Tulalip News

Lummi Master Weaver Fran James Walks On

By Richard Walker, Indian Country Today Media Network

Love was the common thread in everything Fran James did, whether serving her faith, hosting an unexpected guest, passing on a teaching, or weaving a basket, hat, robe or shawl.

She loved God and worshipped regularly at St. Joachim’s Church, where her passing was mourned May 2. She loved her Coast Salish culture, and taught countless others how to weave using cedar fiber, bear grass, or mountain goat wool. She shared her life and knowledge with everyone and taught all that wanted to learn, family members said. And she loved the company of others; her home was constantly abuzz with visitors.

“You have to ask why she always had so many people around her, what’s the magic,” said Darrell Hillaire, former chairman of the Lummi Nation. “The magic was ordinary love.”

Her view of how to live was simple: Love God. Love others. Don’t gossip. Keep your hands busy. Do your best.

“Her passing has left a void. The fabric that joins us together has weakened,” said Richard Jefferson, a nephew. “But because of all who learned from her, the fabric will grow strong again.”

James, who was known by her Lummi name, Che top ie, and by most people as Auntie Fran, walked on April 28 after surgery for a blocked artery. She was 88.

On May 2, a procession escorted her body six miles from Moles Funeral Home in Ferndale, Washington to St. Joachim’s Church on the Lummi reservation. Pallbearers carried her coffin up the flower-lined steps of the 1861 church, led by drummers and singers. Overflow seating was provided outside, with the funeral Mass shown on two screens.

After Mass, the funeral moved on to the Lummi Nation Cemetery. One by one, mourners dropped handfuls of dirt into the grave and offered hugs and words of comfort to the family. There was a mix of Native songs and Christian hymns, a melding of her faith and her culture. A priest said James had long prayed for the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, saying, “She was not only a devout Catholic, she was a devout Native American and wanted to see those two things together.”

The family hosted lunch at the Wexliem Community Building. Love offerings were made to the family, and the family gave gifts to all guests; among the gifts were art prints, beaded necklaces, and bundles of James’s fabric tied with a strand of spun wool—a reference to James’s favorite saying, “Weaving together the fabric of our lives.”

She was born Frances Gladys Lane on May 20, 1925 on Portage Island, Washington. She was raised by her grandmother there, where they raised 500 head of sheep. Her grandmother knitted and sold socks for about 25 cents a pair. Fran learned to spin and knit from her grandmother at the age of 9. She also learned to gather traditional materials and became a master weaver. Her work included twill-plaited cedar and cherry fiber bags; cedar and bear grass baskets of all shapes and uses; cedar hats; split and braided mats of cattail or cedar; elegant blankets and robes of handspun, twill-woven mountain goat or sheep wool.

She taught basketry and weaving at Northwest Indian College. She was a guest artist and instructor until her passing; events and venues included the annual Gathering of Native Artists at the Skagit County Historical Museum, the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association, and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which houses a collection of her work. Her work is shown in major Northwest galleries, among them Stonington Gallery in Seattle and Arctic Raven Gallery in the San Juan Islands.

Today, James and her son, Bill—a well-known artist and hereditary chief of the Lummi Nation—are credited with reviving and continuing the traditional weaving skills of the Lummi people. In 1990, the Washington State Historical Society presented Fran and Bill James with the Peace and Freedom Award for “[advancing] public understanding of the cultural diversity of the peoples of Washington state.” In 2002, Fran James was inducted into the Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame as “a nationally recognized Native American artist.”

Theresa Parker, Makah/Lummi, a niece, told of learning how to weave from her Aunt Fran.

“I used to love watching her weave with wool,” Parker said. “I told her, ‘We only have two or three wool weavers down here [at Makah]. That’s something we’re lacking.’ She said, ‘You can come up here anytime.’ ”

During one visit, James had acquired wool from 28 shears, each weighing 5 to 8 pounds. “We washed the wool and laid it out to dry in the back yard. It was such a sight, I’ll never forget that,” Parker said.

One of the sheep that had been sheared was named Henry; he was considered spoiled because his owner allowed him to wander wherever he pleased. As a result, his wool often had burrs that had to be removed.

Midway into removing the troublesome burrs, James told her niece, “Whenever you’re having a rough day, just remember Henry and you’ll get through it.”

In his eulogy at St. Joachim’s Church, Jefferson said his aunt’s work ethic made an indelible impression. He told of a time he and his sons took a load of wood to Aunt Fran’s home. She pointed to the place where she wanted it unloaded, and told them she’d stack it later.

