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Learn about Chief Seattle and his tribe in a pilgrimage to new museum

A new $6 million tribal museum on the Kitsap Peninsula tells the story of the people and culture that produced a man named Seattle.

Originally published January 26, 2013 at 7:00 PM

By Brian J. Cantwell

Seattle Times travel writer

Anybody new to Seattle might wonder about the city’s name. It’s not like New York, named after a place in the “old country,” or Madison, named for a dead president.

Seattle is named for a peace-loving Indian chief — a little classier than Chicago, derived from a native word for wild garlic.

When you’ve been here long enough to be settled in and have a favorite coffee order, it’s time to learn more about your hometown’s heritage. Make a ferry-ride pilgrimage to the Kitsap Peninsula, to the winter home and final resting place of the city’s namesake, Chief Seattle.

And now’s a good time to go, because the chief’s tribe, the Suquamish, has opened a handsome new museum where you can learn all about Chief Seattle’s people and their culture.

One surprise: The chief himself gets a conspicuously modest mention.

2020199114 — A Red Hat Society group from Poulsbo learns about a 300-year-old canoe hoisted by sculpted figures of tribal people at the new Suquamish Museum.
Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times

The 9,000-square-foot, $6 million tribal museum, which opened in September a few hundred feet from the chief’s grave in the village of Suquamish, replaces a well-respected museum dating to the 1980s.

In part with newfound wealth from its Clearwater Casino, the tribe hired Storyline Studio of Seattle to design new exhibits, and Mithun Architects created a stained-wood building surrounded by native plantings of sword fern, wild currant and cedar.

Inside, it’s a gleaming example of modern museum concepts with a topical “less is more” orientation that doesn’t overwhelm. A single, compact hall showcases artifacts from tribal archives, or even from contemporary tribal members’ attics or family rooms (giving the sense that this is truly “living history”).

In the permanent exhibit, “Ancient Shores — Changing Tides,” simple island-like displays communicate large themes:

• “Teachings of Ancestors” includes a bone sewing needle and a cedar-root basket from the site of Old Man House, the longhouse on a nearby beach where Chief Seattle spent much of his life.

• “Spirit and Vision” has a mystical Tamanowas Stick, a personal-spirit symbol usually buried with a person, and a cedar mask with wild eyebrows and blushing cheeks.

• “Gifts from Land and Water” includes, among other things, a utilitarian clam-digging stick and a mean-looking wooden club used to kill salmon.

• “Shelter, Clothing and Tools” displays old and new, such as a dress astoundingly made of shredded cedar alongside a championship jacket from the 1984 national Indian Slo-Pitch Tournament.

• “Opportunity and Enterprise” are represented by 21 baskets of cedar bark, historically used for gathering clams and berries. (The modern representation of enterprise might be the tribal casino, which collects many “clams” from its patrons.)

• “Wisdom and Understanding” gives a puzzlingly brief nod to Chief Seattle. Context comes from this narrative: “(He) is perhaps the most famous of tribal leaders from the Salish Sea. But for the Suquamish people he was just one of many admired leaders throughout our history, each celebrated for their own unique skills.”

Six other leaders from across the years get the spotlight, with artifacts such as the gavel of Grace Duggan, the tribe’s first judge.

Why not dedicate more space to the leader for whom the big city is named?

“I think that the tribe is consciously trying to move away from (Chief Seattle) being the beginning, middle and end of the tribe,” explained museum director Janet Smoak. “It’s in no way a reflection of less esteem or less respect.”

Exhibits briefly reference Chief Seattle’s famous 1854 speech when he played a key role in treaty negotiations as his people were moved to reservations (see the speech’s full text on the tribe’s website at www.suquamish.nsn.us; search for “speech”). A peaceable man in tune with the Earth, he noted with melancholy that “my people are ebbing away like a fast receding tide that will never flow again.” Yet he also delivered a burning message that his people’s spirits will forever inhabit this land.

Something the museum does well: a historical multimedia production, creatively projected from above onto three child-level platforms, showing happy times — old-time salmon roasts — and less happy, when tribal children forcibly attended military-type schools after Teddy Roosevelt declared America “would make good citizens of all the Indians.”

