Ancient clam gardens nourish the Mamalilikulla’s past and future

Mamalilikulla Chief Winidi, or John Powell, wiggles his pitchfork back and forth to loosen the sand and gravel along a remote stretch of beach in the Broughton Archipelago, sandwiched between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland.

As he churns over layers of sediment, a fistful of clams surface with a couple of disturbingly large, fiery red marine worms that flail hundreds of legs to rapidly burrow back into the sand.

"Look at all those worms. That's a good sign," Powell said.  

"You see those a lot when you're digging. They seem to aerate the soil." 

Powell’s clam digging chops are based on personal experience.

As a young teen, armed with a pitchfork and Coleman lamp, Powell spent many icy winter nights, when tides were at their lowest, digging up clams for spending money.

“As a young kid, you could make $10 to $20 a night,” he said. “In the 1960s and 70s, that was big money.” 

However, this April, Powell’s not working for pocket money. During the last zero tide of the clam season, Powell has joined more than a dozen people labouring to revitalize an ancient clam garden so it can continue sustaining the nation’s culture, food security and climate resilience. 

There's a multitude of loxiwe (clam gardens in the Kwak̕wala language) scattered across the Pacific coast, with upwards of a hundred concentrated in Mamalilikulla territory, spanning from Malcolm Island across the Broughton Archipelago and up Knight Inlet. 

The basis for a clam garden is constructing a rock wall along the low-tide line on a sheltered bay or beach. Over time, as rising tides drop sediment inside the rock boundary, a level beach terrace forms, creating good habitat and shallower, warm water favourable for growing butter and little neck clams. 

“There’s a lot of these clam gardens all over our territory, but they need to be turned over in order for them to be prosperous,” Powell said. 

A mix of Guardians, knowledge holders, and scientists supported by the Nanwakolas Council Ha-ma-yas Stewardship Network have spent three days digging up, or “fluffing” the clam bed and lugging rocks and boulders across the tidal flat to refortify its wall, just as people have done for thousands of years. 

These marine terraces can produce four times the number of butter clams, and more than double the quantity of little neck clams compared to unmodified beaches. But to operate at their full potential, they require regular tending. Their care and use declined, however, as First Nation communities were decimated by disease and forced relocation due to colonization.

This particular clam garden terrace is immense: it’s as deep as a soccer field at its widest points and stretches 800 metres along the shoreline. It will take repeated visits over a number of years before it is fully restored, Powell said. 

A tangible historical record of the nation’s sustainable resource use on the land, reviving clam gardens will increase Mamalilikulla’s food security and ensure culture and traditional knowledge is passed down from elders to younger generations, he said. 

“Next year, we're going to try to do something from an educational perspective and get some of our young people out to help with this kind of work, so that they can have that same connection to the land.” 

A terrace this size would have fed a sizable population or village, he added, noting a series of house depressions have been identified on the same island. 

Clam gardens provided critical winter food when wild weather prevented people from travelling great distances to harvest other provisions, Powell said. 

“Clams are the potatoes of the Pacific Northwest coast. It’s the food that's available all eight months of the year,” Powell said. 

“A clam garden like this for a village is like a dining room table. They just go out and dig for their food.” 

Taking a break from directing the dig, Mamalilikulla Guardian Watchmen manager Andy Puglas gives a large, fist-sized butter clam a quick crack on the boulder he’s sitting on, opening up the shell to expose its insides to show younger crew members. 

Puglas explains what parts to eat or remove, what time of year they are at their best, and how they should look when they are fresh. Butters, valued for the amount of meat they offer, are good for soup and fritters. 

“I make a famous clam chowder,” Puglas said. 

Identifying a smaller cockle, he notes that the harvesters liked to eat them raw on the spot. 

Puglas said he and his brother, Hereditary Chief Tom Puglas, have been digging for the shellfish commercially and for “home food” since their childhood.  As young men, they learned about clam gardens thanks to elders. Puglas has helped other nations with ancient beach terraces, but he’s long been eager to restore clam gardens in Mamalilikulla territory.

“Adam Dick and Daisy Smith showed us what these were and the proper name,” Puglas said. 

“Loxiwe — means turning over, or rolling the rocks.” 

“It’s been over 25 years since they showed us, but this is the first time we’ve come onto one of these beaches and [done] this cleaning up.” 

Before starting the restoration project, the team did a rapid shoreline survey to assess what clam species and marine life the terrace supports, said Gina Thomas, a resource manager and longtime Guardian for the Tlowitsis First Nation.

Butter clams, cockles, soft shell and macoma clams were the most abundant species identified within the survey quadrants, but horse clams and little neck clams were also dug up elsewhere on site, she said.  

Repeating rapid surveys are “snapshots” that allow researchers to track changes over time, she said. 

Marrying the traditional mariculture techniques and western science means the restoration project will expand the knowledge base about how clam gardens might boost production and even create beneficial habitat for other species. 

Since the rock walls of the terrace have been raised, the speed at which new sediment will be deposited can also be measured, she said. 

Thomas prefers the term “sea gardens” to describe the ancient beach terraces because the structures support a large variety of marine life and potential food sources. 

Seaweed, eel grass, ghost shrimp, sand worms, anemones, crabs, small fish, chitons and massive and relatively-rare thatched barnacles were all spotted on site, she said. 

“I’m making note of the barnacles because they aren’t found everywhere,” Thomas said. 

“But when they are, I usually find them in [shell] middens, so that tells you our people were eating them.” 

Elsewhere, other harvested creatures like sea cucumbers, sea urchins and even octopus have also been found within the tidal structures.

Powell said his grandmother taught him how to harvest foods like clams or berries respectfully, working with, rather than against, nature. 

“Our people were natural ecologists. They wouldn't dig [a clam garden] until it was barren,” he said. 

Clam gardens reflect the law of Aweenak'ola, which means at one with the land, sea, sky and supernatural ones, said Powell. 

“We depended on nature for our medicine, food and protection,” he said. 

“It’s our responsibility to house, nourish, conserve all forms of life in the environment so that they'll thrive, and we'll have something for tomorrow.” 

His grandmother taught him to harvest the largest clams and leave plenty of smaller ones behind to ensure a consistent food supply. 

He was also schooled to resist the biggest, best-looking berries on the bush when out picking. 

“My grandmother used to say you don’t take the one that attracts you, because when it falls, it has the greatest chance of making new berries,” Powell said. 

“She used to say, like all good mothers, [bushes] hide their children under their skirt, so when you push the branches up, that's where all the berries are.”

Rochelle Baker/Local Journalism Initiative/Canada's National Observer