Anthropologist Lou LaBombard could just as well be a crime scene detective. But the events he reconstructs are thousands of years old and the sites are seasonal villages of Island County's first peoples, going back generations. He has devoted his career to understanding how people lived on our islands' shores for centuries before the first Europeans arrived in their tall ships. For thousands of years the Salish of Whidbey and Camano islands lived and foraged in a mega optimum zone, where fish, shellfish, game, plants and crops supported them abundantly. As a result they were able to develop complex societies, divide their labor and pursue specialization.
LaBombard works from a handful of clues often mined from ancient garbage dumps, called shell middens, that grew to vast sizes alongside these villages.
Such sites are visible today where beaches have carved into shore-side bluffs. Beach walkers paying close attention will notice lush vegetation growing atop many feet of clamshell-laden black soils, still rich from thousands of years of human habitation and nutrients. Often the shells are all open-side down, lying just as they landed when a Salish woman turned over her basket to empty it.
Such garbage includes not only the predictable broken articles, but sometimes a perfectly intact tool as well, which he will discuss and share in his presentation. When LaBombard finds one of these treasures he often shuns complex explanations to offer an everyday one. "You know how kids are," he says. "Somebody's kids lost the tool they were using," or "They just forgot to pick up after themselves."
The Skagit Valley College professor teaches anthropology, sociology and ethnic studies. He conducts field schools in archaeology on the island in the summer. LaBombard is not only a Native American himself (Iroquois-Seneca/Mohawk), but a professional Native American story teller, and has given many presentations concerning Native Americans in the U.S. and other countries. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War, where he served as a paramedic.
