The West Coast and California in the 1700s

These hardy pioneers found vast meadowlands, shoulder-high stands of native bunch-grasses as well as tree-dotted savannahs. Miles of marshlands surrounded the Bay and combined with the grasslands produced an unheard of number of habitats that supported an almost unimaginable richness and variety of plants and animals.

Frenchman Jean F. G. de la Perouse remarked about the abundance of geese, ducks and seabirds that defied counting and blackened the sky when they took off from the water. The animals seem to have lost their fear and became familiar with man. They were so tame that you could walk up to them and catch them without aid of a net and when one shot into the group you could down half-dozen birds at one time. Herds of elk and pronghorn antelope grazing in the meadowlands were like herds of cows they were so numerous. Packs of wolves hunted rabbits, deer, elk, antelope and other game. Coyotes roamed everywhere and were so bold that they entered the tule huts and took what they wanted. Father Pedro Font remarked that the grizzly bears were “horrible, fierce, large and fat.” They were seen everywhere. The Ohlones avoided them due to their mean temperament. Many of the Indians had felt the wrath of the bears and had the scars to prove their fierceness. They were so respected for their temperament they became the emblem for our flag and statehood.

Rivers were full of trout and salmon during their annual mating run. The streams and in the shallows of the Bay were full of clams and oysters that were easy pickings for thousands of years. More than 400 shellmounds dotted the Bay, some over 100 feet high and containing the remains of many abandoned villages.

The ocean abounded in whales that could be seen on their annual migration up and down the coast. The ocean and Bay Shore were favorite resting areas for sea lions and sea otters. Hundreds of thousands of otters could be found along the West Coast and the Bay. They were so tame when the Europeans arrived that they could be caught by chasing them on land. Now they spend almost all of their time in the water to avoid being caught. It could be said that the otter was what brought California out of its isolation. Trading with foreigners was forbidden by the Spanish government but ships plied the coast in hopes of doing a little illegal trade with the missions and those who owned land grants and ranches.

In the 1770s, captains discovered that the Chinese would pay $40 for an otter pelt. The race was on. Ships immediately began trading for otter pelts and shipped them to China. To catch the otters, help would be needed and the Yankees found out that the Russian post in Alaska would supply native Alaskans if the traders paid the Russians a percentage for their help. Eventually, the Russians expanded their hunting down the West Coast in competition with the Yankees. The profit was so overwhelming that the Russians built a settlement (Fort Ross) above Point Reyes in 1812 and started heavy completion for the pelts. They brought the Aleut hunters two-man canoes down the coast and worked the San Francisco Bay under the nose of the Spanish. A ship, the Albatross, while in the Point Reyes area, discovered a huge population of otters on the Farallon Islands. Leaving some workers on the island in 1810 to hunt, the ship returned in 1811 and when the Albatross left Point Reyes, it had 73,402 pelts in its hold.

Rediscovering the Peninsula by Darold Fredricks appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal.