Native ironwork in the Northwest Coast has been found in places like the Ozette Indian Village Archeological Site, where iron chisels and knives were discovered. These artifacts seem to have been crafted around 1613, based on the dendrochronological analysis of associated pieces of wood in the site, and were made out of drift iron from Asian (specifically Japanese) shipwrecks, which were swept by the Kuroshio Current towards the coast of North America.
The tradition of working with Asian drift iron was well-developed in the Northwest before European contact, and was present among several native peoples from the region, including the Chinookan peoples and the Tlingit, who seem to have had their own specific word for the metallic material, which was transcribed by Frederica De Laguna as gayES. The wrecking of Japanese and Chinese vessels in the North Pacific basin was fairly common, and the iron tools and weaponry they carried provided the necessary materials for the development of the local ironwork traditions among the Northwestern Pacific Coast peoples,
although there were also other sources of iron, like that from  meteorites, which was occasionally worked using stone anvils.