Although the Quinault were initially friendly and helped their new white neighbors, increasing numbers of pioneers arrived with their radically different ways, which created friction. Fishing and lumber communities mushroomed and dotted the region. Industry followed homesteading as whites began to tap the area’s natural resources.
In the 1820s, white trappers, traders and settlers began to discover the Quinault and other western Washington tribal homelands. The Quinault people remained isolated from European contact until they visited the Spanish vessel Sanora in their canoes on July 13, 1775. Lewis and Clark, on their famed trek to the Pacific Ocean, noted that the craft were “…upward of 50 feet long, and will carry 8,000 to 10,000 pounds’ weight, of from 20 to 30 persons….” The original Quinault flourished with access to good fishing (especially salmon and steelhead), hunting, berry picking and wood gathering. Taholah is the heart of the Quinault Indian Nation. The word Quinault evolved from kwi’nail, the name of the tribe’s largest settlement once situated at present-day Taholah, at the mouth of the Quinault River. The Quinault people reside on a reservation of 189,621 acres in northwestern Grays Harbor County, along Washington’s coast.
