ABSTRACT
Clear Lake (Figure 121.1) and its watershed in Northern California constitute a serene and beautiful environment that has been used extensively by inhabitants of the surrounding basin for millennia. It has one of the oldest documented North American “early man” sites, with paleo-indian occupation of the Clear Lake Basin about 10,000 years before present (ybp) at Borax Lake, immediately adjacent to Clear Lake (Heizer, 1963). Native American settlement was relatively dense during European contact in the early 1800s, with about 3000 people scattered among 30 or so villages within the basin (Baumhoff, 1963). These people utilized the lake’s abundant fish, as well as tens of thousands of waterfowl and runs of native fishes in adjacent streams (Simoons, 1952) to supplement their staple acorn diet. Variously named Lupiyoma, Hok-has-ha, or Ka-ba-tin by early Native Americans (Mauldin, 1960); Big Waters by some of the early European pioneers in the 1820s; Laguna for a short time by Spanish Californians in the 1830s; and finally, Clear Lake in the 1840s, this lake has had a long and fascinating history. European or American trappers first started visiting the lake seasonally in 1833, but more permanent agricultural settlers did not arrive until the 1850s (Simoons, 1952).
