Plank House
Encyclopedia
The indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest
constructed their homes, a plank house from the biodegradable cedar
tree.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines longhouse as "a long communal dwelling, especially of certain Native American, Polynesian, and Indonesian peoples." The homes commonly called longhouses, with regard to the Pacific Northwest, are plank houses, not longhouses. A plank house may be long, and may be commonly referred to as a longhouse, but it is not a longhouse. The cladding and roofing are planks of cedar, thus plank house.
harvest and continued use of that harvest was purposeful and sustainable. Native people of the Pacific Northwest maintained a distinct respect for cedar and the gifts cedar has given to many generations.
Cedar logs comprise the primary support system of the plank houses of the Pacific Northwest Indians, and are clad with thick cedar planks harvested from living trees. The cedar trees that had been harvested in a sustainable method, for their timber, are now gone or protected from timber cutting by federal designation of park or are on tribal land. The practice of leaving the tree was not the way of the new population. The timber industry logged for profit and did not leave trees for future harvest. The original inhabitants of the Olympic Peninsula had a respectful eye on the future and selectively harvested boards from a living tree.
The properties of cedar trees include straight grain, very few knots, and weather resistance. The straight grain enabled separation of planks of wood from the tree. The skilled people inserted a wedge to separate a section of wood and followed the height of the tree and adzed it out at both ends. This harvest method was sustainable and enabled the people to use the wood and to have a supply of planks to rebuild in another location. The patience of the people is evident in the practice of leaving the wedge in place to continue the pressure that would enable another wedge placement further up, this created longer planks.
The oldest found plank house village is located in Kitselas Canyon at the Paul Mason Site in western British Columbia, CA. This village is estimated to be 3000 years old. There has been a fire pit associated with a single house situated on the Maurer Site (on the Fraser River) that has been dated to approximately 4000 BP.
homes on the banks of the now named Fraser River) wrote in his 1800 journal; “as an excellent house 46 x 32 and constructed like American frame houses; the planks are three to 4 inches thick, each plank overlapping the adjoining one a couple of inches; the post, which are very strong and crudely carved, received across beams; the walls are 11 feet high and covered with a slanting roof. On the opposite side of the river there is a considerable village with houses similar to the one on the side.” Kenneth Ames, contributor to “Life in the Big House; Household Labor and Dwelling Size on the Northwest Coast,” calculates the volume of wood in this house to exceed half a million board feet (1,200 m³). One house, a multi family dwelling, found in Nanaimo, the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, is documented as being made of split cedar planks that were “held in place by withes (cedar rope) that come from the long lower branches of Cedar trees that grow in open spaces.” (Fraser)
The cedar ropes that secured the planks to the uprights and beams allowed the people to deconstruct their homes and bring their planks with them to the next location. These planks were not small nor were they easily obtained, but they were valuable assets and as such, they were transported with the household goods during the seasonal migrations. The house frames were left intact until the next season when the people returned and reattached their traveling planks and reconstructed their home.
There were two distinct roof types found in this region. Both types are on a rectangular house that has a hearth or fire pit. One type is gabled, paired ridgepoles, vertical wall, and roof, planks with an interior pit that was reached via steps. On Vancouver Island in around Puget Sound, Captain James Cook described the shed roof structures. His description is that of a cruder type building that may have been in the adaptive stages of the house type that may have been brought to the coast by the Salish people who modified as needed with the changed location. These shed roof houses are the largest constructed anywhere in this region.
The articles that have been written by anthropologists describe the shed roofs as being shed type that are not consistent in description as to the roof pitch. One informant will state that the roof was slanted to the back of the house, and another will say it was pitched to the front, or the side of the house. The question may be answered by thinking about the direction of the rain; the pitch is away from the rain. The roof pitch was adjusted according to the direction from which the rain comes down. Regionally, the rain comes from the south.
During his third mapping voyage, 1778, Captain James Cook described the homes he saw at Nootka Sound as not having a door. He described irregular openings through which the Indians passed in and out. The “Old Man House
” had a maze “consisting of a series of parallel walls partly uncovering each other, around which the visitor had to pass.” The maze ended in a dark area that housed the fire pit. One explanation for this configuration was as a defense against intruders. Military strategy states that this would be a very difficult position to defend, and once the enemy was inside they could set it on fire with great ease. A more logical explanation lies, again, with the weather consideration. The lack of doors and the cedar mats room dividers did little to keep the wind and rain out, and in all probability, the mats served as windbreaks. The indigenous people lived, worked, and understood the weather; it was integral to their lives and their livelihood.
