Peter Ray Woods, 47, of Everett, WA, passed away on July 5, 2017, as a result of an accident. He was born May 2, 1970, in Everett to James and Catherine Woods. He grew up in Everett and graduated from Everett High School. Peter was roofer and painter. He is survived by his four children, Shatona Woods, Brandon Woods, Isaiah Woods, and Marley Woods; siblings, Janie Woods, Larry Woods, Kevin Woods, and Tim Woods; five grandchildren, Amiah Woods, Samariana Wright, Bailey Powers, Russel Woods, and Tealyn Powers. Peter was preceded in death by his parents. Services will be held Wednesday, July 12, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. at Schaefer-Shipman with burial to follow at Mission Beach Cemetery.
April 21, 1936 – July 4, 2017 Levi David Aleck Sr., 81, of Marysville, WA passed away July 4, 2017. He was born April 21, 1936 in Mill Bay, B.C., Canada to Edmond and Sara Aleck. Levi was a logger, fisherman, he ran a green chain and was a fish technician. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Aleck; five children, Tony Aleck, Beverly Hobart, Chrissy Aleck, Mary Aleck, and Levi Aleck Jr.; 21 grandchildren; 21 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death parents and brother, Frankie; and son, Joe Aleck Sr.; granddaughters, Crystal Aleck and Hope Jimicum; five infants – four boys and one girl; and great grandson, Markel Aleck. A visitation will be held Monday, July 10, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. at Schaefer-Shipman with a Shaker Service to follow at 6:00 p.m. at the Tulalip Gym. Funeral Services will be Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. at the Tulalip Gym with burial to follow at Mission Beach Cemetery.
The Tulalip Canoe Family, led by the Tulalip Rediscovery Program, is preparing to take to the open waters for the 2017 Canoe Journey to Campbell River, British Columbia. For the past several weeks, the Canoe Family has been meeting on Monday and Thursday evenings to practice pulling a traditional cedar-dugout canoe across the waters of Tulalip Bay.
“We started last month and we’ve been slowly getting a crew. I think this is our third or fourth week where we’ve actually had a full crew,” says Skipper, Harvey Eastman. “What we do is, we come on the water to try to build our muscle memory and get in shape. We want everybody to be prepared and to respect the water because we’ll never know what we’ll have out there. It could be nice and calm but then in a heartbeat it’ll turn on you.”
Training for the unexpected open waters can be a daunting task, especially for new pullers. The key, according to Tulalip tribal member and expert puller, Kayla Joseph, is to remain calm, especially when the waters are not.
“If we hit rollers [waves] like we did [today during practice], it’s important to just keep pulling and keep at it,” Kayla explains. “If you get scared then the canoe senses that you feel that. As long as you keep a good mind, keep going and you keep doing what your supposed to be doing, then the canoe will keep you how you’re supposed to be.”
Each year Canoe Journey offers Coast Salish tribal members the opportunity to reconnect with their culture. The Native American summertime experience has been popular amongst Pacific Northwest Tribes since beginning in 1989 with the Paddle to Seattle. Since then, local tribes have taken turns hosting Canoe Journey in their villages each year. The tribes travel the waters together in traditional canoes, stopping in each village before reaching their final landing destination. After all the canoes arrive, a weeklong celebration takes place, where the canoe families engage in traditional song, dance and story telling.
For decades the Canoe Journey experience has promoted healthy lifestyle choices, as the cultural event is drug and alcohol free. Along with finding self-identity, the youth gain first-hand experience through teachings passed down from previous generations.
“You can learn a lot about your culture from [Canoe Journey]. This is where I started. It’s where I learned most of my songs and my dances and who I was,” expresses Kayla. “I knew I was Tulalip, but until you’re actually part of something like this, where they teach you how to conduct yourself, how to be humble and how to be one with the Earth and the water, it’s good medicine. It brings you a little bit of peace and that’s something we need to bring to our youth.”
On the water, the crew pulls together as one. Relationships are bonded as life experiences are shared, while traveling from tribe to tribe. The event continues to have a positive impact for the youth of Native America by teaching about their ancestor’s way of life and culture.
Skipper, Harvey Eastman
“Its our hope that once were pulling together, the youth will get involved, because they are our future,” states Harvey. “Our ultimate goal is to sustain our culture as Indigenous Peoples; if we don’t have that we won’t have a culture.”
Canoe Journey practice is held at 5:30 p.m. each Monday and Thursday at the Tulalip Marina. The Tulalip Rediscovery Program additionally hosts a Canoe Journey gift-making class, at the Hibulb Cultural Center, every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. as well. For further information, please contact the Tulalip Rediscovery Program at (360) 716-2635.8
If you have a warrant for your arrest on the Tulalip Reservation, you may be able to quash your warrant.
