When Cattle Point was a garden
Published 1:30 am Friday, April 10, 2026
By Russel Barsh
Director of Kwiaht
Two centuries ago, the sandy meadow at Cattle Point was a mosaic of family gardens that bloomed blue, yellow and orange as the rains ended in springtime. Evidence of this can be found in the powdery charcoal that pervades the landscape, in scattered patches of Chocolate Lily, and in family stories of the Saanich, Songhees and Samish families that historically gathered there to take advantage of trolling the Salmon Bank and reef-net fishing at Eagle Point.
To Lekwungen (Northern Straits Salish) speaking peoples, this was Tl’ikweneng, the “place of peas,” and indeed to this day, the dunes are covered in dense patches of the otherwise scarce native wildflower Lupinus littoralis, Seaside Lupine, which, like other members of the pea family, produces pods of small, round pea-like seeds. Lupin seeds can be detoxified by leaching out their alkaloids through successive rinses to produce a flour, much like the processing of acorns by the Indigenous peoples of the South Sound and lower Columbia River.
Cattle Point was of such importance that it had its own guardian or watchman who kept a house at Fish Creek, and a lookout where today you can see the concrete shell of a 1921 naval compass radio station. When the Hudson Bay Company established its farm on San Juan Island, the Coast Salish watchman at Cattle Point was Kwaya’nexw, called Captain George by the Hudson Bay men. He had a Klallam father and Samish mother, and from his lookout on what is now a Department of Natural Resources parking and picnic area, you can see all of the Samish traditional reef net sites from Davis Head, Long Island and Charles Island, and Iceberg Point to the east.
While Indigenous families camped at South Beach drying tons of salmon, they also tended gardens at Cattle Point, which was an easy trek from landing sites at the Fish Creek house. The sheltered sandy flats upland from the dunes were perfect for the cultivation of the staple carbohydrate of Coast Salish cuisine: Camas, mainly the tall, showy species Camassia leichtlinii in the San Juan Islands, which in the course of several years produces a layered bulb as large as a potato, 2-3 inches in diameter, packed with starchy (but indigestible) inulin. Baked in a pit or platform oven for 48 to 72 hours, the inulin in Camas breaks down into fructose, becoming tender and sweet with a mild nutty flavor; a satisfying complement to meals of salmon and shellfish — or the deer caught browsing in the garden.
Camas is a permaculture, like an underground orchard. Once it has been established, a well-maintained Camas garden continues to produce new bulbs by splitting and by self-seeding. Older, larger bulbs can be dug and harvested, leaving behind the smaller bulbs and the seedlings. Gardens located near seashores were fertilized with raked seaweeds, weeded in the spring and, every few years, burnt off in the fall. Deep-seated Camas bulbs are unaffected by a light, brushy surface fire. Kwiaht has grown Camas at Hummel Lake, Lopez Island, since 2007, and donates cooked bulbs to tribal organizations and events.
Coast Salish gardens were more than Camas. Columbia Lilies, Chocolate Lilies and Yampah (“Indian Carrot”) were also garden-grown. The lilies produce bulbs and corms that are soft, tasty and a little bitter tasting when cooked. Yampah roots are sweet and carroty when raw and softer if cooked. Yields are considerably greater in managed gardens than in wild-growing patches.
Sailors visiting the central Salish Sea in the early 1800s marveled at the sight of extensive fields of spring flowers along shorelines that one of them compared to the meadows of southern England. It was not until settlers had burnt villages, plowed and run sheep on the land cleared by Indigenous islanders, that they began to realize that the spring flower display was more a cultural than a natural phenomenon.
Gardens at Cattle Point were abandoned by the 1890s when lighthouse keeper George Jakle began farming the flats. The U.S. Navy radio compass station, built in 1921, had barracks and maintenance shops, further disrupting the cultural remains of the landscape. After the lighthouse was automated in the 1950s, federal lands at Cattle Point went unmanaged for decades, resulting in extensive, destructive recreational use. As a result of disruption and neglect, the gardens of “the place of peas” have disappeared into a thatch of Eurasian sheep grasses and weeds.
Led by the island’s Indigenous cultural organization, PKOLs, with support from the Bureau of Land Management, Kwiaht and local homeowners, plans are underway to restore a small part of the Cattle Point flats at the lighthouse trailhead to what it looked like 200 years ago: a densely flowered, edible cultural landscape. Islanders can donate to this project through the San Juan Island Community Organization’s April 1-10 SJI CARES fundraising campaign: Look for Kwiaht and the Coast Salish Garden project in the grant catalog at sjcares.org.
For additional information, contact info@kwiaht.org.