The museum’s trumping centerpiece is a carved canoe, more than 300 years old, used in the 1989 Paddle to Seattle, the first of a now-annual series of intertribal-canoe journeys around the Salish Sea. Hoisting it are six sculpted figures representing the Suquamish from ancient times to present, including two sea otters “from before the great changer came and made people into people and animals into animals,” Smoak explained, citing the kind of beliefs that defined the tribe.

Closer to the man

If you want to feel closer to the man Seattle, head a short ways down South Street to the cemetery adjacent to St. Peter’s Catholic Mission, circa 1904.

Reflecting varying spellings of both his name and that of his tribe, based on changing interpretations of the native language, a white marble marker is inscribed “Seattle, Chief of the Suguampsh and Allied tribes, died June 7, 1866, The firm friend of the whites, and for him the City of Seattle was named by its founders.” Below that, the other name by which he was commonly known: “Sealth.”

Here you’ll see more plainly how the tribe honors him, in the form of significant improvements made to the gravesite in 2009 with $200,000 plus in grants split between the tribe and the city of Seattle. Flanking the stone are beautifully carved 12-foot cedar “story posts” that highlight moments from the chief’s life, such as his childhood sighting of Capt. George Vancouver’s exploration ships in1792.

Also added was a retaining wall etched in the native Lushootseed language and in English with messages such as “The soil is rich with the life of our kindred.” A wheelchair-friendly path connects to the parking lot, and visitors may rest on benches shaped like Suquamish canoes.

Ending your journey

Walk through the village to see more changes new money has brought to Suquamish, such as the charmingly named House of Awakened Culture, a waterfront community center devoted to such activities as classes in language, weaving and carving.

Browse native art at Rain Bear Studio or grab lunch at Bella Luna Pizzeria, a rub-elbows nine-table eatery perched on pilings over the waterfront.

Better yet, on a sunny day, pack a lunch to Old Man House Park, historic site of the chief’s longhouse, five minutes away. Sit on a log and take in the view that Chief Seattle’s people still love: narrow and scenic Agate Passage on one side, and on the other a panorama of snowy mountains across diamond-glinting waves of the salty sound.

In its day, this beach was where a native leader could take in all of his world, or all of it that mattered.

Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com

If you go

The land of Chief Seattle

Where

From Seattle, take Washington State Ferries from Pier 52 to Bainbridge Island. Follow Highway 305 north toward Poulsbo. After the Agate Passage bridge, take the first right to Suquamish Way. In 1.2 miles, turn left at Division Avenue and then immediately right on South Street to the Suquamish Museum, 6861 N.E. South St. ($3-$5, www.suquamishmuseum.org).

Go a short distance further east on South Street to Chief Seattle’s gravesite. Continue downhill to the village center.

To reach Old Man House Park, from Suquamish Way take Division Avenue south and follow the arterial for .3 mile.

Special event

At 3 p.m. Feb. 23, the museum dedicates a new 40-foot-long wall-mounted timeline of tribal history with a lecture/presentation by Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman and Tribal Archaeologist Dennis Lewarch.

Lodging

Stay at the tribe’s 85-room waterfront hotel, part of Clearwater Casino Resort. Free daily breakfast in lobby with tribal art, fireplace and expansive views. Pool, hot tub, spa. Winter rates: $169 for a view room on a weekend. 15347 Suquamish Way N.E., www.clearwatercasino.com/hotel

Restaurants

The casino has a buffet, cafe and a steakhouse. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, 2-for-1 specials for club members can overcrowd the buffet (the Thursday I visited, there was a 90-minute wait for a buffet table at 6 p.m.). That steered me and my wife to an endearingly corny checkered-tablecloth bistro in old-town Poulsbo, That’s-a-Some Italian Ristorante, 18881 Front St. N.E.; www.thatsasome.com.

For lunch, try the $2.50 slices at Bella Luna Pizzeria, 18408 Angeline Ave. N.E., Suquamish; www.bellalunapizza.com.

More information

Suquamish Tribe: www.suquamish.nsn.us

Kitsap Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau, www.visitkitsap.com

Supreme Court decides on Baby Veronica case

Court gives 1% Cherokee girl to adoptive parents.