“I was amazed. She was in her 80s then, but that’s how she was,” he said. “She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She was strong, confident and proud.”

Amid that indefatigable energy was humility. The Rev. Khanh Nguyen, pastor of St. Joachim’s Church, said James “put a lot of time and energy into the church. But she didn’t tell you about it. She never said, ‘I did this.’ ”

Throughout the day, people shared with each other what they learned from Aunt Fran, how her legacy will live on through those who follow her example and teachings.

Hillaire said James was not one for idle time or gossip. She only had good things to say about others, and would always end a thought about someone else with “God bless their heart.”

“Her legacy will live on through us and the lives we lead,” she said.

Addressing the vast crowd that gathered graveside to honor his aunt, Jefferson spoke of the importance of spending time and sharing love with others, as his Aunt Fran did. “Don’t let them be alone, go share a meal with them,” he said. “You have those teachings. Follow through.”

Fran James is survived by her son; sisters, Ernestine Gensaw, Rena Ballew, and Beverly Cagey; and numerous nieces and nephews. Her memorial program said she was also “culturally survived by many sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandkids, and great-grandkids.”

Tyler Fryberg takes the gold, qualifies for Special Olympics State Tournament

Killian Page, Isaiah Pablo, Tony Hatch, Tyler Fryberg, Drew Hatch, Donovan Hamilton

By Tony Hatch, Tulalip Tribes

May 5^th, 2013 was a rewarding day for many. Tulalip Tribal member, Tyler Fryberg swept all four of his events, qualifying him for the Special Olympics State Tournament. Marysville Pilchuck produced just about 100 student athletes to volunteer with this years’ Special Olympics, Regions/State Qualifier.

The boys volunteered to help every athlete, but had a special interest in fellow Tulalip athletes, Tyler Fryberg and Bruce Williams (not pictured). They were really happy to be there to help, but the amount of intensity that comes along with these athletes is amazing. They take their events serious and train very hard to compete and hopefully make it to the State Tourney, held at Fort Lewis. Tyler is not only a hero for people of Tulalip, but his fellow athletes, their parents and coaches make if clear that they enjoy watching him compete.

Tyler competed in four events Sunday, the Shot Put, 400-meter run, 100-meter, and the 400-meter relay. He swept all four events, bringing home four gold medals. Although, Tyler had his own cheering section of Tulalips, crowds would gather when it was his heat to race. Tyler pretty much dominated all of his events with the exception of the 400-meter sprint. This was very intense, as he was in second place for most of the race, but coming into the home stretch, Tyler turned on the afterburners and closed the gap on the leader, and with about 20 feet to the finish line, he passed the leader and won the race. This was a great finish to a great race and the crowd went crazy.

Bruce Williams also qualified for State, winning a gold medal in the 200-meter sprint, where he blew away his competition, by 40 feet or so. (Sorry Bruce, my phone went dead before I could get pictures of you, but we are very proud of you as well!)

We as fellow Tulalips are very proud of these guys and of course their fellow athletes for their heart and dedication. You are definitely an inspiration to the Tomahawk Athletes who were there, showing that with drive and determination, we can all be great. When 1 Tulalip succeeds, all Tulalips succeed.

Thanks you guys, for the great day, and good luck at State.

A shameful past: Indian insane asylum

Descendants on path of peace in Canton

Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians: The old building is gone, but a cemetery still is on the grounds of the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, today Hiawatha Golf Course. Hear people talk about needed improvements.

By Steve Young

May 5, 2013

CANTON — It is a long way to travel to mingle with the dead in a graveyard on a golf course at the east edge of Canton.

But Faith O’Neil and Anne Gregory come anyway, from California and Oregon, lured irresistibly by the echoes of their own ancestral past.

Long ago, long before it was transformed into the Hiawatha Golf Club, something much more dark and troubling resided where the fairways and greens lie today. Back then, at the turn of the 1900s and for the next 30 years, it was called the Hiawatha Insane Asylum and was the nation’s only such institution for Native Americans.

O’Neil and Gregory had grandmothers who were sent there. When they return now, the two women come looking for the spirits of those relatives, hoping for some supernatural revelation about what their lives were like in that place, and wanting to discern the often bitter truth about how they died.

The conversations, they say, can bring them to tears.

“Even though I didn’t know her in the physical world, I know her spiritually,” O’Neil said of her grandmother, Elizabeth Fairbault, who gave birth to O’Neil’s mother Sept. 8, 1926, at the asylum. “She’s with me at Hiawatha when I go there; I can sense her. And I’m bound and determined to find out what happened to her.”

