Gov. Inslee visits coastal tribes
Washington Governor Jay Inslee visited the Hoh, Quileute and Makah tribes Friday and heard a number of environmental concerns. See the article in the Peninsula Daily News.
Tribes, National Park Monitor Fishers on Olympic Peninsula
Olympic Peninsula treaty tribes are helping monitor fishers that have been reintroduced to Olympic National Park. Starting this summer, and for the next several years, the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown…
Material collection and preparation big part of basket weaving
If you aren’t in the mood, don’t weave. It shows up in the work.” That’s one of the many things Quileute tribal member Cathy Salazar has learned after 16 years of basket weaving.
“The weave will get too tight or sloppy if you aren’t in the right frame of mind,” said Salazar.
Despite years of weaving, Salazar didn’t fully appreciate the traditional ways of preparing materials for some time because others provided the cedar and grasses ready to use in baskets. “It was all ready to go and Grandma Lillian Pullen or my other instructors would weave the basket bottoms for me to get the basket started,” said Salazar. Lillian was her first teacher and everyone called her “grandma.” (more…)
Tribal students learn natural resource management skills
Gaspar Ramos, 16, strides confidently to the edge of the Quillayute River and drops a hydrolab datasonde that measures water quality parameters into the water. The Makah tribal member has worked with the water quality equipment enough to look like he has been doing it for years.
Ramos might one day have a job just like it if the introduction by the Quileute Natural Resources and the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center Natural Resources program creates an interest in pursuing education needed for natural resources work. The Skills Center offers project-based field science classes and work on real-world projects in local ecosystems. The Quileute Tribe provides the jobs for the two tribal students to shadow as well as do project work. (more…)
Back to the River documentary premieres at Seattle Aquarium
The premiere of the documentary, Back to the River, was held at the Seattle Aquarium Feb. 2. The movie details the story of the treaty rights struggle from the pre-Boldt…
This series of pictures from the University of Washington and Larry Workman shows the disappearance of Anderson Glacier which feeds the Quinault River.
Coastal Tribes Convene to Tackle Climate Change
On Washington’s rugged Pacific coast, the Quinault Indian Nation has depended on salmon for thousands of years. But the glaciers that feed the Quinault and Queets Rivers and sustain these salmon populations are in retreat because of climate change, threatening the very survival of the salmon.
In Alaska, native villages are pulling up stakes and moving to new ground as the permafrost beneath them melts and erodes due to warming global temperatures.
In the U.S. Pacific Islands rainfall and stream levels are decreasing while storm intensity, sea level, and atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are on the rise. Communities are threatened by the resulting decline in underwater aquifers and increases in land-based pollution, coral bleaching, fire risk, hillside and shoreline erosion, and altered fish abundance and distribution. (more…)
Coastal tribes are already seeing changes to the natural resources they rely on due to climate change. It will be critical to bring their millennia of knowledge together with western science to help indigenous people to adapt.
Climate change: Washington coastal tribes hosting symposium blending indigenous knowledge with western science
Hundreds of native leaders, witnesses and climate scientists will join policy-makers and non-government organizations for groundbreaking dialogue in what is planned to be an annual meeting at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
The Hoh, Makah and Quileute tribes and the Quinault Indian Nation created the symposium because indigenous coastal people are among the most affected by climate change. (more…)
Bill signed by Obama will get Quileute tribal school, homes and government offices out of tsunami zone
The Quileute Tribe concluded a decades-long effort to gain additional land to move the tribal school, tribal council buildings and individual tribal members homes out of the tsunami zone with…
Quileute Tribe Awaits Congressional Approval on Land Acquisition
The Quileute Tribe is awaiting word on legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton to finalize a land acquisition detailed in a Seattle Times story here. Meanwhile, President Obama…
Quileute Tribe subject of Seattle Art Museum exhibit set to open Aug. 7
The Quileute Tribe, in partnership with Seattle Art Museum, will be the subject of a year-long exhibit designed to distinguish actual Quileute tribal history and stories about wolves from the…