by Beckye Randall in North County Outlook
The Arlington-Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce has contracted with Butler Amusements, the folks behind the carnival at the Evergreen State Fair, to bring their rides and games to Smokey Point for a four-day event. The carnival will be set up at the corner of 172nd St. NE and 51st Avenue NE, near the Arlington Airport, June 27 through 30.
There’s no admission charge, and a $20 wristband is good for rides all day long. Individual ride tickets will also be available.
The wristbands are available in advance at the Smokey Point Walmart, and at Coastal Community Bank at 16419 Smokey Point Blvd.
“There will be a midway with games and some concessions,” said chamber manager Mary Jane Harmon, “and we’ll have some food vendors as well.”
And the rides? Butler is bringing some of the most popular carnival rides, including the Zipper, the Scrambler, the Cyclone and the Tilt-a-Whirl. Kids’ rides include Goofyville, a crawl-through maze, the Galaxy Swing and, of course, a giant slide.
“Butler Amusements has an excellent safety record,” said Harmon. “They have rides for all ages.”
Paul Frank parent company Saban Brands President Elie Dekel surrounded by products featuring Paul Frank icon Julius the Monkey. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / June 19, 2013)
By Booth Moore, Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2003
On Tuesday, I wrote a post about the new “Paul Frank Presents” collection of accessories designed in collaboration with Native American artists.
After so many egregious misappropriations of Native American culture by fashion brands (“Navajo” T-shirts at Urban Outfitters and feather headdresses on the runway at Victoria’s Secret), I wrote that it was heartening to learn that Los Angeles-based Paul Frank, the brand that turned a sock monkey into a fashion statement, announced it is collaborating with four tribes in regions across the country in what seemed to be an authentic way, giving artists the opportunity to design accessories for a special collection launching in August on PaulFrank.com.
(The artists include Louie Gong from the Nooksack tribe; Candace Halcro from the Cree/Metis tribe; Dustin Martin from the Navajo tribe; and Autumn Dawn Gomez from the Comanche/Taos tribe.)
But I failed to include the backstory. Dr. Jessica R. Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa from North Dakota, who writes about Native American art, fashion and design, as well as owning and operating the site BeyondBuckskin.com, where many of the artists tapped by Paul Frank sell their designs, elaborates on the collaboration in an illuminating post here.
“While I am undeniably thrilled about the announcement and all that it represents, the press release failed to mention the various factors that led to this collaboration,” Metcalfe writes. “Last September, the lifestyle brand Paul Frank hosted a “powwow”-inspired fashion event that featured some questionable party favors and activities.”
“After a sizable backlash from people from Native American communities and our allies, the brand removed over a thousand images of the event from their Facebook page, and the president of the company, Elie Dekel, reached out to myself and Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations. He reached out to the two of us, I think, because we had been the loudest in pointing out the obvious racism behind this event … and so it began — the gesturing to apologize for this major slip-up,” Metcalfe writes.
Although Paul Frank’s collaboration with Native American artists will undoubtedly help bring the work of these talented young people to a wider audience, the company should have been forthcoming in press materials about the journey it took to get here. Because what is corporate responsibility without full disclosure?
Who Are My People?, documentary by Robert Lundahl, premiered on Saturday in San Diego, California. The film explores the disconnect that occurs when non-Indians assume that using sacred ground for renewable energy is an automatic benefit that must outweigh the rights of the land’s indigenous peoples to their ancestors’ history and ongoing traditional practices.
At the heart of the dispute is a contest between Native American traditions and developers and government officials who contend benefits from the projects such as greenhouse gas reductions and renewable energy production outweigh their disturbance of cultural resources in the bleak desert terrain.Some of those resources, Lundahl said, seem “downright strange to Anglo-European eyes – like enormous geoglyphs, or earth drawings, visible from space, including giant human-like forms and complex geometries.”
“Stranger still,” he added, “international energy companies want to build their facilities right on top of these sacred communications from the distant past. In the process, they are tearing apart the social and cultural fabric of indigenous descendants.”
Mr. Lundahl is white. He has a history of making documentary films about Native subjects and issues, for which he has received a number of industry and academic awards. Those awards, however, are bestowed by the dominant culture, and are not themselves an indicator of whether he gets it right from an Indian perspective. That said, it appears that he makes an effort to showcase actual Native voices in his films, and this one appears to be no exception.
For those who wish to view the film, the release dates are listed on the film’s official Web site as “Coming Soon.” The site does, however, make it possible to view a trailer and read about Mr. Lundahl’s artistic vision and intent. Since the premiere occurred only two days ago, it’s worthwhile to keep tabs on future showings, particularly to see how it’s received in the portions of Indian Country that the film covers.
For the Salish-speaking tribes of the Washington coast, canoes were traditionally not only their most important form of transportation, they were also cultural icons. The Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve honors the Tulalip (Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and others) cultures.
The importance of canoes to the Tulalip peoples is evident in the Hibulb Culture Center. The canoe theme shown in the windows above is repeated throughout the Center.
Canoes were made by hollowing out a single log with fire and adzes. By filling the hollowed out log with hot water, the canoe makers could then widen the canoe by forcing stout cross-pieces between the gunwales.
Carving a canoe begins with spiritual preparation: the carvers must prepare themselves with fasting, prayers, and the sweatlodge. It is not uncommon for the task of carving a large canoe to take two years. Once the log is chosen, a prayer is said for the cedar and an offering is given to thank it for its sacrifice.
The final stage in carving the canoe involves the use of hot rocks and water to steam-bend the sides outwards. This steaming also draws the bow and stern upwards as well as adding strength to the vessel. For the large ocean-going canoes, the prow and stern pieces are added last, the thwarts and seats are installed, and the exterior is finished. Then the canoe is given a name and is ready to begin its life on the water.