A loose-knit group formed in the past seven to eight months shares that curiosity. Called the Hiawatha Indian Insane Asylum Action Committee, their members include Native Americans such as Bill Bird and George Eagleman, who work at the nearby Keystone Treatment Center in Canton; Yankton Sioux artist Jerry Fogg; and Lavanah Judah, who lives in Yankton and can count 15 relatives by blood and marriage who spent time at the asylum.

The committee is composed of white members, too, such as Lisa Alden, Canton’s Chamber of Commerce director, who said a history of abuse and neglect at the asylum brings her to tears. And Donna Dexter of Sioux Falls, whose search for the namesake of her hometown of Floodwood in northern Minnesota eventually led her to Canton and the tragic tale of asylum patient Tom Floodwood.

BIA is late to publish annual list of federally recognized tribes

Monday, May 6, 2013

Indianz.com Staff

The Bureau of Indian Affairs published its annual list of federally recognized tribes in the Federal Register today but once again it was late.

The Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 requires the BIA to publish the list “annually on or before every January 30.” But the agency has missed the deadline for several years in a row — in 2012, it was published in August and in 2011, it wasn’t published at all.

In 2010, the BIA published the list in October and in 2009, it was published in August. The agency came close to the deadline in 2008 — the list was published in April — and in 2007 — it was published in March.

The BIA didn’t publish the list in 2006. In 2005, it was published in November.

The 2013 list contains 566 federally recognized tribes in the Lower 48 and Alaska.

“The listed entities are acknowledged to have the immunities and privileges available to other federally acknowledged Indian tribes by virtue of their government-to-government relationship with the United States as well as the responsibilities, powers, limitations and obligations of such tribes,” the notice in the Federal Register states.

View PDF here Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible To Receive Services From the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs

Native American activist Horse Capture dies

Native American activist, curator and professor George Horse Capture has died in Great Falls. He was 75.

The Associated Press

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Native American activist, curator and professor George Horse Capture has died in Great Falls. He was 75.

Horse Capture, a member of the Gros Ventre tribe, died April 16 of kidney failure, his family said.

Horse Capture was an author, archivist and curator at the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo. He served as assistant professor at Montana State University, taught at the College of Great Falls and worked for the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian.

But his foremost passion was for the Gros Ventre – also known as the A’ani, or White Clay People.

“What he did in his life, he did for his tribe,” Kay Karol said of her husband. “He wasn’t looking for fame or fortune. He was looking for a positive response for Indian people in a white world that still can be pretty discriminating.”

Horse Capture was one of hundreds of protesters who filled the abandoned prison grounds of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay in 1969, while 14 Native American protesters occupied the prison itself, the Great Falls Tribune reported (http://gftrib.com/18cwBXt).

The protesters demanded the U.S. government’s acknowledgement of its broken promises to Native Americans.

“I had to be part of it,” Horse Capture later told his friend Herman Viola. “I realized that history was being made. This was the first time tribes from across the country had gotten together for a cause – our cause.”

Horse Capture was born in 1937 and spent his early childhood in poverty on Montana’s Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. He moved to Butte as a teenager to live with his mother.

After graduating from high school, Horse Capture enlisted in the Navy. He later moved to Los Angeles, got married, began raising a family and was hired as state steel inspector for California’s Department of Water Resources.

Then the Alcatraz Island protest happened. Horse Capture wasn’t there for the entire 19 months the prison was occupied, but he said the experience still changed his life.

Horse Capture resigned from his job and enrolled in the Indian Studies program at University of California-Berkley. He became an intern at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., which was then working to develop its tribal archives.

Horse Capture went on to receive his master’s degree at Montana State University. In 1979, he was hired as the first curator of the Plains Indian Museum.

His passion was tracking down the lost artifacts of the Gros Ventre that museums and private collectors had snapped up. He located and cataloged as many of those artifacts as he could.

In 1994, Horse Capture was selected as deputy assistant director for cultural resources at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian, where he was determined to make it a museum for Native peoples, not just about them.

“He was really putting this out for Indian people to take pride in the beauty and richness of their culture and traditions,” said Viola, now curator emeritus for the museum.

As he got older, diabetes and a weak heart began to slow Horse Capture down. But he finished his A’ani Tribal Archive Project, a massive digital collection of words, photographs and audio recordings.

In early February, at the age of 75, Horse Capture presented his work for and to the A’ani people, as well as to various institutions of higher learning across the United States.