Little ‘Baby Veronica’ was adopted for more than two years, but an obscure law preventing the breakup of Native American families had forced her return to her father.

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 1:01 p.m. EDT June 25, 2013

WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court delivered a 3-year-old girl back to her adoptive parents from her biological father Tuesday despite her 1% Cherokee blood.

In doing so, the justices expressed skepticism about a 1978 federal law that’s intended to prevent the breakup of Native American families — but in this case may have created one between father and daughter that barely existed originally.

While four justices from both sides of the ideological spectrum found no way to deny dad his rights under the Indian Child Welfare Act, five others — including Chief Justice John Roberts, an adoptive father — noted that the adoptive parents were the consistently reliable adults in “Baby Veronica’s” life.

That the nation’s highest court was playing King Solomon in a child custody dispute was unusual to begin with. It had jurisdiction because Veronica is 3/256th Cherokee, and the law passed by Congress 35 years ago was intended to prevent the involuntary breakup of Native American families and tribes.

In this case, however, the family that got broken up was the adoptive one in South Carolina, led by Melanie and Matt Capobianco. They had raised Veronica for 27 months after her mother put her up for adoption. The father, Dusten Brown of Oklahoma, only objected to the adoption after the fact.

Brown won custody 18 months ago after county and state courts in South Carolina said the unique federal law protecting Native American families was paramount. The Capobiancos’ attorney, Lisa Blatt, had argued in court that the law was racially discriminatory — in effect banning adoptions of American Indian children by anyone who’s not American Indian.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito ruled for the majority that the law’s ban on breaking up Native American families cannot apply if the family didn’t exist in the first place. He noted the father had not supported the mother during pregnancy, texted his willingness to give up parental rights, and only changed his mind much later.

“In that situation, no Indian family is broken up,” Alito said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented along with liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan and conservative Antonin Scalia, said Veronica now will have her life interrupted for a second time.

“The anguish this case has caused will only be compounded by today’s decision,” she said.

Only once before has the law been tested at the nation’s highest court. Nearly a quarter-century ago, the court took Native American twins from their adoptive family and handed them back to a tribal council in a case that Scalia recently said was the toughest in his 26 years on the bench.

Only Scalia and Justice Anthony Kennedy were on the court for that 1989 case, in which the court ruled 6-3 for an Indian tribe’s custody rights. Scalia sided with the majority, while Kennedy joined the dissent. They were in similar positions this time as the court ruled against the law’s intent — Scalia again on the father’s side, Kennedy with the adoptive couple.

Tribes celebrate opening of $50M fish hatchery

From staff reports

June 19, 2013

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation will celebrate the opening of a $50 million salmon hatchery Thursday on the Columbia River.

The Chief Joseph Hatchery will raise chinook salmon for subsistence tribal fishing and non-native sport fishing in the nearby towns of Bridgeport and Brewster. The hatchery is adjacent to Chief Joseph Dam, which is as far north as salmon can swim up the main stem Columbia.

Each year, the hatchery will release up to 2.9 million salmon smolts, which will swim 500 miles downstream to the ocean. A certain percentage will return as adult fish that can be harvested.

John Sirois, chairman of the Colville Tribes, hailed the hatchery as a testimony to the “meaningful work” that can occur when federal, tribal and state governments cooperate on river restoration. In 2008, federal agencies responsible for salmon in the Columbia Basin signed agreements with the tribes and the states, pledging greater cooperation as well as additional funding for salmon projects over 10 years. The completed hatchery is due in part to that accord.

The hatchery will help mitigate for the construction of Grand Coulee Dam, which was built without fish ladders. When the dam opened in 1941, it cut off salmon runs to the upper third of the Columbia Basin. Grand Coulee also flooded Kettle Falls, where one of the Northwest’s most prolific salmon fisheries had flourished for 10,000 years.

The day’s events are open to the public. The celebration begins with an 8 a.m. first salmon ceremony at the hatchery administration building and concludes at 3 p.m. after tours of the hatchery. The hatchery is located on State Park Golf Course Road east of State Route 17.