Three canoes are displayed in the Center.
River Canoe:
The river canoe shown above was carved about 1880 by William Shelton. It was restored by the Tulalip Tribes Carving and Arts Department.
The bow of the canoe is shown above.
Small Canoe:
This small canoe was carved about 1930 from a single log by William Shelton.
Ocean-Going Canoe:
This canoe was made about 1880 as part of a wedding dowry. The canoe was built by the bride’s family from the Quinault Nation and given to the Tulalip groom is a wedding present.
Shown above is a detail of where the mast would have been placed. Sails, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were made from woven mats.
The canoe was made from hollowing out a single large cedar log. The sides were then spread apart and the bow and stern pieces were then added.
The bow is shown above.
The stern of the canoe is shown above. The stern piece was added to the dugout form.
The photograph above shows the additional piece which was added to the gunnels.
The photograph above shows how the thwarts (i.e. seats) were attached.
The 24th Annual Stillaguamish Festival of the River is Auguat 10-11. 2 days of Music and Family Events, including entertainment by Jonny Lang, Lee Bridge and the Duncan Family.
Snohomish Count’s River Meadows Park, Arlington, WA
New York City will again be alive with pow wow this weekend. Following the hugely successful Gateway to Nations Pow Wow in Brooklyn, the city’s American Indian Coummunity House presents the Health Awareness-Healing the City Pow Wow on Saturday, June 29. The American Indian Community House been serving NYC’s Native community since 1969.
The pow wow will emphasis Indian country health awareness issues, as well as feature dance contests. The host drums are SilverCloud Singers and Mystic River. The event will be held at the Art Directors Club in Manhattan.
For more information, visit Aich.org, the AICH’s Facebook page or see the flyer below.
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.
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
Source, ESRI TeleAtlas
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.
Full moon at Tulalip, February 19, 2013 by Mike Bustad.
Jamie Mooney, Coastal Resource Specialist and NOAA PMEL Liaison, Washington Sea Grant
During the next week the full moon associated with the summer solstice will bring extreme high tides called King Tides to our coast. The term ‘King Tide’ is a non-scientific term used to describe naturally occurring, exceptionally high tides that take place when the sun and moon’s gravitational pull align making the oceans “bulge.” While the King Tides during the summer are not as large as winter King Tides, these exceptionally high tides depict what could be the new normal as sea level rise progresses. This June high tide event marks a good opportunity to select your favorite locations to photograph both now and in December to compare!
Photos taken during king tide events document impacts to private property, public infrastructure, and wildlife habitat across the state, highlighting areas most vulnerable to sea level rise. We want to continue capturing what happens during extreme high tides, and we need your help to do it! Be safe! Take extra precautions when you walk on slippery areas or near big waves, and always be aware of your surroundings and the weather conditions.
Please participate in the Washington King Tides initiative by photographing these high tide events and uploading them to Flickr!
Mark Mulligan / The Herald Terrance Patterson, 22, of Stanwood, skates off of the new ramps recently installed in the skatepark at Heritage Park in Stanwood on Tuesday afternoon.
The Daily Herald
STANWOOD — The city’s skate park got a makeover this month, with the older wooden ramps replaced by modular-style steel ones.
“It’s a lot more interesting and a lot more fun,” said Nate Brown, 19, of Stanwood, who was one of several people testing out the new ramps this week.
“It flows really good,” said Terrance Patterson, 22, of Arlington.
The Vito Z Memorial Skate Park NW features a mix of these ramps around a two-step concrete platform and skate rail. The skate park is open from dusk to dawn and is located in Heritage Park at 9800 276th St.
The city paid $60,000 for the new ramps, which were installed by the American Ramp Co. over a couple of days earlier this month.
Christie Connors, director of the Community Resource Center, helped organize a meeting about the project in March with local skaters. She was one of the original park organizers in the late 1990s.
“These improvements are long overdue,” Connors said. “I’m glad the city stepped up to provide skaters and others with a safe and healthy place to play in town.”
The Vito Z Memorial Skate Park was opened in 2000 by a group of Stanwood students and adults. The park is named in honor of Vito Zingarelli, a 1-year-old, who drowned in 1993.
The park can be reserved for private parties through the city’s Streets and Parks Department.
Reservations
For more information about the park and reserving it for events go to the city’s website at www.ci.stanwood.wa.us or contact public works assistant Lisa Noonchester at 360-629-9781 or lisa.noonchester@ci.stanwood.wa.us.
Get ready to rock your country roots on Saturday when national country artist Hannah Michelle Weeks graces the stage at Historic Everett Theatre.
Weeks, originally from Stanwood, is celebrating the release of her first single to country radio, “More Than One Kind of Love,” and the kickoff of her national radio tour.
Weeks splits her time between Washington state and Nashville and is happy to share her celebration with her hometown fans.
Weeks has a new album, “Now That I Know,” which is scheduled for release on Aug. 6. To thank her fans back home, an exclusive copy will be available at this show.
Weeks is described as a country entertainer that delivers a fun and energetic show that is family friendly and open to all ages.
Seattle native Susan Ruth Robkin, an award-winning singer and songwriter, will open for Weeks.
Weeks just performed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville with some of country music’s big names such as Joey+Rory, who were nominated for Top Vocal Duo for the Academy of Country Music.
Weeks will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday at Historic Everett Theatre, 2911 Colby Ave., Everett.
Tickets are $15. Call the box office at 425-258-6766 or online at www.etix.com or at the door.