He died two months later and was buried April 21 at Fort Belknap.

—

Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com

Increased congestion at Marysville/Tulalip I-5 interchange May 7-10

May 6, 2013 · 2:34 PM

Arington Times Staff

MARYSVILLE — Drivers who use the Interstate 5 off-ramps to Fourth Street in Marysville and Marine View Drive in Tulalip may experience increased congestion beginning the morning of Tuesday, May 7.

The Tulalip Tribes are working on a water line project on Marine View Drive just west of I-5. The project will reduce Marine View Drive at 31st Avenue NE to one lane in each direction around-the-clock from 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 7, through 8 p.m. on Friday, May 10.

Drivers should allow extra time or consider using alternate routes between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. on each of those days, when 900 cars per hour travel west on Marine View Drive. Backups could affect the northbound and southbound I-5 off-ramps to Fourth Street.

Washington State Department of Transportation traffic engineers will monitor the ramps throughout the closure, and adjust the interchange signals as needed. The overhead message sign on northbound I-5 near Everett will also be used to alert drivers to congestion at the interchange.

Drivers can use one of WSDOT’s many travel resources, including the Seattle area traffic map, with its Marysville-area cameras, and @WSDOT_traffic on Twitter.

Orcas attack gray whale calve in Monterey Bay

Killer whales hunt gray whale calves as they migrate across a canyon in Monterey Bay.

May 6, 2013

By PETER FIMRITE — San Francisco Chronicle

SAN FRANCISCO — Scores of killer whales are patrolling Monterey Bay, ambushing gray whales and picking off their young as the leviathans attempt to cross a deep water canyon that bisects their annual migration route.

It is a desperate situation for the migrating mother whales, which are trying to lead their calves through a gauntlet of hungry orcas to reach their feeding grounds in Alaska. Whale watchers and scientists, who are crowding onto boats to witness the action, have described it as the “Serengeti of the Sea.”

“It’s pretty scary and sad to watch, but this is nature,” said Nancy Black , a marine biologist and co-owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch . “It’s a big battle, with the mother trying to protect her calf, and there is a lot of commotion and splashing in the water.”

Scientists say the violent drama, involving fleeing whales and pursuing packs of orcas, is an annual extravaganza of death off the coast of Monterey that is growing in intensity as the number of whales and orcas increase.

The mother gray whales and their calves leave their breeding grounds in Baja, Mexico, in April and travel north along the Northern California coast this time each year. As many as 35 whales and calves a day are swimming by right now, hugging the shore trying to elude predators, Black said.

The problem for the mothers and calves is that they must navigate around a deepwater depression, called the Monterey Submarine Canyon, at Point Pinos.

Transient killer whales, which at 22- to 26-feet-long are the ocean’s apex predators, congregate along the edges of the canyon, which starts a quarter mile from shore and is 6,000 feet deep in the middle. They wait for the big beasts — which are about 45-feet long — to attempt the crossing, kind of like crocodiles waiting for migrating wildebeests to swim across the Nile.

The more stealthy grays take the long way around, sticking close to shore and swimming through the kelp beds, but some of the more bold or hurried whales cut across the canyon, using sonar to follow the contour lines at the bottom.

“It is one of the few places on the gray whale migration where they have to leave the protection of the shore,” said Black, who has been studying killer whales since 1992 and is considered the Bay Area’s foremost expert. “The killer whales come in the area and patrol the canyon, searching for calves.”Most of the attacks occur along the edge of the drop off, where packs of between four and seven mostly female orcas use the cover of deep water to approach from underneath, said Black and other researchers. It is not an easy kill. The calves are 18- to 20-feet long, weighing many tons.

Working as a team, the “wolves of the sea,” as they are known to some Native American tribes, surround and harass the mother, separating her from her child. While she is occupied, other orcas batter and attempt to drown the calf.

“It’s pretty brutal,” Black said. “The mother will stay there trying to protect her calf and sometimes roll upside down to allow the calf to get up on top of her, but the only way they can save themselves is by moving toward shore. It takes two to three hours, sometimes up to six hours, to kill a gray whale calf.

“It is, say marine biologists, a spectacular example of the natural interplay between two of the largest, most dynamic, creatures in the sea and a sign that the ocean ecosystem is slowly improving on the Pacific coast.

The killer whale, Orcinus orca , is the largest, most intelligent of the world’s ocean predators. They can live up to 100 years — the oldest known orca is believed to be a 96-year-old female — but are highly susceptible to toxins, which accumulate in their tissues.

