The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups Tuesday said they intend to file a federal lawsuit to force BNSF Railway and six coal companies to better contain the coal being shipped in open-topped trains.
By Hal Bernton
The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups Tuesday said they intend to file a federal lawsuit to force BNSF Railway and six coal companies to better contain the coal being shipped in open-topped train cars.
In a legal notice sent to the companies, the environmental groups contend that the trains are spewing coal dust and chunks of debris into the Columbia River, the Lake Washington Ship Canal and other Northwest waterways in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
The legal challenge comes as environmental groups are campaigning against proposals to build new coal-export terminals in Washington and Oregon that would greatly increase the amount of coal trains moving through the Northwest.
“This action today seeks to stop illegal pollution and keep our river free of dirty coal,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of the Columbia Riverkeeper. “The threat of coal export makes this lawsuit even timelier.”
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and RE Sources for Sustainable Communities also signed on to the intent-to-sue letter.
In a statement released Tuesday, BNSF said that the railroad has ”safely hauled coal in Washington for decades. Yet despite the movement of so much coal over such a long period of time, we were not aware of a single coal dust complaint lodged with a state agency in the Northwest or with the railroad until the recent interest in coal export terminals.”
“This is nothing more than the threat of a nuisance lawsuit without merit, that is part of an ongoing campaign to designed to create headlines to influence the review process for proposed export terminals,” the statement said.
In Washington state, major new export terminals are proposed for Longview and Cherry Point near Bellingham to send Montana and Wyoming coal to Asian markets. Some coal already is being shipped through Washington for export from British Columbia, and some is shipped to coal-fired plant near Centralia.
That legal notice was accompanied by a listing of more than 20 sites in Washington where coal has spilled since the beginning of 2011.
The document also includes photographs that depict coal dust blowing off a train as it passes along the Columbia River near Horsethief Lake. They also show what appear to be nuggets or chunks of coal at other locations, including near the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle.
In a teleconference with reporters, several Washington residents spoke about their experiences with coal from the trains. Don McDermott, of Dallesport, Klickitat County, says that coal dust has blown off the trains and settled on his grapevines that grow beside the railroad track in a fish pond.
“My primary concern is that there is trespass on my property,” McDermott said. “The railroads need to contain their loads. The shippers need to contain their loads.”
The legal notice by environmental groups cited industry studies that indicated from 250 to 700 pounds of coal were lost from each rail car during transport.
Courtney Wallace, the BNSF spokeswoman, said that past studies were rough estimates, and indicated the coal losses fluctuated, primarily while the trains were within the Powder River Basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming.
She said the studies were done before 2011, when new regulations to reduce coal dust were put in place.
Wallace says the new coal-loading rules require shippers to take added measures to address coal loss, including putting chemicals known as “topper agents” on the coal that reduce most of the coal-dust loss.
The chemicals also have stirred some concern.
In a Jan. 22 letter to agencies that will prepare the environmental-impact statement for the proposed Cherry Point terminal, the Washington Department of Natural Resources notes that one of these chemicals used in cleaning up the 2010 Gulf Oil spill has “been implicated in subsequent fish and shellfish deformities.”
Controversy is Jeremy Scott’s thing; you may remember Co.Design’s coverage of his Adidas shackle sneakers, which braced wearer’s ankles with chains. “In retrospect,” wrote Mark Wilson, “they weren’t such a fantastic idea.” Last month, Scott unveiled his 2013 Adidas Originals collection, and while it’s not all easy punchlines about race and ethnicity, many critics are up in arms about several garments that borrow from Pacific Northwest Native American traditions.
Scott’s thing is parroting genres and subgenres–which usually results in some pretty awesome hybrid garments. Take a peek at the lookbook and see how many distinct cultural sects you can count. I got to five, at least. Scott gives nods to late ’70s British skinheads, ’80s urban streetwear, and ’90s raver culture, to name just a few.
The 2013 collection stumbles into some problematic territory when it comes to a series of tracksuits, shoes, and dresses decorated with cartoon renderings of Pacific Northwest Native American carvings–what some bloggers are calling “totem pole print.” Totems originated as a way for some First Nation groups along the Pacific coast to honor their ancestors, describe legends, and sometimes, memorialize the dead. Scott’s simplified the symbology and tacked them onto dresses, tracksuits, and sneakers.
Curious what those in the Native community would think, I reached out to Jessica Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa who is a professor of Native American art, fashion, and design. As it turns out, she’d already seen the designs and written a post about them. “Misappropriations like this one are bad, unethical, and in some cases illegal,” she told me. “Bizarre, garish, unpleasant and disgusting were several terms used to describe this outfit by people in the Native American community. Several individuals noticed that his inspiration was unoriginal, and that his take on Northwest Coast formline was ignorant, disrespectful and badly construed (in other words, Scott needs to work on his ovoids and u-forms).”
