Neah Bay Archives - Tulalip News

Native 8-man Football Teams Dominate in Washington

Andy Bronson/Bellingham HeraldLummi's Deion Hoskins misses Neah Bay's Josiah Greene in the 1B Washington State Football semifinal game at the Tacoma Dome last month. — Andy Bronson/Bellingham Herald
Lummi’s Deion Hoskins misses Neah Bay’s Josiah Greene in the 1B Washington State Football semifinal game at the Tacoma Dome last month.

Neah Bay High School and Lummi Nation High School are rival Native high schools in Washington State. But they have a few more things in common.

Neah Bay won the Washington State 1A Football Championship this fall for the second time in three years; Lummi Nation won it in 2010, and has made it to State several years in a row.

Lummi High has about 100 students and Neah Bay Jr./Sr. High has about 168 and because of these small enrollment numbers, 8-man football is preferred for these rival schools over the traditional version of that varsity sport.

“There is no difference as far as the rules,” said Lummi Nation Head Coach Jim Sandusky. “There are three less guys on the field, so instead of seven guys on the line, you have to have at least five. That’s pretty much it.”

Lummi Nation is a tribal school located just a few miles from the Canadian line. Neah Bay, a state school, is located on the northwestern tip of Washington. Both football teams came into prominence in recent years and their proximity to each other has created a friendly rivalry.

And arguably, the success at each school can be traced back to the two coaches: Tony McCaulley at Neah Bay and Sandusky at Lummi Nation.

Sandusky, a Colville descendent, coached Ferndale youth football. He built a football field on his own property because there was no place for the football players to practice. His son Rocky was on the youth team that he coached, as well as Jake Locker, now quarterback for the Tennessee Titans in the NFL.

In 2003, Sandusky was hired as Lummi’s coach and athletic director. That year, they went 4-5 and missed the playoffs in the last game of the season. “Ever since [2004], we’ve made it,” said Sandusky, explaining that the team has made it to the playoffs every year since then.

McCaulley’s coaching career was somewhat similar to Sandusky’s. His son Ty started youth football and McCaulley coached him. He coached and played at Clallam Bay, a rival school just down the road from Neah Bay. He’s been coaching Red Devils for six years.

“We’ve been to the state semi-finals five of the six years. The worst year I had [was when] we lost in the state quarter-finals,” McCaulley said. But, Neah Bay was dominant this year. “We were undefeated and blew a lot of teams out,” McCaulley said.

Many of the Red Devils players have played together since eighth grade and all but one of the 39 players are Makah tribal members. Two players in particular are looking to play college football next year. One is the coach’s son, Ty, who plays fullback and the other is Josiah Greene, the quarterback.

At Lummi, only a few players have been on that team since 8th grade. “Dean Hoskins started for me ever since he was an 8th grader,” Sandusky said. “He just got All-State selection along with two other of our kids.”

Note the similarities: Each community had youth football programs with fathers coaching the kids. Sandusky and McCaulley were then hired by the schools to coach high school football. Since those two coaches have taken over, each program has had rather remarkable success: high ratios of wins to losses, and state championship wins with teams made up almost entirely of Native American players.

If Jake Locker can make it to the pros, then why not Ty or Josiah or Dean or Rocky or one of the other outstanding 8-man Native American high school football players.

Serial killer’s history a shock to those who knew him in Neah Bay

By Paul Gottlieb, Peninsula Daily News

NEAH BAY — Israel Keyes was described as a model citizen while he lived in Neah Bay between 2001-2007, fathering a girl, working for the Makah tribe and being a productive part of this tribal community.

So learning that he was a self-confessed serial killer was a shock last year to residents of this sea-swept village of 865, tribal Judge Emma Dulik recalled.

“He never seemed to cause any problems,” she said.

FBI investigators in Anchorage, Alaska, believe Keyes killed 11 people between 2001 and 2012, and five of the murders happened while he was living in Neah Bay.

He claimed he dumped at least one body into Lake Crescent, but Olympic National Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said park officials have no plans to search the lake without more exact information about the location of a body.

Maynes said the park had no missing-person reports that correlated with the period of time Keyes lived in Neah Bay.

He was issued “a few overnight backcountry permits” during that time, Maynes said.

The FBI said Keyes sought many of his victims while hiking and camping.

