Ancient Peoples

Early human inhabitants of the area now known as Olympic National Park hunted mastodons and fished for salmon, eventually abandoning nomadic foraging for more settled communities, building large cedar-plank longhouses close to rivers and the sea. Several Native American tribes lived on the Olympic Peninsula for thousands of years before their first contact with Europeans, who brought diseases that decimated native villages and competed for resources like fish and forest products. Treaties signed in the mid-19th centuries forced the native population onto reservations, but eight tribes -- the Lowe Elwah Klallam, Jamestown S'Kallam, Port Gamble S'Kallam, Skokomish, Quinault, Hoh, Quileute, and Makah -- continue to live here and preserve their ancient traditions.