More than that, Metcalfe explains, they devalue the meaning and quality of the original source material. “When companies like Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, or Adidas put out tacky images like this, they perpetuate the idea that Native American people have no sense of ownership or artistic legacy when it comes to our art, and anyone can steal it, tack their name on it, and make a buck–all the while putting forward the idea that our art is ugly and cheap,” she says.
After mulling over these images for a bit, I wondered if there’s a “right” way to do this. Metcalfe thinks so–after all, she’s built a business mindfully promoting Native designers through her blog and online shop, Beyond Buckskin. For the prolific and often very funny Scott, it seems like a missed opportunity: Why not make this a joint effort with the First Nation artists? I’m willing to bet that the fruits of that collaboration would’ve been super interesting. Instead, we get a cartoon version of a tradition that goes back hundreds of years. Even divorced from its historical underpinnings, it’s just sort of. . .lazy.
Whether you agree with critics or not, it seems that Adidas wants to keep these from American eyes–these pieces won’t be available in the United States. Check out the full collection and judge for yourself here.
YAKIMA — A Northwest Indian tribe urged federal officials to explain their position against slaughtering horses in the United States, calling it “absurd” to prohibit the practice.
The question of equine slaughter has been a hot-button issue in the West, where horses hold an iconic role as loyal companions. Animal welfare groups have expressed outrage at the idea of resuming domestic slaughter, which Congress effectively banned in 2006 by cutting funding for federal inspection programs. Others, including some animal welfare groups, contend the ban has resulted in increased horse abuse and abandonment and booming wild horse populations on state, federal and tribal lands.
No group is perhaps more affected by the matter than the Yakama Nation, a Washington tribe with an estimated 12,000 wild horses roaming across its sprawling reservation in the arid, south-central part of the state, Yakama Nation Chairman Harry Smiskin said in a March 29 letter to President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“We don’t understand why it is OK to slaughter many animals in this country — certainly the White House and the USDA have meat on their cafeteria menus every day — but for some reason horses are considered sacrosanct,” Smiskin wrote. “We should not manage these horses based on purely emotional arguments, story books or movies we all saw as children.”
Smiskin argued the market for horse meat in other parts of the world, as well as the United States before World War II, could create jobs, humanely reduce overpopulated herds and feeds others, adding “it is absurd to prohibit it.”
Smiskin declined to talk about the letter in a telephone interview Monday.
Congress lifted the slaughter ban in a spending bill the president signed into law in November. Now the USDA is preparing to inspect a southern New Mexico meat company that has been fighting for more than a year for approval to convert its former cattle slaughter operation into a horse slaughterhouse.
Valley Meat Co. sued the USDA last year to resume the inspections, and the agency said last month it had no choice legally but to move forward with the application, as well as several others. However, the Obama administration threw a new twist into the more than yearlong debate with a statement urging Congress to reinstate the ban.
Several Northwest tribes have joined together in support of opening a horse slaughterhouse in the region to address booming wild horse populations on their reservations. The Yakama and Colville tribes in Washington, the Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes in Oregon, and Shoshone Bannock in Idaho say the horses destroy medicinal plants and damage habitat for other species.
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Associated Press writer Jeri Clausing contributed to this story from Albuquerque, N.M.
A retired Marine’s journey aims to raise awareness for those wounded in war
Mark Mulligan / The Herald Chuck Lewis, a Marine Corps veteran living in Ronan, Mont., walks eastbound down U.S. 2morning toward Gold Bar on Monday, the second day of a 3,300 mile, 6-month journey across the U.S.
By Gale Fiege, The Herald
STARTUP — Retired Marine Corps Sgt. Chuck Lewis is walking for the fallen.
U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines killed in war or those who returned with physical and mental disabilities are the focus of his cross-country campaign.
Lewis is committed to walk 3,300 miles from Everett to Washington, D.C., during the next six months to raise money and awareness for programs that help military veterans.
Lewis, 62, from Ronan, Mont., began his patriotic journey Easter morning at Legion Park in Everett where Bill Quistorf, an Army veteran who lives near the park, shook his hand. Lewis said goodbye to his wife and daughters and started walking down Marine View Drive to Hewitt Avenue headed to U.S. 2.
He won’t see his wife again until he reaches Kalispell, Mont. They’ll have another reunion in Dubuque, Iowa, and she plans to meet him in late September when he finishes at the Vietnam Memorial in the nation’s capital. Hoping to walk 25 miles a day, Lewis plans to reach Chicago, dip down to North Carolina and then up to Washington, D.C.
Lewis, a Vietnam veteran and retired electrical engineer, is pushing a flag-decorated cart loaded with a tent, a sleeping bag, clothes for any weather condition, a second pair of shoes and a solar panel to power his iPhone, which is interfaced with a SPOT global positioning system that allows his supporters to track his progress online.