Anthropologist Ronald Leroy Olson, whose subjects were the Quinault
, Tlingit and Kwakiutl
tribes, defines the coasts of the Pacific Northwest as the place for rectangular plank houses. The coastal region of British Columbia to the mouth of the Copper River in Alaska with one exception; the Athabascan Tseutsaut of the head of Portland Canal who used temporary brush and bark lodges. The Alaskan people are more likely to use spruce
wood, which has characteristics similar to cedar, due to the availability of that resource. Cedar was the material of choice for the coastal people of southwestern Canada, and Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.
d onto the top and bottom timbers. Of European origin to North America, somewhat related to Stave Church
.
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
constructed their homes, a plank house from the biodegradable cedar
Thuja plicata
Thuja plicata, commonly called Western or pacific red cedar, giant or western arborvitae, giant cedar, or shinglewood, is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae native to western North America...
tree.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines longhouse as "a long communal dwelling, especially of certain Native American, Polynesian, and Indonesian peoples." The homes commonly called longhouses, with regard to the Pacific Northwest, are plank houses, not longhouses. A plank house may be long, and may be commonly referred to as a longhouse, but it is not a longhouse. The cladding and roofing are planks of cedar, thus plank house.
Material
Due to the nature of this building material, the anthropological documentation for these people is not widespread. The manner of woodWood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
harvest and continued use of that harvest was purposeful and sustainable. Native people of the Pacific Northwest maintained a distinct respect for cedar and the gifts cedar has given to many generations.
Cedar logs comprise the primary support system of the plank houses of the Pacific Northwest Indians, and are clad with thick cedar planks harvested from living trees. The cedar trees that had been harvested in a sustainable method, for their timber, are now gone or protected from timber cutting by federal designation of park or are on tribal land. The practice of leaving the tree was not the way of the new population. The timber industry logged for profit and did not leave trees for future harvest. The original inhabitants of the Olympic Peninsula had a respectful eye on the future and selectively harvested boards from a living tree.
The properties of cedar trees include straight grain, very few knots, and weather resistance. The straight grain enabled separation of planks of wood from the tree. The skilled people inserted a wedge to separate a section of wood and followed the height of the tree and adzed it out at both ends. This harvest method was sustainable and enabled the people to use the wood and to have a supply of planks to rebuild in another location. The patience of the people is evident in the practice of leaving the wedge in place to continue the pressure that would enable another wedge placement further up, this created longer planks.
The oldest found plank house village is located in Kitselas Canyon at the Paul Mason Site in western British Columbia, CA. This village is estimated to be 3000 years old. There has been a fire pit associated with a single house situated on the Maurer Site (on the Fraser River) that has been dated to approximately 4000 BP.
Construction
Canadian anthropologist Wilson Duff quotes Simon Fraser who (upon observation of the Coast SalishCoast Salish
Coast Salish languages are a subgroup of the Salishan language family. These languages are spoken by First Nations or Native American peoples inhabiting the territory that is now the southwest coast of British Columbia around the Strait of Georgia and Washington state around Puget Sound...
homes on the banks of the now named Fraser River) wrote in his 1800 journal; “as an excellent house 46 x 32 and constructed like American frame houses; the planks are three to 4 inches thick, each plank overlapping the adjoining one a couple of inches; the post, which are very strong and crudely carved, received across beams; the walls are 11 feet high and covered with a slanting roof. On the opposite side of the river there is a considerable village with houses similar to the one on the side.” Kenneth Ames, contributor to “Life in the Big House; Household Labor and Dwelling Size on the Northwest Coast,” calculates the volume of wood in this house to exceed half a million board feet (1,200 m³). One house, a multi family dwelling, found in Nanaimo, the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, is documented as being made of split cedar planks that were “held in place by withes (cedar rope) that come from the long lower branches of Cedar trees that grow in open spaces.” (Fraser)
The cedar ropes that secured the planks to the uprights and beams allowed the people to deconstruct their homes and bring their planks with them to the next location. These planks were not small nor were they easily obtained, but they were valuable assets and as such, they were transported with the household goods during the seasonal migrations. The house frames were left intact until the next season when the people returned and reattached their traveling planks and reconstructed their home.