Warrants are issued because you failed to appear at your hearing, or there was a criminal complaint filed against you, also if you have failed to comply with a court order, such as having a probation violation or a missed urinalysis. You may be able to quash old warrants and get a new hearing date.
For first time offenders (sometimes second time offenders), your warrant quash will cost you nothing. If you are a repeat offender, the judge may levy a fee for you to quash your warrant, anywhere from $25, $50 or $75 dollars. The police, prosecution, and probation are then notified that you came to the court to quash your warrant. It is advised to please keep your warrant quash paperwork on you for at least one week.
The Tribal Court encourages you to come in to quash your warrant. It shows you are taking care of business and makes a good impression on the judge.
Warrant quashes are held on Fridays from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. (please show up at least 15 minutes early prior to 11 a.m.).
If you have questions regarding warrant quashes, you can call the Tribal Court at 360 / 716-4773.
The skies were clear and the sun was shining on the first day of summer 2017. As the temperature reached the low seventies, the Tulalip Bay waters were glistening, providing both a cool breeze as well as a beautiful view for the Tulalip community as many gathered for the Summer Solstice Celebration. The June 21 event, held near the gardens behind the Karen I Fryberg Health Clinic, is the second of a four-event series, hosted by the Tulalip Diabetes Care and Prevention Program, in which the community honors and welcomes the turn of each season.
During the first celebration, the Spring Equinox, the Diabetes team reached out to honorary Tulalip tribal member, Father Pat Twohy, to bless the newly constructed Medicine Wheel Garden. During the ceremony, the Tribe honored Father Pat by gifting him a pair of moccasins accompanied with a foot-washing ceremony. After the success of the Spring Equinox event, community members requested more time with Father Pat during the upcoming events. Revered by the Tulalip community, Father Pat served as Priest to St. Anne’s Catholic Church for twenty years, according to Dale Jones, Elder Advocate for the Diabetes Care and Prevention Program.
“[Father Pat] is the top dog, but he don’t act like it. He only wants to serve the people,” explains Dale. “Everybody loves him and nobody wants him to leave – ever. He’s been here with the Tribe for about twenty years. I’ve known him personally for forty years. You couldn’t ask for a better guy than Father Pat.”
The Summer Solstice Celebration offered the opportunity for attendees to walk through the Garden Trail and the Medicine Wheel Garden to view the various plants and vegetables growing in the garden boxes, on the longest day of the year.
“The summer solstice is a special time for a lot of Indigenous people,” states Diabetes Care and Prevention Program Coordinator, Veronica ‘Roni’ Leahy. “Here at Tulalip, because of the opening of the Medicine Wheel Garden, we thought that this year we would celebrate the equinox and solstice through prayer.”
During this season’s event, Father Pat met individually with community members and shared an intimate conversation, before providing a prayer. Numerous community members attended the event for the opportunity to visit with Father Pat.
“We asked Father Pat to be here for the Spring Equinox, the Summer Solstice, the Autumn Equinox and he’ll be here again for the Winter Solstice,” says Roni. “Each season he’ll come back and visit with us and pray for the people. We asked him to represent the spiritual side of the medicine wheel. Jennie Fryberg said Father Pat is our medicine; so having him here is really special for the people. His words have an impact on our hearts and minds and gives us fortitude to continue our work and move forward.”
For additional information regarding future equinox and solstice events please contact the Karen I Fryberg Health Clinic at (360) 716-4511.
Community members share their top five climate change concerns,.Natural Resources will utilize and refer to this data while developing the adaptation plan throughout the next six months.
“We’re going to be developing strategies to preserve tribal customs and culture first and foremost.”
– Colin Wahl,Tulalip Natural Resources Environmental Scientist
By Kalvin Valdillez, Tulalip News
Countless studies have shown that since the 1900’s, the Earth’s heat has increased by about 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit. That is at an alarming rate considering that leading up to the Industrial Revolution, the planets heat only increased by about nine degrees over the span of 5,000 years. Due to the burning of fossil fuels, excessive carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere over the last century. Carbon dioxide is produced by humans, animals and plants; but also by human activity such as generating electricity and using gasoline for vehicles.
Carbon dioxide traps radiated heat from the sun, at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet’s temperature to increase. The more heat that is trapped, the warmer the planet becomes. If the Earth’s population continues to burn fossil fuels at its current rate, over the next century, future generations will face extreme weather including draughts, floods and storms. Recent studies claim that in the year 2100, heat waves will last up to twenty days and will result in many deaths around the entire world.
Climate change is inevitable, however, many environmentalists believe the process can be slowed by means of conserving energy, utilizing other forms of transportation and recycling. The Tulalip Tribes are among the many tribal nations, environmentalists and scientists studying the cause and effect of climate change and how it will affect future generations.