He spent Sunday night at the Sultan Firehouse, where firefighters Steve Tonkin, Michelle Fox and Andrew Lowry decided to take Lewis out for supper.
“He’s got a long way to go, so we wanted to give him a good start,” said Tonkin, 47. “Chuck’s a good guy. I’m a veteran, too, so what he’s doing hits home in several ways.”
Though he was prepared for chilly rain, Lewis donned a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt Monday morning to continue his spring walk along U.S. 2 in the Skykomish River valley.
In Startup, Lewis wondered aloud if this was the community where he would begin to see some elevation gain.
“Is this where I start going up? I see the mountains ahead,” Lewis joked. “I already have a blister, but I’ve run 100-mile races and I’m prepared.”
While taking a break, Lewis told a story about two Marine Corps veterans who returned to Ronan last year from combat duty in Afghanistan. One came home missing his legs. The other killed himself three weeks later.
“In the military, these guys have a purpose and people who have their backs. When they get home, everybody is busy, so they have nobody to talk to. The economy is poor and they can’t find a job,” Lewis said. “I probably can’t help too many of these guys personally, but I can raise awareness and money for the programs that can.”
Lewis waves to the drivers who honk their horns. Occasionally people stop him to ask about his journey.
The side of his cart is decorated with a thermometer graphic that shows how much Lewis has raised for veterans. His goal is $50,000, but he has a second thermometer ready to go should people donate more.
Lewis invites people to walk with him through their towns. If anyone asks, he is able to give a presentation about his trip. He also welcomes help with places to sleep, shower and wash clothes.
Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, www.nwifc.org
OLYMPIA – The state of Washington must fix fish-blocking culverts under state-owned roads because they violate tribal treaty rights, federal Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled on Friday, March 29.
“This is a historic day,” said Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually tribal member and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “This ruling isn’t only good for the resource, but for all of us who live here. It will result in more salmon for everyone. This is a great victory for all who have worked so hard to recover wild salmon.”
Martinez issued a permanent injunction requiring the state to repair more than 600 state-owned fish-blocking culverts over the next 17 years to “ensure that the State will act expeditiously in correcting the barrier culverts which violate treaty promises.” Treaty Indian tribes filed the initial culvert case litigation in 2001. The tribes, the United States and the state spent several years trying to settle the case, but were unable to reach agreement.
Tribes reserved the right to harvest salmon in treaties with the United States government more than 150 years ago. That right was upheld in U.S. v. Washington, the 1974 ruling that recognized the tribal right to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and established the tribes as co-managers of the resource with the state.
The injunction was necessary, Martinez ruled, because the state has reduced repair efforts in the past three years, resulting in a net increase of fish blocking culverts. At the current rate, repairs would never be completed, he ruled, because more culverts were becoming barriers to salmon than were being fixed.
“The salmon needs our help now,” Frank said. “Salmon habitat throughout the region continues to be damaged and destroyed faster than we can repair it, and the trend is not improving. This ruling is a step in the right direction.”
Blocking culverts deny salmon access to hundreds of miles of good habitat in western Washington streams, affecting the fish in all stages of their life cycle. State agencies told the Legislature in 1995 that fixing culverts was one of the most cost-effective strategies for restoring salmon habitat and increasing natural salmon production. In 1997 state agencies estimated that every dollar spent fixing culverts would generate four dollars worth of additional salmon production. Recent studies support the state’s findings.
In the ruling Martinez wrote that the state’s duty to fix the culverts does not arise from a “broad environmental servitude” by the state to the treaty tribes, but rather a “narrow and specific treaty-based duty that attaches when the state elects to block rather than bridge a salmon-bearing stream. . .”
“Judge Martinez’s ruling was clear,” Frank said. “Our treaty-reserved right to harvest salmon also includes the right to have those salmon protected so that they are available for harvest, not only by the tribes, but by everyone who lives here.”
Cost estimates provided by the state are higher than the actual repair costs shown in court, Martinez held. He noted that repairs would be funded through the state’s separate transportation budget and would not come at the expense of education or other social services. Costs will be spread out over a 17-year correction program. As highway projects go, the corrections are mostly small.
“The cost will be a small sliver of the State’s two-year $7 billion transportation budget,” Frank said.
The March 29 ruling follows an August 2007 summary judgment issued by Martinez in favor of the tribes, but did not include a remedy to fix the culverts. He encouraged the tribes and state to continue to try and resolve the issue outside of court, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
“We prefer to collaborate with the state to restore and protect salmon and their habitat,” Frank said. “However, the state’s unwillingness to work together and solve the problems of these salmon-blocking culverts in a timely manner left us with no alternative except the courts.”