“We have been talking with the FBI and are making sure we are sharing information completely with them,” Maynes said.

To the best of their knowledge, none of Keyes’ victims lived in Clallam or Jefferson counties, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict and Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez said Tuesday.

They said there no links between Keyes and missing-person reports or ongoing cold-case investigations in the two counties.

Both sheriffs had been contacted by the FBI.

Keyes’ former partner and daughter still live on the Makah reservation, tribal members said.

“He did work for the tribe, doing landscaping all over the village,” Dulik said.

“At the entryway, he cut the grass, put a sign up, and went through the village putting out plants and flowers and things.”

Keyes also was known as a good father, Dulik added.

Keyes often shopped at Washburn General Store in Neah Bay, owner Greg Lovik said.

“All my help liked the guy,” Lovik said.

“He seemed to be a level-headed, good worker. He could fix about anything, is what I am told.

“There was nothing that stood out that he was a troublemaker or anything.”

“When it hit the papers, [about Keyes confessing in Anchorage to being serial killer], everybody was going like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it,'” Lovik said.

“Most people I talked to couldn’t believe it because he was such a good worker and a personable guy.”

Janine Ledford, executive director of the Makah Cultural and Research Center, said many tribal members knew Keyes but now are reluctant to talk about him.

“Most of us aren’t interested in feeding the public curiosity about how we feel about a murderer being in our midst,” Ledford said.

Meredith Parker, general manager of the Makah tribe, issued this statement Tuesday afternoon:

“Out of the respect for the family of Mr. Israel Keyes, the Makah tribe will not be making any formal comment to the media related to Mr. Keyes’ time spent in Neah Bay.

“In addition, it is standard policy that the Makah tribe does not comment on any individuals employed or formerly employed by the tribal organization or its enterprises.”

SERIAL KILLER II: Murderer tied to five slayings while living in Neah Bay, including body in Lake Crescent

Peninsula Daily News and The Associated Press

PORT ANGELES — FBI agents have linked 11 killings to admitted serial killer Israel Keyes, including five murders from 2001 to 2006 while he lived in Neah Bay.

Keyes told agents he weighed down at least one body with anchors and dumped it from a boat into 100 feet of water in Lake Crescent, 18 miles west of Port Angeles.

The FBI on Monday released a timeline of travels and crimes by Keyes, a handyman and owner of an Alaska construction company who committed suicide in his Anchorage, Alaska, jail cell in December 2012 while awaiting trial for the kidnapping and murder of an 18-year-old barista.

Before his death, police said he admitted to at least seven other slayings, from Vermont to Washington state, hunting down victims in remote locations such as parks, campgrounds or hiking trails.

In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the FBI office in Anchorage said agents now have added three more to that grim tally, based on his statements, and said the timeline sheds some new light on a mysterious case that left a trail of unsolved killings around the country.

FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said the goal of releasing the information is to seek input from the public, to identify victims who remain unknown and to provide some closure to their families.

“We’ve exhausted all our investigative leads,” Gonzalez said.

Anyone who might have information about Keyes or possible victims is asked to call the FBI at 800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324).

The FBI said Keyes lived in Neah Bay in 2001 after he was discharged from the Army.

While he was living there, Keyes committed his first homicide, according to the timeline.

The victim’s identity is not known, and neither is the location of the murder. Without giving any specifics, Gonzalez said the FBI did not know whether this murder occurred in Washington state.

The FBI documents said Keyes frequented prostitutes during his travels and killed an unidentified couple in Washington state sometime between July 2001 and 2005.

Keyes also told investigators he committed two separate murders between 2005 and 2006, disposing of at least one of the bodies from a boat in 12-mile-long Lake Crescent.

“Keyes stated at least one of the bodies was disposed of in Crescent Lake in Washington, and he used anchors to submerge the body,” the FBI said.

“Keyes reported the body was submerged in more than 100 feet of water.”

Keyes reportedly lived and worked in Neah Bay from 2001 to 2007, employed by the Makah tribe there for repair work and construction, before moving to Alaska.

When he killed himself in jail, the 34-year-old Keyes was awaiting a federal trial in the rape and strangulation murder of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who was abducted February 2012 from the Anchorage coffee stand where she worked.

Keyes confessed to killing Koenig and at least seven others around the country, including Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vt., in 2011.

Keyes also told investigators in Alaska that he killed four people in Washington, but names and details were lacking, according to an FBI news release.