Tulalip’s Natural Resource Department recently held a community dinner at the Tulalip Administration Building to discuss climate change and how it will impact Tulalip and its surrounding areas.
“It is a great honor to be here to start talking about climate change,” said Tulalip Vice Chairwoman, Teri Gobin. “We are beginning to look at what we can do to help better the environment. I really want to see us building green, utilizing solar power and really ramping up our recycling efforts and the reuse of materials. There’s a lot of things that we’re talking about, in regards to climate change, and we need to start taking those steps in the right direction.”
The community dinner included presentations by Tulalip Natural Resources Environmental Scientist, Colin Wahl, as well as guest speaker Clarita Lefthand-Begay of the Navajo Nation, who is an Environmental Professor at the University of Washington.
Colin’s presentation provided a brief overview of climate change, explaining ocean acidification, sea level rise and how global warming will impact salmon runs in the future.
“Salmon is one of the major issues of climate change we’re concerned about,” explained Colin. “As Patti [Gobin] said, the Tulalips are fish people and the tribal culture really relies on fishing and maintaining the salmon populations. We’re going to have to maintain our protection and restoration strategies in the future, but we might have to adjust some of those strategies to consider how climate change impacts salmon. Some of these strategies might include things like protecting cold water habitat in streams and rivers as well as generally trying to slow the progression of climate change through policies that actually decrease carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere.”
Colin stated that due to the impacts from sea level rise, various areas of the reservation will experience beach loss. Areas that will be affected include Tulalip Bay, Hermosa Beach, Priest Point and the Qwuloolt Estuary. Colin used charts to compare and contrast the areas today and the same area eighty years in the future. He also explained that the Natural Resources Department is in the early stages of developing a Climate Change Adaption Plan which will take approximately six months to complete before the implementation process begins.
“We’re going to be developing strategies to preserve tribal customs and culture first and foremost,” Colin stated. “We’re also developing strategies to protect tribal property and infrastructure. We’re working with all the different departments within the administration, including Planning in particular, they’ll be an essential element throughout the process. We also need to protect and restore treaty resources, or continue to do so, so that the Tribe’s customs and culture can extend into the future.
“Historically, Indigenous cultures are very resilient in the Puget Sound area,” he continued. “The ancestors of the Tulalip Tribes, like the salmon, have adapted to the changing environments for thousands of years. This is a little more difficult now, because in the past the people could follow the species wherever they went. Since treaty times, the tribes are tied to place, tied to a reservation, tied to these legally defined boundaries. So, there might be issues with species shifts where there’s more salmon up north compared to south.”
Clarita spoke with the community before leading an open forum discussion. During her presentation she spoke in detail about the dangers of climate change, stating that by the year 2100, the earth will regularly experience extreme heat waves, air pollution as well as water and food borne illnesses. She also states that the food of future generations including shellfish, fish, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables will all be negatively affected by climate change. Clarita explained that the populations most affected by climate change will be elders, children, pregnant women, individuals with compromised immune systems as well as poverty-stricken families.
The climate change dinner concluded with an open discussion for the community to voice their concerns regarding the impacts of climate change. Clarita and the Natural Resources team wrote documented the many concerns. Following the discussion, the participants were given five post-it stickers, each a different color, and asked to rate their top five concerns. Natural Resources will utilize and refer to this data while developing the adaptation plan throughout the next six months.
In a recent study published by the American Association of Community Colleges, college students attending a community college see a significant return on their financial investment.
Among the best attributes of community colleges include an open door policy. Most two-year colleges will accept a student with a high school diploma or GED, regardless of grades or test results. Most even offer GED programs which makes for an easy transition. This is a great opportunity for students who were not that focused on academic progress in high school. Community colleges also provide “developmental studies” courses which are designed to help bring students up to college level course work. This opens up opportunities for students who have had a less than perfect academic history. Due to the “Open Door Policy”, the average age of community college students has hovered in the 20 year old range for the past 30 years.
Another group of 2nd chance students are those who go off to four-year colleges and universities and find themselves in over their head academically, socially or maturity-wise. Now they are back home getting their grades up so they can return to the university setting better equipped.
Running Start and early college programs courses are one of the best values of American higher education. A good majority of these students are ready for college and end up transferring their credits to state universities where they do very well academically. Considering that the state picks up the tuition for these students, this introduction to the college atmosphere is very cost effective for students and their parents. In view of, the vast and growing amount of student debt in this country, this now becomes for students a very good option.
Community colleges offer some important academic advantages beginning with smaller class sizes, accessability to college that larger institutions are not offering and close proximity of the college to home and work for students.