Photo courtesy of Rep. John McCoy Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, during his Air Force duty in the 1960s. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, a major supply base for U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.
There was no heroes’ welcome. When Tim McDonald and other Americans returned from their Vietnam War duty, they were ignored or worse.
“Many Vietnam veterans, myself included, we didn’t feel the support of the nation at all,” he said Thursday.
McDonald, 65, was in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. He was in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971.
It was 40 years ago today — March 29, 1973 — that the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam, officially ending direct American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Two years later, in 1975, the Saigon government fell.
McDonald lives on Whidbey Island. He is retiring today from his job as director of the Snohomish Health District’s communicable disease control division. Not only does the Vietnam War seem like ages ago, he said, “it seems like an entire separate universe.”
One major difference between then and now is the honor accorded servicemen and women returning from war. Today, Americans are united in our gratitude for veterans’ military service.
During the Vietnam War era, that wasn’t so. Troops came home to anti-war demonstrations, and were ignored or insulted.
Today, our state takes a step toward righting a wrong. At 9:15 a.m., Gov. Jay Inslee plans to sign House Bill 1319, an act declaring that March 30 be recognized each year as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Washington state.
Not a legal holiday, it’s a day of remembrance on which public places will display the POW-MIA flag along with the American flag. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Norm Johnson, R-Yakima, and a number of co-sponsors, including Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip.
The proposal was brought to Johnson by a member of the Yakama Warriors Association, an American Indian veterans group in Eastern Washington.
An Air Force veteran, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1968. That was the year of the Tet Offensive, heavy attacks by North Vietnamese forces. Clark Air Base was the major supply base for U.S. forces in Vietnam.
McCoy didn’t serve in Vietnam, but his memories of seeing what happened there are vivid.
“My place of work was across the street from the base morgue. I did see coffins stacked up,” McCoy said Wednesday.
He said his wife Jeannie had the harder time. A civilian worker in the base hospital’s records section, “she had to take records all over the facility,” McCoy said. “Hallways, waiting rooms, everywhere was clogged with the wounded, still in battle uniforms. It took her a long time to get over that.”
It is decades late, but McCoy hopes the day to welcome Vietnam veterans home will make a meaningful statement.
“My hope is that it brings closure for the troops, that their service is acknowledged and that it was not in vain,” McCoy said. “We still have veterans — that war will never leave them. They still struggle with it,” he said.
After Inslee signs the bill, the state House and Senate will honor Vietnam veterans. There will also be a short ceremony today at the Washington State Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Capitol campus.
“Too often our Vietnam veterans returned home to a less than grateful nation, so it is fitting that we embrace these heroes today,” Alfie Alvarado, director of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement Thursday. She said Washington is home to more than 200,000 Vietnam veterans.
Heidi Audette, a spokeswoman for the state’s veterans department, said Vietnam veterans are encouraged to seek the benefits they earned. “There are specific problems tied to exposure to Agent Orange. It’s not too late to go back to the VA, for either health care services or disability compensation,” she said.
Tim Davis is the manager and head clinician at the Everett Vet Center, a facility of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The treatment Vietnam vets got after they got back home from Vietnam was almost criminal. They felt the rejection by the general population,” Davis said.
He believes that even if Vietnam veterans say the welcome-home day is coming way too late, the state’s action will touch them. “What they will say is, ‘It’s too late.’ The reality will be something different,” Davis said.
In recent years, veterans have told Davis that strangers have come up to thank them after seeing a baseball cap or other indication that they served in Vietnam. “They tell me this in tears,” he said.
Davis served in the Army from 1969 until 1991. During the Vietnam War, he worked in amputee services at Valley Forge Army General Hospital in Pennsylvania.
Today, he helps veterans of all ages who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
“It doesn’t matter if it was Somalia or Vietnam or Iraq, it’s all the same. But these young kids coming back have some appreciation from the country,” Davis said. “It’s different from Vietnam. They don’t understand what it feels like to be rejected by your country.”
McDonald, the Vietnam veteran from Whidbey, appreciates the welcome.
“The legislators who wrote this law did it to try to balance what happened in the past,” McDonald said. “They were doing something good. They really had their hearts in the right place.”
Herald writer Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story.
A federal judge has ordered culvert repairs to ensure tribes have fish to catch, as guaranteed by their treaty rights. The ruling could have broader impact on other types of development.
By Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times
A long-awaited tribal fishing-rights decision by a federal judge Friday means the state must immediately accelerate more than $1 billion in repairs to culverts that run beneath state roads and block access to some 1,000 miles of salmon habitat.
The ruling comes out of the landmark 1974 Boldt decision, which upheld the rights of tribes to fish. The ruling Friday by U.S.District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle is aimed at ensuring the tribes have fish to catch.
