A Bird's Eye View of Northern Coast Salish Intertidal Resource Management Features, Southern British Columbia, Canada

Marine intertidal modifications are a prevalent part of the archaeological landscape of the Northwest Coast. These modifications are physical manifestations of resource management activities foundational to the cultures of the region. However, the ability to identify and record the regional variation in these intertidal feature complexes is hampered by the large distances that need to be covered within extremely short and rare low tide sequences. We used aerial photography from a low-flying helicopter during extreme low tides to cover large areal expanses of shoreline in the traditional territory of the Northern Coast Salish. Our bird's eye view allowed us to identify diverse intertidal modifications and a suite of “elements”, the smallest repeating forms of intertidal modification. The elements that make up the features are in turn combined in different ways to create larger intertidal modifications. The elements provide the basis for an intertidal feature typology that is consistent with local oral historical knowledge about ancient management systems and activities.