The animals, which are actually members of the dolphin family, were originally called matadors de ballenas, or “whale killers,” by the Spanish who witnessed them hunting the large cetaceans. The words got reversed when translated into English.

The distinctive black-and-white mammals have an incredibly complex, and remarkably stable, matrilineal social structure in which the sons spend their lives with their mothers, except for occasional dalliances with females outside the family group. Different groups feed on different things and are believed to have different languages and even cultures that are passed down through the generations.

The endangered southern resident orcas of Puget Sound, in Washington, feed on salmon. Offshore orcas eat schooling fish and sharks and the transients that frequent Monterey Bay prey exclusively on marine mammals.

Mammal eating orcas have been known to prey on birds and even terrestrial mammals, such as deer and moose swimming between islands along the northwest coast, but there has never been a documented killing of a human in the wild.

The Monterey orcas have been spotted attacking sea lions, elephant seals, harbor seals, dolphins and porpoises, but gray whale calves are especially coveted. Black said she has seen as many as 25 killer whales feeding on a blubbery carcass, which can take between 12 and 48 hours to consume.

The drama unfolding now along the Monterey coast was unknown to researchers until about 1992, when the once vast gray whale populations began to recover after being driven nearly to extinction by whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The population rebounded from about 4,000 in the 1930s to 26,600 in 1999 , according to estimates by the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle . The recovery is nevertheless still shaky, according to experts. The number of grays dropped to 17,000 in the early 2000s as a result of the El NiÃ±o weather pattern and other factors that affected their food supply. There are now between 19,000 and 21,000 gray whales in the Pacific, according to researchers.

Forty of the approximately 140 killer whales that marine biologists have identified through their markings since 1992 have been spotted this year circling Monterey Bay, which marine biologists consider one of the best places in the world to study the creatures. They have, over time, noticeably learned from their mistakes and honed their hunting skills, Black said.

“The gray whale population has gotten bigger over the last 20 years and the killer whales have gotten better at hunting the gray whale calves,” she said. “It is a pretty amazing event and it all happens within 5 miles of shore.”

Northwest Indian College launches Nisqually campus webpage

By Kapiolani A. Laronal, NWIC Extended Site Coordinator

Northwest Indian College recently launched its Nisqually Extended Site webpage to better serve the Nisqually Indian Tribal Community. The page will help answer questions about services and programming provided at the site, and provide important contact information.

In following the Nisqually Indian Tribe’s mission of perpetuating our home and our culture by helping our people thrive, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) students at Nisqually are encouraged to develop themselves and discover ways to contribute to our communities and families. They learn ways to understand and support the educational goals of the Nisqually Indian Tribal Community, especially by improving the lives and wellbeing of tribal members through social and cultural programs, education, economic development and resource protection.

NWIC brings programs conveniently into the Nisqually community, offering a variety of educational programs to meet academic, vocational and cultural needs.

Programs, classes and services offered at NWIC’s Nisqually site include:

Early Childhood Education Associate’s Degree (2-Year Program)
General Direct Transfer Associate’s Degree (2-Year Program)
A wide range of classes, including English, Math, Chemical Dependency, Communications, Carving and Traditional Plants
NWIC student-led study circle, to provide academic, spiritual and cultural support
NWIC works closely with the library and Nisqually Education programs to build a strong support network of resources not only for students, but also for their family members

The Nisqually site also partners with the Nisqually Community Garden during the summer to provide traditional plants and foods classes, which are offered as Continuing Education Unit courses.

Other programs and activities are closely tied with Nisqually Education and the library to streamline services offered to students, families and community members.

With completion of the new Northwest Indian College Nisqually Campus webpage, accessing information and announcements will be much easier. Combined with the recent NisquallyWave launch for community Internet access, this is a timely transition.

Now existing students and prospective students have greater access to educational tools and opportunities that NWIC has to offer. Look for the site to be constantly updated in the future.

The website may be found at www.nwic.edu/group/nisqually.

Northwest Indian College is an accredited, tribally chartered institution headquartered on the Lummi Reservation at 2522 Kwina Road in Bellingham Wash., 98226, and can be reached by phone at (866) 676-2772 or by email at info@nwic.edu.

Fixing the culverts is good for everyone

Bring Frank by Billy Frank Jr, the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

Indian tribes in western Washington have long been using our treaty rights to protect and restore the salmon resource to the benefit of everyone who lives here. A good recent example is the federal court’s March 29 ruling in the culvert case brought against the state by the tribes back in 2001.

