The western red cedar holds central cultural importance for the Indigenous peoples of the Olympic coast, who used its rot-resistant wood for canoes, longhouses, and carvings and its fibrous inner bark for clothing, baskets, and cordage. Slow-growing and extremely long-lived, often exceeding a thousand years, the largest cedars in the Quinault Valley are among the oldest trees in the park.
Pay special attention to the western red cedar as you roll into Quinault, the ones with the stringy, shredding bark and the flat sprays of green. To the peoples of this coast, this was the tree of life, and almost nothing was wasted. Its rot-proof wood became canoes, longhouses, and totem poles. Its soft inner bark was pounded into clothing, baskets, and rope. A family could clothe, house, and carry itself on a single species. These cedars can live well over a thousand years, and the giants in this valley were already ancient when that work was being done.
Photo: Kimon Berlin (KimonBerlin) · CC BY-SA 2.0
.jpg){kind=link}