Click here so view a PDF of Fish Accord Projects of The Confederated Tribes of The Colville Reservation

Feds approve 1.4B ton coal deal with Crow Tribe

The company that wants to export coal to Asia through ports in Washington and Oregon has an agreement with the Crow Tribe that would supply more coal than is consumed in the U.S. each year.

By MATTHEW BROWN

June 21, 2013 The Associated Press

Related

BILLINGS, Mont. — The U.S. government approved plans by a Montana Indian tribe to lease an estimated 1.4 billion tons of coal to a Wyoming company that’s moving aggressively to increase coal exports to Asia, the company and tribe announced Thursday.

The deal between Cloud Peak Energy and the Crow Tribe involves more coal than the U.S. consumes annually.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) approval allows Cloud Peak to begin exploration work on the Crow reservation.

Cloud Peak has pending agreements to ship more than 20 million tons of coal annually through three proposed ports in Washington and Oregon. Officials in both states oppose the port projects on environmental grounds, but federal officials said earlier this week they planned only limited environmental reviews of the projects.

Cloud Peak CEO Colin Marshall said preliminary work on the so-called Big Metal coal project — named after a legendary Crow figure — has begun. The company says it could take five years to develop a mine that would produce up to 10 million tons of coal annually, and other mines are possible in the leased areas.

The Crow Tribe’s coal reserves are within the Powder River Basin, which accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. coal production. Cloud Peak paid the tribe $1.5 million upon Thursday’s BIA approval, bringing its total payments to the tribe so far to $3.75 million.

Future payments during an initial five-year option period could total up to $10 million. Cloud Peak would pay royalties on any coal extracted and has agreed to give tribal members hiring preference for mining jobs.

The company also will provide $75,000 a year in scholarships for the tribe.

Crow Chairman Darrin Old Coyote said in a statement that the project is a high priority for the impoverished tribe’s 13,000 members. It revives longstanding efforts by the Crow to expand coal mining.

A $7 billion coal-to-liquids plant proposed in 2008 by an Australian company never came to fruition.

The three members of Montana’s congressional delegation — Democratic U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, and Republican Rep. Steve Daines — issued statements supporting the new agreement. They said it offers a chance to increase job opportunities on the 2.2-million-acre reservation along the Montana-Wyoming border.

Choice to support sister by cutting hair stirs row

Told to wear wig at work, she quits to show cancer fight

June 19, 2013

By Kaitlin Gillespie The Spokesman-Review

Dan Pelle photo Buy this photoStrandberg shaved her head to support her sister, Marisa Lowe. — Dan Pelle photo Buy this photo
Strandberg shaved her head to support her sister, Marisa Lowe.

There was no doubt in Melanie Strandberg’s mind when her sister was diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer. She had to shave her head.

She’d already done it once. Marisa Lowe, now 24, was first diagnosed with cancer in February 2012, and Strandberg shaved her hair to support the sister she calls her best friend.

This time, when 25-year-old Strandberg’s employer told her she had to hide her bald head with a wig, there was no doubt in her mind what she had to do: She resigned.

In a move that rapidly went viral, Strandberg quit her job as a salon supervisor at La Rive Spa at Northern Quest Resort and Casino last Thursday. She said a spa director expressed concern that she would offend the customers and that she wouldn’t be able to convincingly sell hair products without hair herself.

The sisters appeared on the “Today” show Monday morning, prompting public outcry on Northern Quest Casino’s Facebook page.

“It was a really tough decision, but in the end, my family is going to be there for the rest of my life,” Strandberg said.

Northern Quest denied how the events were characterized and in a statement on Tuesday the casino said her treatment is “inconsistent with our values, culture and past practices and it’s unacceptable.” The spa director who allegedly told Strandberg she couldn’t work without hair is on administrative leave.

Strandberg, who had worked at the spa since December, said she felt pressured by her supervisors to quit. Strandberg was told on several occasions to come back with a wig. When she went to human resources representatives to complain, they told her to follow her supervisors’ instructors.

“I didn’t do it to cover up,” she said. “I did it to support her all the time, and I wanted to show that and I took pride in it.”

Northern Quest initially said Strandberg hadn’t contacted its human resources department to complain about her treatment, but retracted that statement after an internal investigation.

