, steamed, or boiled without the use of pots or pans.For the most part, summers were spent hunting and gathering in nearby forests.The oil was valued trade good, so the majority of pressed oil was saved for trading.Eulachon was full of oil, and the women had a special process of squeezing all of the oil out of the fish.They typically used the oil from whales, seals, and eulachon, a type of smelt.The people of the Northwest used a lot of fish oil to add flavour to their food.Other animals (sea otters, seals, turtles).It was the women and slaves who collected the clams, oysters, and mussels from the ocean.It was dangerous to hunt whale, because they were able to overturn a canoe. It sometimes took men days to kill a whale.They would literally catch thousands of fish in a small area- more than enough to feed a family for a year.In the fall, the salmon would travel up the rivers to spawn, making them easy to catch with nets, harpoons, and traps.Pacific Salmon was abundant in the waters, and became the most important food resource of the people.The Pacific Ocean was the main source of food for the people, and, therefore, the men spent a lot of time fishing along the coast.

The people of the Northwest Coast learned to exploit the natural waterways in the area, and became very skilled fishermen.Since there was plenty of food available to them, they never needed to develop a system of agriculture to sustain their people.The people of the Northwest Coast were hunter-gatherers, so they relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering edible plants as their main sources of food.Occupying the western shore and the islands of British Columbia, and reaching up into the Yukon. The Northwest Coastal People lived on the west coast of Canada,

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