Title: Northwest Coast Indians  - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
Headings: Northwest Coast Indians
Northwest Coast Indians
Introduction
Traditional Culture
Peoples and Languages
Food
Settlements and Housing
Clothing
Technology and Arts
Society
Religion
European Contact and Cultural Change

Content: Abundant rains support dense, towering forests that are rich in animal life. This environment provided a wealth of resources for the Indians. Traditional Culture
Peoples and Languages
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The   Northwest Coast was densely populated when Europeans first made landfall in the 1700s. It was home to peoples speaking Athabaskan, Tshimshianic, Salishan, and other languages. Well-known tribes included the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, and Chinook. Food
Northwest Coast tribes had no pressing food problems. They could get plenty of fish, shellfish, and even whales, seals, and porpoises from the sea and local rivers. The men built weirs (underwater enclosures) and traps to catch huge hauls of salmon and candlefish as they swam upstream to spawn. The women preserved a year’s supply of salmon by drying the fish over a smoky fire and pressed the oil from candlefish. The Indians used large amounts of this oil, dipping dried foods into it at meals.