Crane Flats Kiosk - Oregon Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Two history signs at kiosk at Crane Flats on F.S. Rd. 73

Marker Name 1: Early Native Americans - The land provided what they needed to live.
Marker Text 1: The earliest people that lived in the Northwest arrived around 10,000 years ago. They were hunters of large animals, including woolly mammoths and giant bison, as well as more common animals such as elk and bighorn sheep.
Over the generations that followed, the early natives began salmon fishing and plant gathering in addition to hunting to make their living. They traded with people that lived on the coast and with the people that lived in the Great Basin. Villages were often small, sometimes with houses partially dug into the earth. These villages were mainly located in river valleys and occupied during winter. The summer was a time for big game hunting and gathering of food that would last the winter.
Women used digging sticks to gather camas, bitterroot, wild onion, and wild lilies. They gathered grasses and wove beautiful baskets that were used for carrying the gathered items. The roots were cooked in large underground, stone-lined ovens, and were mashed into cakes and dried for winter storage.
The women also gathered serviceberries, huckleberries, strawberries, and wild cherries which they often dried or used in combination with smoked or dried salmon or meat from the hunt.
The Native Americans that lived and traveled in this area developed many ingenious ways to catch salmon, one of the most important features in their diet and their culture. Fishing gear included bone hook and line, gorge, trotline, dip net, gill net, seine and funnel net, barbed spears, harpoon, noose, snare, weir, trap torchlight and poison. They spent the spring, summer and fall months catching and drying salmon for use during the winter.
During the cold winter, the people dressed in rabbit skins for warmth. They also made clothes of other animal skins and of tree bark.

Marker Name 2: Crane Flats Artifacts and archeology
Marker Text 2: Archeologists from the U.S. Forest Service have studied this site carefully and have concluded that it was used by Native American families several times during the last three thousand years. These people were hunters and gatherers and probably used this area as they passed through looking for food and materials from which to make their stone tools.
A wet meadow like Crane Flats was probably a good place to find camas and wild onions, and perhaps to trap tasty migratory waterfowl. The Natives probably stopped here long enough to cook the roots they gathered, making them easier to carry back to their winter settlements. The upland surrounding area was also good for hunting of both small and big game.
It is very important to leave intact any artifacts you might find. Disturbing any artifact, or its placement in a site, can ruin an archeologist’s ability to make connections between the soil layers and the item and what it might tell us about the past. If you find something you think may be an artifact, leave it where you found it and report your find to the nearest Forest Service Ranger Station.
Artifacts gathered at this site include chipped stone artifacts such as spear points and arrowheads. Some bone fragments were also found. By carefully studying the artifacts and the depth at which they were dug, archeologists can determine many things about the people who left them.

Please upload a favorite photograph you took of the waymark. Although visiting this waymark in person is the only thing required of you to receive credit for your visit, taking the time to add this information is greatly appreciated.

Be creative.