One of the best things that community colleges do for their communities is providing access to higher eduation to populations who would not have the opportunity to advance themselves through education. In most communities, the two-year college is the center for the arts and performing arts, business, science, athletics and fitness.
Many students attending universities began their educational journey at a two-year college. For many, the community college is providing a liberal-arts foundation. The other important services that the community colleges offer are courses, degrees and certificates in high demand technical fields like information technology, health science, construction, manufacturing, trade skills, etc. These skill based trainings offer students a shorter timeframe to job readiness. This give students the opportunity to begin earning dollars while pursuing bigger educational goals.
If you are interested opening up your opportunities, pick up your phone and call 360-716-4888 to contact the Higher Education Department for more information or email us at highered@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.
Tulalip Tribes senior girl and boy student of the year are Myrna Redleaf and Carter Wagner.
By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
On Friday, June 16, the Tulalip Resort’s Orca Ballroom was home to the Graduation Banquet held for the Tulalip tribal member graduating class of 2017. In all there were seventy-four high school graduates and sixty higher education graduates who, accompanied by their friends and families, convened for an evening to commemorate the rite of passage. There was entertainment, a catered buffet-style dinner, and plenty of motivational speeches from their peers and elders reminding the graduates this is just the first step on the path to success.
The Marysville Getchell High School band provided good music and lively tunes for the first hour of the celebration, while Board of Director Mel Sheldon controlled the mic as emcee.
“It is a privilege and an honor to be here with you all tonight on this special night where we come together and celebrate the academic achievement of our young ones,” stated Mel in his opening speech. “We are so proud of each and every one of our graduates for their commitment to education. We thank the parents, grandparents, extended family, and all the school faculty who were always there for the students and made it possible for them to be here today.”
Graduating seniors Keely Bogin-McGhie and Lukas Reyes, Jr. both took stage and offered encouraging words to fellow graduates. They each told a favorite high school experience, thanked their families for always supporting them, and shared their excitement for great things yet to come in their bright futures.
Educator, poet, higher education administrator, and voice for his generation, Christian Paige provided a truly memorable keynote speech that left many in the crowd feeling inspired. He is a first generation college graduate who has committed himself to empowering others to reach for goals larger than themselves.
“The individuals in this space are making room on their shoulders for the next generation. It is powerful to know that you are setting the example and paving the way for the people to come after you, for they will know where it is to go by witnessing what you have achieved,” said HOPE initiative founder Christian Page. “We come from cultures with a long, rich lineage of beauty and strength based upon overcoming adversity. The generations before us weren’t given access to traditional literacy, so they had to tell stories in order to keep our traditions and histories alive.
“It is so important to understand where you come from, the history of your ancestors, and the legacy you want to leave. Think of your life as a story and yourself as the main character. As the main character it is up to you to take the narrative of the trajectory and make it into what you believe it should be. This may sound difficult but really it’s not. Changing your world starts with the three-feet around you. If you are constantly changing yourself and constantly speaking life into the individuals around you, then it will be a short time before you actually get to see changes in your world. That is the power you have as the main character in your story.”
Following the keynote speech a special recognition ceremony was held to honor the Tulalip Tribes senior boy and girl student of the year.
Myrna Redleaf, a graduate of Tulalip Heritage High School, received the female student of the year honors. Myrna was very active during her high school years; participating in many student activities while being an ASB officer and playing varsity basketball and volleyball. Her teachers said she was “an exceptional individual and student in every way and it was a privilege to know her. She’ll be successful in any career field she chooses. Her ability to multi-task while maintaining priorities is exemplary, as evidence by her balancing a 3.9 GPA while being a two-sport athlete.” Myrna plans on attending Everett Community College in the fall to get her Associated Degree before moving on to a University.
“I’m so honored to be selected as a student of the year!” said Myrna as she acknowledged the crowd of community members. “Thank you to my community, my family, and all the teachers and staff who helped me make it here.”
Carter Wagner, a graduate of Lakewood High School, received the male student of the year honors. Carter was on the honor roll for his junior and senior years, was a member of his school’s drama program, and is an avid snowboarder. His teachers say “we wish we had more students like him. He’s a very thoughtful and intelligent young man who participated in class discussions and always did well on his tests.” Carter has received an academic scholarship to attend Pacific Lutheran University in the fall where he plans to get a degree in Business Administration.
“A huge thank you to the Tulalip Tribes and the community for giving me this award and allowing me to move on to attend University,” remarked Carter. “I’d also like to thank my awesome family who has loved and supported me every step of the way.”
Higher education graduates
Congratulations to all those Tulalip Tribal students who put in the hard work and dedication to earn their graduate status. Chasing a dream requires your efforts and passion. The hard work isn’t over now that you have graduated, it’s only the beginning as you now prepare for the new challenges waiting in the next chapter of life. Good luck and congratulations!