Strandberg said that when she was contacted by HR the day after she quit, she was told not to come back to work those final two weeks and to turn in her badge and uniform.

According to Northern Quest, managers have repeatedly attempted to call Strandberg to offer her job back. Strandberg said that isn’t true. She said she received one email from HR the day after she resigned acknowledging her termination, and one phone call after she told her story on “Today.”

And besides, Strandberg said, she doesn’t want her job back.

“When somebody makes a negative comment in regards to how you look when you’re used to looking differently, it’s hurtful,” she said.

She has hired former Spokane County Prosecutor James Sweetser to represent her.

“This is an extremely meaningful gesture and she shouldn’t have been made to feel ugly, inadequate and unable to sell her product just because of the length of her hair,” Sweetser said.

Strandberg, a mother of three, was hired by the Glen Dow Academy of Hair Design, where she’ll be owner Martin Dow’s assistant. She hopes to begin teaching at the school.

Lowe is proud of her sister’s actions. Strandberg shaving her head helped show Lowe that she’s not alone, and regardless of La Rive’s actions, she’s happy with how her sister handled herself.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned from cancer,” Lowe said, “it’s that we know that even though you can be told the most terrible thing, it doesn’t mean that the end is anywhere near.”

Casino Powering Chumash Culture?

Anthropologist Paul H. Gelles Discusses New Book Chumash Renaissance

EYEING THE TRIBE: While working each summer for the tribe from 2003-2005, anthropologist Paul H. Gelles became fascinated with how much casino revenues had boosted the Chumash people’s cultural rebirth; so the Midland teacher spent the next few years researching and writing his academic study of that phenomenon. Paul Wellman

Thursday, June 20, 2013

By Matt Kettmann (Contact)

After 200 or so years of subjugation, discrimination, and poverty, it only took about a decade for the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians to completely flip the economic and political tables of Santa Barbara County, where they’re now one of the largest employers, a major philanthropic force, and a lobbying heavyweight. Yet because that rise to prominence came on the back of the Chumash Casino — a large resort opened in 2004 amid much public outcry on the Chumash reservation at the center of the Santa Ynez Valley — the success story has never been without controversy. And with plans to annex land across Highway 246 for a cultural center, as well as desires to develop the recently purchased 1,400-acre Camp 4 property into tribal housing, the past, present, and future of the Santa Ynez Chumash will be at the forefront of Santa Barbara politics for years to come.

Against that backdrop comes Chumash Renaissance: Indian Casinos, Education, and Cultural Politics in Rural California, a new book from anthropologist Paul H. Gelles. After studying South American tribes and teaching at UC Riverside for many years, Gelles came to live in the Santa Ynez Valley in 2003 when he was hired by the Chumash as a cultural coordinator for their summer camp. He worked in that capacity for two more summers, and then — in between teaching classes at Midland School, where he remains a teacher — Gelles spent the ensuing years researching, writing, and self-publishing this first attempt to show how integral casino revenues have been to saving and restoring traditional Chumash culture.

“Chumash culture was there before the casino, obviously, but the casino revenues have helped the tribe revitalize it and even bring things back,” said Gelles, explaining that, among other triumphs, the Chumash hired a linguist to recover and teach them the old Samala language. “It’s so different from where I worked in Peru, where there was a very strong culture with very little money. Here is a tribe that has financial resources to focus on culture and reclaim what has been taken from them.”

Along with the cultural rebirth has come an educational revolution for the tribe’s 1,200 descendents — who can tap into college scholarships — as well as actual political power, too, which Chumash elders wield at local, state, and federal levels in ways that were unimaginable just 20 years ago. “For the 50 million indigenous people from the Americas, probably 98 percent still live in abject poverty and have very little economic or political power,” said Gelles. “It’s not like I love casinos, but the casino tribes are the only indigenous people out of all the Americas that have gained economic and political power.”

While the book looks very favorably on the casino’s impact, Gelles doesn’t give his opinion on future plans, and he agrees that people have a right to oppose development. But he believes that the opposition groups represent a “vocal minority” of mostly “elite, white people” — many of whom came to the valley in fairly recent times — and questions their tactics. “What I object to is the way in which they denigrate the tribal members in the process,” said Gelles. “They question authenticity, which is very insulting. It’s very different than what other developments face.”