He said he killed two people in separate incidents sometime in 2005 or 2006, and then “murdered a couple” in the state between 2001 and 2005.

The FBI said Monday that Keyes is believed to actually have killed 11 people, all strangers.

Keyes told investigators his victims were male and female, and that the murders occurred in fewer than 10 states, but he did not reveal all locations.

Koenig and the Curriers were the only victims named by Keyes because he knew authorities had tied him to their deaths.

Keyes told investigators only one other victim’s body besides Koenig’s was ever recovered, but that victim’s death was ruled as accidental.

The bodies of the Curriers were never found.

The FBI said Keyes admitted frequenting prostitutes, but it’s unknown whether Keyes met any of his victims this way.

Keyes said he robbed several banks to fund his travels along with money he made as a general contractor, and investigators have corroborated his role in two holdups, according to the FBI.

Keyes also told authorities he broke into as many as 30 homes throughout the country, and he talked about covering up a homicide through arson.

The timeline begins in summer of 1997 or 1998, when Keyes abducted a teenage girl while she and friends were tubing on the Deschutes River, he told investigators.

The FBI said Keyes was living in Maupin, Ore., at the time, and the abduction is believed to have occurred near that area.

Keyes moved to Anchorage in 2007 but continued to travel extensively outside the state.

After killing Koenig, Keyes flew to New Orleans, where he went on a cruise.

He left Koenig’s body in a shed outside his Anchorage home for two weeks, according to the FBI.

After the cruise, Keyes drove to Texas.

The FBI said that during this time, Keyes may have been responsible for a homicide in Texas or a nearby state — a crime Keyes denied.

Keyes was arrested in Lufkin, Texas, about six weeks after Koenig’s disappearance. He had sought a ransom and used Koenig’s debit card.

Three weeks after the arrest, Koenig’s dismembered body was found in a frozen lake north of Anchorage.

The FBI said Keyes also traveled internationally, but it’s unknown if he killed anyone outside the U.S.

He is known to have been in Belize, Canada and Mexico.

Remote areas

Keyes frequented remote areas such as campgrounds, trailheads and cemeteries to pick victims, according to the FBI.

While the specifics of his murders are largely unknown, the FBI hopes that by elaborating on Keyes’ whereabouts and the nature of his crimes, anyone with information might come forward to provide details on who Keyes’ victims may have been.

“In a series of interviews with law enforcement, Keyes described significant planning and preparation for his murders, reflecting a meticulous and organized approach to his crimes,” the FBI wrote in a release accompanying the timeline.

“It’s a more comprehensive timeline,” Gonzalez said of the updated breakdown of Keyes’ whereabouts.

“It’s based on investigations and on speaking with Keyes. It’s the best timeline that we have. We’re really just opening it up and putting it all out there at this point.”

Keyes killed himself by slitting one of his wrists and strangling himself with bedding, police said. He left behind an extensive four-page note that expressed no remorse nor offered any clues to other slayings.

He studied other serial killers but “was very careful to say he had not patterned himself after any other serial killer,” Anchorage Police Detective Monique Doll said last December.

Investigators said he had “a meticulous and organized approach to his crimes,” stashing weapons, cash and items used to dispose of bodies in several locations to prepare for future crimes.

Authorities have dug up two of those caches — one in Eagle River, Alaska, outside Anchorage, and one near a reservoir in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

Makah Tribe plans golf course, new cabins

Source: Round House Talk News

PORT ANGELES — The Makah tribe continues to add economic development in Neah Bay and is working on a nine-hole golf course to increase tourism and recreational opportunities.

New activities and more accommodations for visitors is a large part of the tribe’s current focus, Mike Rainey, enterprise business manager for the Makah tribal government, told an audience of about 40 at a Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon Monday at the Red Lion Hotel.

A parcel has been set aside on the Makah reservation to build a nine-hole recreational golf course in Neah Bay for the use of residents and for visiting fishermen who would welcome an alternate activity, Rainey said.

However, he said, there is no new activity on a previously discussed concept to build a zip-line park on Makah lands.

“There are a lot of people talking about it and no one doing it,” he said.

Currently, the tribe’s 2013 budget expects $7.2 million income from its resort, cabin and camping offerings, marina, restaurant and mini-mart, he said.