The state of Washington must fix fish-blocking culverts under state-owned roads because they violate tribal treaty-reserved fishing rights, federal Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled in late March. The court found that more than 1,500 state culverts deny salmon access to hundreds of miles of good habitat in western Washington, harming salmon at every stage in their life cycle.

We didn’t want to file this litigation, but the salmon can’t wait. At the pace that the state has been repairing its blocking culverts, there would be few, if any, salmon left by the time all were fixed. Martinez’s ruling will result in hundreds of thousands more salmon returning to Washington waters each year. These salmon will be available for harvest by everyone who lives here, not just the tribes.

We could have avoided the suit if the state followed its own laws. One of Washington’s first laws on the books requires fish passage at any blockage in creeks and rivers.

Instead, the state chose to largely ignore the problem along with the tribes’ treaty rights, which depend on salmon being available for harvest. And once again, our treaty rights were upheld by the federal courts, just as they have been consistently since the 1974 Boldt decision that re-affirmed those rights and established the tribes as co-managers of the salmon resource.

This isn’t something new to the tribes. The state’s approach has long been to ignore treaty rights even if that means ignoring the best interests of all of its citizens.

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. The cost to benefit ratio goes up as the number of culverts repaired per year increases, they said. Two years later, state agencies said every dollar spent fixing culverts would generate four dollars’ worth of additional salmon production. Recent studies support that estimate.

Still, Judge Martinez had to issue a permanent injunction against the state’s continued operation of fish-blocking culverts under state roads. The reason is that the state has actually reduced culvert repair efforts in the past three years, which has led to a net increase in the number of barrier culverts. At the current pace, the state would never complete repairs, Martinez said, because more culverts were becoming barriers to salmon than were being fixed.

The federal court’s ruling will not bankrupt the state. Judge Martinez gave the state and its Department of Transportation (DOT) 17 years to complete repairs. Other state agencies were already planning to have their blocking culverts corrected within the next three years.

Culvert repair cost estimates being provided by the state are higher than the actual repair costs presented in court, Martinez ruled. The state claims that the average cost to replace a state DOT culvert is $2.3 million. But the evidence showed the actual cost of DOT culverts built to the best fish passage standards has been about $658,000.

It’s important to note that repairs will be funded through the state’s separate transportation budget and will not come at the expense of education or other social services. It’s also important to understand that state law already requires that culverts allow fish passage. The culvert case ruling directs the state to do nothing more than what is already required, except to correct DOT fish-blocking culverts at a faster rate.

The treaty Indian tribes bring much to the salmon management table. Salmon populations in western Washington would be in far worse shape without the salmon recovery efforts, fisheries management expertise, leadership, hatcheries, funding, and traditional knowledge the tribes provide. More habitat would be lost, fewer salmon would be available for harvest, and there would be far less funding for salmon recovery.

We prefer to cooperate rather than litigate to achieve salmon recovery. But if our treaty rights can be used to re-open these streams and enhance wild salmon populations, that’s a win-win for all of us.

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe starts Washington Harbor restoration

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe seined Washington Harbor to develop a baseline of fish populations in the harbor. The harbor’s roadway and two culverts will be replaced by a bridge later this summer. More photos can be found at NWIFC’s Flickr page by clicking on the photo.

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is restoring salmon habitat in the 118-acre Washington Harbor by replacing a roadway and two culverts with a 600-foot-long bridge.

The 600-foot-long road and the two 6-foot-wide culverts restrict tidal flow to a 37-acre estuary within the harbor adjacent to Sequim Bay, blocking fish access and harming salmon habitat.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe seined Washington Harbor to develop a baseline of fish populations in the harbor. The harbor’s roadway and two culverts will be replaced by a bridge later this summer. More photos can be found at NWIFC’s Flickr page by clicking on the photo.

The tribe seined the harbor in April to take stock of current fish populations before construction begins this summer. Chum and chinook and pink salmon, as well as coastal cutthroat, all use the estuary. Young salmon come from a number of streams, including nearby Jimmycomelately Creek at the head of Sequim Bay.

Historically, the area had quality tidal marsh and eelgrass habitat until the roadway and culverts were installed about 50 years ago, said Randy Johnson, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe habitat program manager.

“The roadway and culverts appear to have severely degraded this habitat, with evidence showing that the estuary marsh has been deprived of sediment and is eroding,” he said. “The structures restrict access for fish and for high quality habitat to develop.”