Gelles believes that’s partly because modern society has trouble reconciling the image of pristine Native Americans with the reality of successful businesspeople. “We like to think of Native Americans as being representative of what we’ve lost as a people,” he said. “We don’t think about the living experience of flesh-and-blood people.” But in his South American research, particularly on a group of Peruvian migrants who traveled regularly between their Andean village and Washington, D.C., Gelles knows that 21st-century success does not wipe out tradition. “What you find are that social mobility and modernity can be compatible with indigenous identity,” he explained.

Gelles mostly hopes his book helps remind his neighbors that they live amid many different kinds of people, not just rich, white ranchers. “I’ve got a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old, and I want them to grow up in a community that respects cultural diversity,” said Gelles. “The public institutions haven’t done a good job of educating people about the diversity that exists in the Santa Ynez Valley. I’m hoping to force a dialogue and discussion about this, and tell what’s largely an untold story.”

Arctic expedition to fight climate change

Attempting to row the NW Passage by man power alone.

CNC reporting from Vancouver, Caanada

June 20, 2013

To raise awareness to climate change and its effects, next month a group of eight adventurers will attempt to become the first to row, entirely through their own power, the 3,000 kilometers of Arctic waters above the American continent — that is, the Northwest Passage.

STANDUP (ENGLISH) AL CAMPBELL, CNC correspondent:
“Four Vancouver-based adventurer explorers, two Canadians and two Irishmen, are about to undertake the trip of a lifetime when they attempt a world first in rowing the 3,000 kilometer Northwest Passage entirely by human power in a seven-and-a-half meter boat. The expedition has a serious message in that it is meant to create awareness about the profound effects of climate change on the environment and how the Arctic ice melt will ultimately affect humans and all life forms on the planet.”

Speaking to media in Vancouver Tuesday, the four explorers will leave from Inuvik (IN-YOU-VICK) in Canada’s Northwest Territories July 1st with the goal of rowing 40 to 50 kilometers on average per day. With the sea ice in the Northwest Passage unblocked for only a three-month period in summer, the crew aims to get to Canada’s northern-most territory, Nunavut (NUN-A-VOOT), by September.

Lead rower Kevin Vallely (VAL-E-LEE) told CNC climate change is undoubtedly transforming the Arctic, and thus the world climate, and the voyage will document what’s happening and raise awareness of the phenomenon and its detrimental impact.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) KEVIN VALLELY, Lead rower:
“There is no doubt anymore, we’re causing this. And we’re causing it faster than we ever dreamed. Last year was the lowest extensive ice in the Arctic ever. We just past 400 parts per million in terms of carbon there a few weeks ago. It’s happening and it’s cascading and it’s one of these things, it’s an exponential thing. Imagine the sea ice, the sea ice from space is white. It reflects solar energy back into the atmosphere. Looking at an ocean it’s black and it absorbs it and it just gains heat.”

With the sea ice in the Arctic starting to break up in early July and freezing again in late September, crew member Frank Wolf says each team member will row about 12 hours a day in four-hour shifts.

Frank Wolf is a filmmaker documenting the experience. He says the crew will interview Canada’s Inuit people, the native inhabitants of the area, as well as gather scientific information by, for example, taking water samples, to share with the Canadian government and other organizations.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) FRANK WOLF, Crew member and filmmaker:
“The filming side will just be interviewing a lot of the Inuit up there who have seen how things have changed so dramatically over the last few decades. So to get their personal perspective of what’s gone on with life up there and how it’s affecting them is going to be a very relevant way for us to bring back the story of what’s happening as far as climate change goes in the Northwest Passage.”

To fund their voyage, the expedition has raised about 150 thousand ($150,000) Canadian dollars. About 80,000 dollars have gone into constructing the purpose-built Arctic Joule (JEWEL) boat featuring multiple layers of fiberglass, a reinforced hull, solar power for the electrical equipment, and two cabins to house the crew if needed in rough weather.