The ruling could eventually result in other court-ordered restoration work, according to tribal leaders and policy experts.
“This culvert case is a ringing of the bell, OK you got to wake up,” said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. “We have to protect and restore the environment while we continue to look creatively for ways to develop new job and industry opportunities.”
Martinez ordered the state departments of fish and wildlife, parks, transportation, and natural resources to accelerate work to remove, replace and repair about 1,000 culverts to help restore salmon runs within 17 years.
The state Attorney General’s Office had not decided as of Friday whether to appeal the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Martinez ruled in 2007 that Washington was violating tribal treaty rights by failing to protect salmon runs. He ordered the state and tribes to negotiate a schedule for fixing the culverts that block salmon passage to their habitat, but the parties were unable to reach agreement.
Friday’s order set standards and a deadline for the repairs.
While 17 years sounds like a long time, it’s been a dozen years since the tribes in 2001 asked Martinez to find that the state has a treaty-based right to preserve salmon runs and compel it to repair or replace culverts that impede them.
Many of the agencies have a backlog of plugged or failing culverts, the pipes that carry water beneath the state’s roadways.
The state has performed some $55 million in repairs to culverts since 2001, according to the Attorney General’s Office. However, the judge noted in his order that “despite past state action, a great many barrier culverts still exist, large stretches of potential salmon habitat remain empty of fish, and harvests are still diminished.”
Allowing salmon runs to decline further is a fundamental violation of promises made in the treaties of 1854 and 1855, Martinez wrote, under which tribes ceded most of what is present-day Western Washington.
“Governor Stevens assured the Tribes that even after they ceded huge quantities of land, they would still be able to feed themselves and their families forever,” Martinez wrote, referring to Isaac Stevens, Washington’s first territorial governor. “The promise made to the Tribes that the Stevens treaties would protect their source of food and commerce was crucial in obtaining that assent to the Treaties provision.”
While the order signed Friday focused on culverts, it may potentially have broader application to other habitat insults that harm salmon.
“Everyone knows there is a number of issues out there with regard to forestry, farming, development and standards that go along with all those different industries,” Allen said. “This case helps raise those issues on the radar.”
But the tribes’ main objective isn’t for the ruling to threaten the ability to create jobs, build homes and prosper, Allen said.
“It is a balance, so what do we do? It definitely lends itself as a steppingstone to the other issues, saying these are the other problems, and what are we going to do about them. It has to be part of the cost of doing business.”
In the short term, Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe and Association of Washington Tribes, said tribes want to sit down with the state to figure out a schedule and budget to implement the order.
“The tribes have always been, I feel, like in a war, and this is just one of those battles,” he said. “We have to be humble in victory and now hopefully go forward working on a plan with the state to tackle this.”
He called the order a victory not only for tribes, but all of the state’s citizens. “The Creator blessed us with one of the greatest natural resources, and it is enjoyed by people of all colors, not just tribes.”
Robert Anderson, director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington School of Law, said it is yet to be seen how far the implications of the order reach into other types of development and habitat protection and repair.
“But this is a legal shot across the bow,” Anderson said, “indicating that more needs to be done to repair habitat and stop further damage.”
Will Stelle, Northwest regional director for the National Marine Fisheries Service, called the order “sobering and significant” because it cements the fact that treaty rights are not only a federal obligation.
Ultimately, the case is about more than culverts, or fish, said Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation. The tribes want to protect not just a crucial food source, but a way of life, for Indians and non-Indians alike, she said.
“People will look back at this point in history, and I am confident that when the tribes stepped up to do this, they took a critical role in protecting Washington as we know it and the way we live here,” Sharp said.
“That is true for generations to come, and non-Indians will appreciate it, too. There is a common denominator with other residents that share these values.”
All photos courtesy Gathering of Nations Grand Entry at the Gathering of the Nations
Born out of humble beginnings, the Gathering of Nations, the world’s largest gathering of Native American and indigenous people, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in Albuquerque, New Mexico April 25-27. Considered the most prominent pow wow in North America, it will host tens of thousands of people and more than 700 tribes from throughout the United States, Canada, and around the world honoring three decades of Native American culture and traditions through dance, music, food and indigenous dress.
The three-day event includes more than 3,000 traditional Native singers and dancers competing and entertaining a capacity crowd, and more than 800 Native artisans, craftsmen and traders displaying and selling their work. In addition, dozens of different indigenous bands will perform various musical genres on Stage 49, and vendors will offer a wide variety of food in the Native America Food Court and Powwow Alley
As part of the Gathering of Nations, a young Native woman is crowned Miss Indian World and represents all native and indigenous people as a cultural goodwill ambassador. As one of the largest and most prestigious cultural pageants, Native American and indigenous women representing their different tribes and traditions compete in the areas of tribal knowledge, dancing ability, and personality assessment.