There were two distinct roof types found in this region. Both types are on a rectangular house that has a hearth or fire pit. One type is gabled, paired ridgepoles, vertical wall, and roof, planks with an interior pit that was reached via steps. On Vancouver Island in around Puget Sound, Captain James Cook described the shed roof structures. His description is that of a cruder type building that may have been in the adaptive stages of the house type that may have been brought to the coast by the Salish people who modified as needed with the changed location. These shed roof houses are the largest constructed anywhere in this region.
The articles that have been written by anthropologists describe the shed roofs as being shed type that are not consistent in description as to the roof pitch. One informant will state that the roof was slanted to the back of the house, and another will say it was pitched to the front, or the side of the house. The question may be answered by thinking about the direction of the rain; the pitch is away from the rain. The roof pitch was adjusted according to the direction from which the rain comes down. Regionally, the rain comes from the south.
During his third mapping voyage, 1778, Captain James Cook described the homes he saw at Nootka Sound as not having a door. He described irregular openings through which the Indians passed in and out. The “Old Man House
Old Man House
Old Man House was the largest "bighouse" in what is now the U.S. state of Washington, and once stood on the shore of Puget Sound...
” had a maze “consisting of a series of parallel walls partly uncovering each other, around which the visitor had to pass.” The maze ended in a dark area that housed the fire pit. One explanation for this configuration was as a defense against intruders. Military strategy states that this would be a very difficult position to defend, and once the enemy was inside they could set it on fire with great ease. A more logical explanation lies, again, with the weather consideration. The lack of doors and the cedar mats room dividers did little to keep the wind and rain out, and in all probability, the mats served as windbreaks. The indigenous people lived, worked, and understood the weather; it was integral to their lives and their livelihood.
Anthropologist Ronald Leroy Olson, whose subjects were the Quinault
Quinault (tribe)
The Quinault are a group of Native American peoples from western Washington in the United States.-Lands:The Quinault Indian Reservation, at , is located on the Pacific coast of Washington, primarily in northwestern Grays Harbor County, with small parts extending north into southwestern Jefferson...
, Tlingit and Kwakiutl
Kwakiutl
The term Kwakiutl, historically applied to the entire Kwakwaka'wakw ethno-linguistic group of originally 28 tribes, comes from one of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribes, the Kwagu'ł or Kwagyeulth, at Fort Rupert, with whom Franz Boas did most of his anthropological work and whose Indian Act Band government...
tribes, defines the coasts of the Pacific Northwest as the place for rectangular plank houses. The coastal region of British Columbia to the mouth of the Copper River in Alaska with one exception; the Athabascan Tseutsaut of the head of Portland Canal who used temporary brush and bark lodges. The Alaskan people are more likely to use spruce
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...
wood, which has characteristics similar to cedar, due to the availability of that resource. Cedar was the material of choice for the coastal people of southwestern Canada, and Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.
Other uses
Also a historic type of house construction, widespread in North America, with structural, exterior sheathing thicker than one inch. The vertical wall planks are often two inches thick and more than ten inches wide and support a roof framing system. Sometimes with mud or daub packed into the gaps between the planks. The planks can be pinned with wood pins, nailed or mortiseMortise
Mortise or mortice may refer to:* Mortise and tenon, a woodworking joint* Ankle mortise, part of the distal tibia joining the talus bone to form an ankle joint* Mortise chisel, a type of chisel* Mortice lock - a deadlocking lock....
d onto the top and bottom timbers. Of European origin to North America, somewhat related to Stave Church
Stave church
A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts have lent their name to the building technique...
.
External sources
- Maurer Site Information at www.sfu.ca
- Maurer Site Information at www.asbcnanaimo.nisa.com
- www.sciencecourseware.org
- A plank house that has been reconstructed
- A mudslide animation and documents a plank house
- Official web site of Quinault Indian Nation
- Photographs of Indian houses, camps and villages. Late 1800s to very early 1900s.