In an area rapidly changing with strong winds and large chunks of ice moving around the water, veteran explorer Vallely (VAL-E-LEE) says it won’t be an easy trip in an area where many 19th century explorers died in search of the Northwest Passage.

The route of the Arctic Joule through the Northwest Passage

Despite the Northwest Passage being part of Canada’s sovereign territory, Vallely suggests international dialogue is needed to ensure the proper development of the Arctic but also its protection.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) KEVIN VALLELY, Lead rower:
“And we need more dialogue like that, understanding where it’s going, and how quickly it’s changing, and what it means for everyone because we don’t want to move foolhardily into it and make mistakes in such a fragile eco-system we have to be very, very careful. We’ve blown it everywhere else, let’s not blow it there.”

The adventures of the Arctic Joule (JEWEL) can be followed online at www mainstream last first dot com (www.mainstreamlastfirst.com) as the crew will be writing a daily blog and posting images of the trip.

Best of luck to the crew. We’ll be keeping tabs on them.

Decades-long battle over the official name of ‘Denali’ continues in congress

Alaska's Denali or "The High One." Image-Public Domain — Alaska’s Denali or “The High One.” Image-Public Domain

By GW Rastopsoff | Alaska Native News

June 19, 2013

The congressional name game in regards to the changing of the name of Mount McKinley to the Athabaskan name Denali continues in Congress with Senator Lisa Murkowski commending her colleagues in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for helping advance legislation for the name change.

The Energy committee approved the measure to change Alaska’s mountain to its locally known name of Denali on Tuesday by a voice vote clearing it for consideration by the full Senate.

The battle for the name of North America’s tallest peak has gone on for years. Governor Jay Hamond championed the name changing cause in the 1970s. Alaska’s attempts to change the name of the mountain have been frustrated by the congressional delegates from the state of Ohio since 1975. It was that year that the Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name to Denali, and officially requested the name change from the U.S. Board of Geographic Names in Washington.

But, the Secretary of the Interior at that time, Rogers Morton, did not want the name of the mountain to change and so consideration was delayed. By 1977, Morton was no longer at the helm of the Department of Interior. Seemingly, with the obstacle to the name change removed, the Board moved to change the name of Alaska’s mountain.

But, that same year political maneuvering by Ohio’s Congressman Ralph Regula blocked the name change once more by gathering signatures from every congressional delegate from the state of Ohio.

Again in 1980 amidst the signing of ANILCA by then President Carter, the board of Geographic Names, due to make a ruling in December of 1980, deferred their ruling.

Knowing that the Board of Geographical Names had as its policy that no name change proposals would be considered if legislation is pending in Congress pertaining to the name, Congressman Regula made it a point to submit legislation every two years to Congress. This Ohio tradition was followed by Regula until his retirement in 2009.

Following Regula’s retirement, U.S. Representatives from Ohio, Betty Sutton and Tim Ryan picked up where Regula left off and continued the tradition of submitting legislation to Congress effectively blocking the Board of Geographical Names consideration.

The name of the mountain did not start as Mount McKinley however, it was originally called Densmore’s Mountain after a gold prospector named Frank Densmore in 1889. That name did not stick and it was named Mount McKinley by another prospector named William Dickey in 1897.

After the measure was passed by a voice vote on Tuesday, Senator Murkowski released a statement, “In Alaska, we don’t refer to it as Mount McKinley; we just call it Denali. That’s what we’ve called it for decades and decades,” Murkowski said. “We, as Alaskans, aren’t shy about reminding folks about how big and how beautiful Denali is, and that it’s ours. Making Denali the official name of America’s tallest mountain really means something to Alaskans.”

Senator Murkowski’s bill, S 155 would make the name Denali, which means “The High One” in Koyukon Athabaskan the official name of Alaska’s tallest peak.

Last year, Lou Yost, the board’s executive secretary said of the name change dispute, “Some names will cause some emotions and some consternation, but I don’t think we’ve had any that have gone on this long, or (at) that high of a level.”

Cherokee hopes to make inmates pay their own way

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians could make the inmates housed in its future jail pay — literally.