Rainey said that additional guest cabins are being built with more planned to accommodate an expected increase in visitors.

The tribe had a choice of importing prefabricated cabins or building them on site, he said.

History Sails Full Circle as Tall Ships Escort Northwest Native Canoes

on Arel/Coastal ImagesLady Washington, left, and Hawaiian Chieftain will escort 100 canoes. — on Arel/Coastal Images
Lady Washington, left, and Hawaiian Chieftain will escort 100 canoes.

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today Media Network

The first tall ships that visited Quinault territory were harbingers of European and American empirical designs. And not all of those visits ended well.

The first European visitors were, presumably, Spanish explorers, arriving off what is now Point Grenville in the schooner Sonora on July 11, 1775 to claim the land for Spain. That visit ended with a bloody battle between Quinault men and the Spanish crew. (Quinault Nation treasurer Lawrence Ralston has a uniform emblem found on the Lower Quinault River confirmed by Spain to be of Spanish origin, circa the 1700s.)

Next came the Americans, in 1788, to trade; then the British, in 1792, to flex their claim on the area and assign British place names. The U.S. inherited Spain and Britain’s claims in the Pacific Northwest through a series of treaties between 1819 and 1846—although nobody asked the Quinaults for their thoughts on the matter. Treaties with indigenous nations and attempts to force the assimilation of the first peoples followed.

The new landing site for cedar canoes hewn by a new generation of Native carvers (Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission)

Next month, during the annual Canoe Journey, history will come full circle when the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain escort up to 100 canoes—from First Nations in Washington and British Columbia—as they travel along the open coast from Neah Bay in Makah Nation territory to Taholah at the Quinault Indian Nation, which hosts the journey, August 1 to 6.

The Canoe Journey has “made a tremendous contribution to public education about the heritage of Native people and tribes and First Nations of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia,” Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp says. “The events have also contributed mightily to the cultural reinvigoration of Native people and the connection between Indian and non-Indian governments and communities.

“By inviting the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain to participate in this event, protocols are being followed which were neglected by tall ships of the past. This could thus be viewed as an opportunity to help make some amends for some past transgressions. Moreover, the participation of these tall ships in this event also helps convey a message that tribal and nontribal communities choose to look forward to and work together on a collaborative basis toward common objectives.”

The Quinault Nation invited the tall ships to escort the canoes this year because 2013 is the 225th anniversary of first contact between the U.S. and the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest. “We are very excited to be able to participate in this important cultural event,” says Les Bolton, executive director of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, which owns the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain.

“2013 marks the 225th anniversary of the first contact between the newly independent United States and the rich coastal cultures of the Pacific Northwest,” says Bolton. “Since that first contact seven generations ago, our world has changed significantly. We want to encourage all people to consider where we began, where we are today, and give thought to the world we want our descendants, seven generations from now, to inherit.”

Launched in 1989 as part of the Washington State Centennial, the Lady Washington is a wooden replica of one of the first U.S.-flagged ships to visit the West Coast of North America. In 1788, the original Lady Washington arrived off the coast of what would later become Oregon to trade with the area’s Indigenous Peoples for furs, then sailed north past Quinault territory en route to Vancouver Island.

The modern Canoe Journey traces its roots to 1989, when educator Emmett Oliver of the Quinault Nation and Frank Brown of the Heiltsuk First Nation in British Columbia developed a canoe journey to be held in conjunction with the Washington State Centennial celebration. The resulting event—the Paddle to Seattle from indigenous lands in Washington and Canada—generated interest among other Northwest Coast Native peoples who wanted to revive the traditional form of travel on the ancestral marine highways. The Canoe Journey has been an annual event since 1993; the Quinault Nation last hosted in 2002.

During the journey, canoe families visit indigenous territories en route to the host destination and share their cultures. Each Canoe Journey is a logistical feat for host destinations, which provide meals and gifts to thousands of guests and host about 100 cultural presentations over a period of a week.

The journey is a feat of fitness for pullers. Pulling long distances in a canoe requires emotional, physical and spiritual fitness. Pledges to be alcohol-free, drug-free and, in many cases, smoke-free, are required. That’s had a tremendous impact on younger pullers.

Spanish emblem (circa 1700s) found in Lower Quinault River (Courtesy Lawrence Ralston)

Indigenous languages are spoken on the journey, particularly at the canoe landings when skippers ask hosts for permission for pullers to come ashore, and at evening ceremonies when traditional dances and songs are shared.

