Title: Northwest Coast Indian | History, Art, Region, Facts, Religion, & Culture | Britannica
Headings: Northwest Coast Indian
Northwest Coast Indian
people
Top Questions
Which Native American peoples lived in the Pacific Northwest?
Where did the Northwest Coast Indian people live?
What was the social structure of Northwest Coast Indian society?
How did the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast get their food?
What kind of homes did the Northwest Coast Indians live in?
Traditional culture patterns
Linguistic and territorial organization

Content: The principal fishing sites were along rivers and streams in which salmon ran in the fall. In the spring, herring spawned in coves and candlefish entered certain rivers. People went to sea to hunt marine mammals and to fish for offshore species such as halibut. Each village also had rights to an upland territory from which the residents could obtain terrestrial foods. Read more below: Traditional culture patterns: Subsistence, settlement patterns, and housing
Salmon
Learn more about the Pacific salmon, which provided sustenance for the Northwest Coast Indians. What kind of homes did the Northwest Coast Indians live in? The dwellings of the Northwest Coast Indians were rectilinear structures that were built of timber or planks and, except for those in northwestern California, were usually quite large, as the members of a corporate “house” typically lived together in one building. In the houses of the Wakashan province, huge cedar posts with side beams and ridgepoles constituted a permanent framework to which were attached wall planks and roof planks that could be taken down, loaded onto canoes, and transported from one site to another.