For centuries, the Chinook controlled the mouth of the Columbia and coastal lands from Willapa Bay to Tillamook Head, living at the center of a vast trade network in which they acted as middlemen exchanging salmon, other raw materials, and finished goods with neighboring tribes. Fishing powered this trade: men hooked and speared salmon, sturgeon, and eulachon, while women skinned, gutted, dried, finely pounded, and packed the fish into baskets holding as much as eighty pounds. This pounded salmon, which could keep for up to three years and was rich in protein and fat, was widely valued for its premium quality. Trade also supported marriages, the exchange of information, the development of art, and the mingling of cultures, while waterways carried goods, people, ideas, social practices, and technologies across hundreds of miles along the coast and inland, sustaining a sophisticated regional economy.