“This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Gathering of Nations, and we are busy planning for what we expect to be the largest and most exciting pow wow in the event’s history,” said Derek Mathews, founder of the Gathering of Nations. “The Gathering of Nations strives to be a positive cultural experience that is exhilarating for everyone. The pow wow features thousands of dancers performing different styles from many regions and tribes, offers the finest in Native American arts and crafts in the Indian Traders Market, a delicious variety of Native American and Southwest cuisine, and the best in contemporary performances in the arena, on Stage 49, and in Powwow Alley.”
The first Gathering of Nations was held in 1983 at the former University of Albuquerque where Derek Mathews was the Dean of Students, and a club campus adviser for the Indian Club. Four hundred dancers competed and about 1,000 spectators attended the first year. In 1984, the pow wow was moved to the New Mexico State Fair Grounds where it was held for two years. Then the Gathering of Nations moved to its current location, the University of New Mexico Arena (affectionately known as “The Pit”), in 1986. The organizers realized the Gathering of Nations had the potential to become a larger event and decided to create the Gathering of Nations Limited, a 501 c3 non-profit organization, allowing organizers to seek financial assistance to produce the event. Throughout the years, it grew to become the largest Native American pow wow in North America, but still honors its original intent of offering a pow wow contest that is fair to all dancers.
The Gathering of Nations is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the release of a new book and the launch of Gathering of Nations Internet Radio. The book titled 30 Years of Gathering: Gathering of Nations Powwow is a look back at previous pow wows and is told through photographs and written memories. The new book will be available in time for the event’s 30th anniversary in April. Additionally, the Gathering of Nations Internet Radio was recently introduced on iHeartRadio offering Native music of all genres including pow wow, rock ‘n’ roll and spoken word.
The 30th Annual Gathering of Nations begins Thursday, April 25, at “The Pit” with registration for singers and dancers and the start of the Miss Indian World competition. The crowning of Miss Indian World will take place on Saturday, April 27. The much anticipated “Grand Entry,” where thousands of Native American dancers simultaneously enter the stadium dressed in
colorful outfits to the sounds of hundreds of beating drums, begins at noon on Friday, April 26.
Gathering tickets cost copy7 per day, $34 for a two day pass, or $50 for a two day pass with VIP seating. They can be purchased at the door, or in advance online through mid–April. For participants and guests traveling to the 30th Annual Gathering of Nations from outside the state, Southwest Airlines has special airfare deals and Enterprise Rent-A-Car has an exclusive rental rate. In addition, the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel – Albuquerque is the host hotel for the event, and is offering special rates for camping facilities at Isleta Lakes.
For more information about the 30th Annual Gathering of Nations, visit GatheringOfNations.com.
Genna Martin / The Herald From left, Katie Hots, 4; Calista Weiser, 5; KC Hots, 7; Irwin Weiser, 8; Kane Hots, 5; and Aloisius Williams, 2, play Monopoly as Natasha Gobin and her spouse, Thomas Williams, make dinner at their home in Tulalip. Gobin, who teaches Lushootseed language classes, asks her children, KC, Kane, Katie and Aloisius, to count in Lushootseed as they play the game.
A long time ago, a young girl sat at the base of a cedar tree and cried.
She was all alone.
The tree asked why she was crying.
I am very sad, she said. I have no friends.
The cedar tree decided to distract the girl, and told her to pick up some of his roots.
You are going to make a basket, the tree said.
I don’t know how, the young girl said.
I will show you how, said the cedar tree.
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In a classroom at the Hibulb Cultural Center at Tulalip, a group of mothers practice the pronunciation of a language that almost disappeared.
Generations ago, at government boarding schools on the Tulalip reservation, caretakers beat the young people who dared to speak their native language, called Lushootseed.
The women in the classroom say the words, taking great care. The sounds are foreign, with back-of-the-throat glottal stops, tongue clicks and exhalations from the sides of their mouths.
Lushootseed was the language of the Coast Salish people living along the inland waters of what would become Washington state. Included were the Snohomish, Skykomish and Snoqualmie, who now are part of the confederated Tulalip Tribes.
Throughout Western Washington, various tribes are working hard to keep the language alive, especially as the elders die, taking with them a firsthand knowledge of Lushootseed.
Natosha Gobin, 32, has been with the department since she was a Marysville Pilchuck High School student volunteering at the tribes’ annual summer language camp. She started her seventh annual language class for families in February; the eight-week class ended on Tuesday.
The women start this final class by practicing in Lushootseed some commands such as “wait,” “hurry up,” “get ready” and other motherly things they plan to say at home.
“Pronunciation is crucial,” Gobin says. “You don’t want to ask your daughter to brush her hair and then have it sound like you want her to brush her squirrel.”
