Doe-Kag-Wats

Doe-Kag-Wats is a saltwater marsh and sand spit complex near Jefferson Head that is a traditional Suquamish camping area and is used by contemporary Suquamish people for fishing, shellfish collecting, plant collecting, and religious activities.  The Coast Salish word is translated as “place of the deer”.  Archaeological sites and ethnographic data attest to the use of the marsh and sand spit for many centuries.  Suquamish people camped on the spit and on nearby hills in the summer and fished for dogfish, herring, and gruntfish.  Families collected blackberries, cattails, pickleweed and other plants that ringed the tidal marsh.  Men hunted deer that grazed on marsh plants and riparian plants inland from the marsh complex.  The extensive tidal flats exposed at low tide had abundant horse clams and other shellfish that were collected and processed on the beach and sand spit.