The Willis Carey Wing of the Cashmere Museum in Cashmere, Washington includes an exhibit on food gathering. The Native people who had lived along the mid-Columbia River in what is now the state of Washington obtained their food through the gathering of wild plants, harvesting fish from the river, and hunting. Most of the calories came from plant foods.
Some gathered foods
In her chapter in Woven History: Native American Basketry, Mary Dodds Schlick reports:
“For uncounted centuries, the plants that grow in the rocky hillsides of the Columbia Plateau provided more than half of the calories for the Native people living here. Each spring the families moved across the hillsides digging bitterroot, camas, wild carrot, and other foods, putting them into these soft bags tied at their waists. The roots were skinned, dried in the sun, and stored for winter in flat, root storage bags.”
More about Plateau Indians
Indians 301: Camas, a traditional Plateau Indian food
Indians 101: Native American Salmon Fishing on the Columbia River (museum exhibit)
Indians 101: Dugout canoes of the Upper Columbia River (museum tour)
Indians 101: Some historic photographs of the Colville Reservation (photo diary)
Indians 101: The Plateau Indian Tool Kit (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Plateau Horse Regalia (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: The Plateau Indian vision quest
Indians 101: Plateau Indian Trade