Using Lushootseed is not a female-only avocation. Some dads attend class when they can, but it’s primarily mothers in their 30s who have the passion for it.
Their children, who soak up the Lushootseed they are taught in their Montessori preschool on the reservation, color pictures of animals and birds in an adjacent classroom and practice the Lushootseed words for them. Occasionally a child runs into the adult classroom to exchange a picture for a kiss.
“When I think about traditional upbringing of children, the women took the kids along when they dug roots and went clam digging, while the men hunted and fished,” Gobin said. “Educating the children was a mother’s job, and that still carries through in many ways. It’s the nurturing and mothering bone in our bodies.”
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So the young girl gathered up some cedar tree roots to make a basket.
When she was done weaving as the tree had instructed, she showed off her basket.
Go to the river, the cedar said to the girl. Dip the basket in and gather up some water. Then bring it back.
But the water was dripping from the basket and by the time she got back to the tree it was almost empty.
The cedar tree told the young girl to weave the basket again. This time, the tree said, it must be tighter.
The girl was upset, but she did not give up.
—
Before the settlers, Lushootseed was spoken from south Puget Sound near Olympia north to the Skagit River watershed, and from Hood Canal east to the Cascade Range.
It was not a written language.
Northern Lushootseed was used by the Skagit, Samish, Swinomish, Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle and others. Southern Lushootseed was the language of the Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Nisqually, Skokomish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie and others. The Snohomish people spoke a mix of northern and southern dialects.
In the 1960s, a few elders in the region could still tell the ancient stories of the Coast Salish people.
That’s when Vi Hilbert, a member of the Upper Skagit tribe, began to help University of Washington linguist Thom Hess and music teacher Leon Metcalf record the language. Hess devised the system for written Lushootseed, with a symbol for each sound. Hilbert, who died in 2008, went on to become a revered teacher of the language and the author of numerous books.
In a video recording of Hilbert made a few decades ago, she talks about believing that the Creator had wrapped around her the work of keeping Lushootseed alive.Natosha Gobin shares the feeling.
“This is what I was meant to do,” Gobin said. “When I was a kid, I could say dog, cat, owl, goodbye and a cuss word. Now I dream in Lushootseed. My colleagues and I have attained a level of fluency. And we are better now than we were five years ago.”
The language department also includes Toby Langen, who learned Lushootseed from the Moses family and worked with Hess at the University of Washington; Michele Balagot, who teaches in the preschool, runs the summer language camp and has a master’s degree in education; and Michelle Myles, who teaches children and college students and has a bachelor’s degree. Four others are in training to be teachers who may soon help teach Lushootseed in the elementary schools and at Heritage High School.
Gobin, who earned an associate degree in Native American studies, has worked for the department for nearly 13 years.
A great-grandmother on her father’s side was one of those beaten for speaking Lushootseed.
“She didn’t want the family to be harmed, so she stopped speaking our language,” Gobin said. Along with banning the language among children, government officials tried to stop the practice of potlatches and other cultural traditions among the tribes.
“On my mother’s side, my great-grandmother Elsie spoke our language at home, as some people still do, with friends and family. My grandmother Della would sit underneath the kitchen table and listen to them joke and giggle together. That same great-grandmother also tried to keep the language going by teaching classes in the community. That’s where I get my passion for it.”
Not everyone shares that passion or can take the time to learn the language, Gobin said.
“We live in a fast-paced world and I understand that,” she said. “But we will keep trying to reach out to share it. That’s what my grandfather, Bernie Gobin, would have wanted me to do.”
—
The second time the young girl came back from the river, only about half the water had leaked out of the basket.
She tried a third time, but the basket was still not woven tight enough and a few drops leaked out.
On the fourth try, she did her best work.
She returned to the cedar tree with the basket full of water.
Your basket is very nice, the tree said. You did such good work and you did not give up.
—
The first hour of the family language class is spent eating supper, usually pizza and salad. It’s a time to relax and share the news of the day. After the children are dismissed to their activities, the parents get to work.
This year, the class curriculum focused on words and phrases that could be used in everyday conversation at home. The goal is to keep the children speaking what they have learned already, Gobin said.
The moms ask Gobin for resources, such as flash cards, translations of family songs, framed phrases to hang up around the house and a phonetic pronunciation guide.
The word in Lushootseed for sibling is very similar to the term for cousin. Since many of the women in the class are related, there is a familial atmosphere.
“The women here are comfortable with each other. We want the same thing,” said Udora Andrade, 31, a mother of two. “We want our kids to understand the ancestors and claim the cultural habits.”
Clarissa Young-Weiser, 30, is Tulalip and Shoshone-Bannock. She and her children, Erwin, 8, and Calista, 5, often practice Lushootseed or listen to recordings of the language in their van on the way to school or the store.