19 June 2013

Written by Caitlin Bowling

The tribe is considering a plan to garnish casino dividends of tribal members who find themselves spending quality time in Cherokee’s clink to help cover their room and board. Tribal Council members passed a resolution earlier this month giving the tribe’s attorney general the OK to draft sample legislation along those lines. Once written, it will need to pass Tribal Council and be signed by the chief.

Tribal Council Representatives Perry Shell and Tunney Crowe introduced the idea the council’s monthly meeting.

“It was something we had talked about the past,” Shell said. “I think it’s a good idea.”

However, exactly how much each inmate would have to pay up per day in the slammer is still up for debate. It could be a set amount or a percentage.

All tribal members get a cut of casino profits. The annual payments currently amount to about $8,000 a year each before taxes. The tribe already garnishes money from the casino dividend checks for child support, and as a result, Cherokee has the highest child support collection rate in the state.

If an inmate owed child support, Shell said, that would likely come out of the check first before anything else.

There are a number of steps left before the idea would become law. Tribal Council plans to hold work sessions to hammer out all the details as well as give their constituents a chance to weigh in. Shell said people have already contacted him to proffer their opinions.

“The reception I am getting so far is positive,” Shell said.

But there will be plenty of time for the tribe to figure out all the particulars. The Eastern Band will complete construction of a 75-bed jail, which is part of a larger justice center being built by the tribe, next year. The tribe doesn’t currently have a jail of its own and pays other counties a daily fee to house tribal inmates. Most inmates from Cherokee are currently housed at the jail in Swain County. Cherokee pays $?? per inmate per day.

It is common practice for county jails to stick inmates with a bill if they are held for fewer than 30 days. If their time in jail exceeds 30 days, the county can’t bill them for it.

Superheroes in Salish Design

Native artist Jeffrey Veregge embraces his nerdiness

Monica Brown, TulalipNews

Jeffrey Veregge, a Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal member, has been creating art for most of his life. A few years ago, after exploring different art techniques, Jeffrey decided to mix two art forms he admires most, Salish form line with comic book super heroes and Sci-Fi. “I took what I like of Salish form line design, the elements and the spirit of it and decided to mix it with what I do as an artist and put my own take on it,” said Jeffrey about his latest art pieces.

His earlier work had a Picasso-esque theme that centered on native images. “I love cubist art. I like that it is messy but to be honest my heart wasn’t behind it [his earlier work], it wasn’t a true reflection of me,” explained Jeffrey. After taking a yearlong break to learn how to accept his nerd side, Jeffrey began to embrace his love of comic books, action figures and science fiction by recreating his favorite characters in the Salish design.

“Salish form line is beautiful and this felt like a natural extension. Comic books, Star Wars and all this stuff are equivalent to modern day myths and Salish art tells stories and myths,” said Jeffrey.

The sleek lines of the Salish design applied to superheroes such as Batman and Spiderman give them a solid and defined silhouette against a simple background. Because the placing of empty space against the background and the color contrast are both well thought out, the figures convey a sense of power and motion to the viewer. “I want to represent the comic characters in a good and noble way which they were intended,” said Jeffrey.

Jeffrey is surprised and grateful for the success of his art, “A lot of native comic fans have approached me; a lot of support and wonderful emails, along with school programs asking for me to come show my work to inspire the students,” said Jeffrey. With the support from the fans he intends to recreate many more comic and Sci-Fi characters. Currently in the works are Iron man and possibly Deapool. Jeffrey is also organizing his attendance to the Tacoma Jet City Comic Show this November, where he will have a booth and be doing an exclusive print for the show and to Seattle’s Emerald City Comicon March 2014.

Jeffrey studied Industrial Design at Seattle’s Art institute and the Salish form line from Master Carver David Boxley, a Tsimshian native from Metlakatla, Alaska. Prints are available for purchase through his website, jeffreyveregge.com . T-shirt designs and baseball hats will be available for purchase soon.

His art can be seen at, In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Arts Exhibit located in Tacoma, at the LTD Art Gallery in Seattle, The Burke Museum and The Washington State History Museum. Other recent art commissions include a piece commissioned for the Tulalip Youth Center for their Suicide prevention campaign, a Steer Clear campaign with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and a double sided mural in Edmonton, Alberta.

For more information please visit jeffreyveregge.com