The journey features beautiful cedar canoes carved by a new generation of Native carvers. And the participation of Indigenous Peoples from around the world has grown each year. Among the participants in recent journeys: Ainu (an indigenous people in Japan), Native Hawaiians, Maori, Tlingit and Yupik. “Cedar canoes are deeply significant to our people,” Sharp explains. “Not only do they reflect a connection with the art and practicality of our past, they represent a statement of our commitment to sustain our values and legacies into the future. They are a living embodiment of Northwest tribal tradition, a powerful bond that strengthens our cultural, economic and environmental resolve. They are a reflection of our identity, as individuals and as nations.”

The Canoe Journey is empowering to young pullers. Courage and perseverance are learned on the water and from stories shared by elders. At the Canoe Journey skippers meeting February 23, George Adams, Nooksack, told of his grandmother’s residential school experience, how her mouth was taped shut because she refused to stop speaking her language. For his grandmother, the tape “was a badge of honor. She didn’t give up speaking her language. There are people who have stories on the journey. Listen to the stories, listen to the songs.”

The journey has done a lot to build bridges between Native and non-Native communities as well. Exposure to cultural activities associated with the journey has helped break down barriers and grow cultural understanding. “The Canoe Journey is an event that can help tell people throughout the country that the tribes are still here,” said Sharp, a lawyer and administrative law judge who is also president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re alive and well and we will be heard.”

There are other significant aspects of this Canoe Journey:

Restoring a Sacred Gathering Place
The landing will be at Point Grenville, Washington, where the Spanish landed in 1775 and which the British visited and named in 1792. “We want to acknowledge the historical significance of Point Grenville,” Sharp said. “Our Creator blessed our ancestors with ancient knowledge, a sacred and beautiful gathering place, a rich culture, economy, and heritage that were actively practiced at Point Grenville. After centuries of Quinault occupation, Spanish and foreign greed and a desire to lay claim to our lands led to bloodshed and war.”

In the 1930s, Quinault created a scenic park at Point Grenville. The site later became home to a U.S. Coast Guard LORAN Station. For the past three decades, Point Grenville has been vacant. For the Canoe Journey, Quinault has developed or is developing on Point Grenville beach access trails, lawns, a flag pavilion, and viewing areas. The nation is installing three carved-story poles that symbolize Quinault spirituality, sovereignty, and restoration. “This year, our generation [is] restoring the spiritual, cultural and economic significance of our sacred gathering places, starting at the most westerly point of our tribal homelands,” Sharp said. “This year, the entire world will celebrate this restoration and the beauty of our people, lands and ancestral inheritance.”

Monitoring Marine Health
Several canoes will again be outfitted with probes that collect information about water conditions: dissolved oxygen, pH levels, salinity, temperature, and turbidity. Data collected in each Canoe Journey since 2008 are being processed and mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey to help identify signs of climate change, impacts from development, and changes in the levels and types of nutrients and pollutants washing into the ocean.

It’s the melding of one of the oldest technologies on the sea—the carved cedar canoe—with some of the newest technology. Each stainless-steel probe is two feet long and two-and-a-half inches in diameter, and trails the canoe at a depth of six feet, according to the survey. On the trailing edge of the probe are sensors that collect water-quality data every 10 seconds. The data are transmitted to a data logger on board the canoe, and the latitude and longitude is automatically recorded via global positioning system. “When we are able to so capably use traditional tools to achieve such contemporary objectives, a special connection is made that underscores the significance of knowing and understanding tribal history,” Sharp says.

“That is a lesson I hope people will learn from the journey—that there are solutions to the challenges we face today in the annals of our history. Challenges, such as climate change, ocean acidification, water pollution and even social and economic challenges can all be far more easily resolved if we choose to learn from history. Even with today’s computer technology, so many answers to the challenges we all face today are in the wisdom of the ages.”

Honoring Those in Uniform
The theme of this year’s journey is Honoring Our Warriors, a tribute to Native men and women in uniform. “We feel it is important for people everywhere to know that tribal members have been first to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces,” Sharp said, and at a greater number per capita than any other ethnic group. “They deserve every honor we can bestow on them.”

For further information on the 2013 Canoe Journey, visit PaddleToQuinault.org.