With the kids confined in the car, it is a good time for them to help her refine her pronunciation.
Young-Weiser plans to take Gobin’s class every year and each summer to put her children in the language camp. It is important because she grew up without a focus on American Indian culture, Young-Weiser said.
“At one point, I thought about learning another language, like French, but later it clicked for me that I really didn’t want a foreign language, I wanted my language,” she said. “I want my kids to be able to speak to each other in Lushootseed. I want them to know who they are. I want them perhaps to have the honor of being asked someday to offer up prayers for the community in their tribe’s language.”
Norene Warbus, 32, married into the tribe. She and her husband, Shane, teach their children at home, where they work on Lushootseed together.
“I want my children to be able to tell the tribe’s stories in their language,” she said.
Her friend Zee Jimicum says her own focus on the language is not about studying the past, but looking to the future.
“I wasn’t raised at Tulalip, so I missed out on traditional storytelling,” Jimicum said. “So for me, it’s about revitalizing the language and the culture. Besides, when I use one-word Lushootseed commands on my kids, they say ‘Ooh-kaay.'”
Brianne DiStefano, 33, is taking college courses in Lushootseed, as well as the family class with her children.
“It’s an enlightening process, getting to know more about one’s own people and the way they thought,” DiStefano said. “It’s not surprising that the class is mostly women. The Idle No More movement, which is sort of the American Indian Movement of today, was organized by native women in Canada. As mothers, we care about tribal sovereignty, the environment and natural resources. We’re not just thinking of ourselves, but of everyone who lives in America.”
—
Now, take your basket and give it to the oldest woman in the village, the cedar tree told the young girl.
The girl was upset about having to give away her first basket, but she loved the elders.
Back in the village, there was a gathering. The speaker granted the girl permission to present her basket.
The oldest woman in the village was happy and excited to receive the young girl’s first basket.
The woman knew how difficult it had been for the girl, but she was pleased that the skill had been handed down.
— “Her First Basket,” a traditional Coast Salish story
—
At American Indian naming ceremonies, funerals, potlatches and other gatherings that require witnesses, traditional items are given to those witnesses. Children of the Tulalip Tribes learn to respect the speakers at these events and to listen intently. They also learn that when they first make a craft, it must be set aside to be given away at a gathering.
The grandparents at Tulalip are always pleased about young children learning traditional ways, Gobin said.
“I yell at my kids, but I want them to learn all the teachings. I want them to be seen and not heard,” she said. “It is not for my benefit. It is so they learn to be good people.”
Gobin has four children: KC, 7, Kane, 6, Katie, 4, and 2-year-old Aloisius.
They understand her commands in Lushootseed, and most of the time they comply. The language is part of the routine at home.
“In a world where they will be labeled, often negatively, I hope my children will know who they are,” she said. “The words of our language have depth and are empowering. It feels spiritual to speak it and to understand it. It teaches our values, such as respect for one another and the world around us. Sometimes we forget what is important and what life is really all about, but the language connects us with our ancestors.”
When Gobin was pregnant with her oldest child, she had the idea that she would raise a first speaker of Lushootseed and not immediately speak English with him.
“The hard part was that I wasn’t as fluent back then and I was really the only one around him speaking Lushootseed,” Gobin said. “When KC got to preschool, he came home and said, ‘My teacher, Miss Virginia, knows how to talk like you, Mom.’ I told him, ‘It’s our language, son.’ Then I realized my kids were thinking their mom was a nut case. They thought what I was saying wasn’t real. I told KC, ‘It’s real, son. It’s real.’ ”
At the last class on Tuesday, Gobin thanked her students and presented Tulalip language department T-shirts to all.
“Without you,” she said, “I am just that crazy lady talking to myself. You make my job worthwhile, because it’s not about me, but about a language that belongs to a whole region of people.”
Gobin said she will never stop teaching or speaking Lushootseed.
“I’m a lifer. I will not give up. I will be one of those elders who talks to the kids and continues to tell our stories.”
Learn more about the Tulalip Tribes’ Lushootseed Language Department and its classes, and check out audio and video clips at www.tulaliplushootseed.com.
YouTube. Superman settling in for his afternoon shift.
Recently on Santa Catalina Island, California a majestic bald eagle laid three eggs that are scheduled to hatch this Easter weekend!
The Pet Collective’s YouTube page is streaming incredible, live footage featuring lifemates and soon-to-be parents Wray, a 27-year-old female from British Columbia, and K01 (affectionately nicknamed “Superman”), a 13-year-old male hatched at the San Francisco Zoo and released onto Catalina when he was 12 days old.
In late February and early March, Wray laid her three eggs in the pair’s cliffside nest overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Eagle eggs incubate for about 35 days, marking at least one of these beloved eagle chicks to be born over Easter weekend.
