Kalapuya Food Resources: Native Food Sources, Cookery in the Willamette Valley

Because the Willamette Falls on the lower Willamette River created a nearly impassable barrier for salmon, the Indians of the Willamette Valley did not rely on fish as a food source like so many Pacific Northwest Native groups. Instead, Kalapuyans feasted on a variety of plants and animals (for example camas, left) whose abundance in the Willamette valley and Calapooia Mountain foothills provided a stable source of food. White settlement in the valley greatly altered this food source. Joel Palmer made the following comments in 1854:

Since the settlement of the country by Whites and the introduction of swine [camas] have gradually diminished in quantity and within the last two years by the inclosing and cultivating [of] the soil where the cammas grows and the increased number of hogs running at large these roots have almost entirely disappeared. the wild game which has formerly been very abundant has also very much diminished.