“The Dog” Leonard Daniel Charley, “The Dog” was born March 2, 1952, and passed away December 20, 2015, in the year of our Lord.
He was born and raised in Everett, Washington. He graduated from Everett High School and served in the United States Army.
He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Carolyn; four children, Donna, Les, Trina, and Tracy; eight grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; siblings; nieces, nephews, and many friends.
Visitation will be held Wednesday, December 30, 2015, from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. followed by a celebration of Leonard’s life at 11:00 a.m. at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home
“Looks Twice” Mar. 2, 1961 – Dec. 16, 2015 Shannon was born in Everett, Wash. on March 2, 1961 and went home to be with the Lord on December 16, 2015.
She grew up on the Tulalip Indian Reservation where she was also an enrolled tribal member. She was a very well respected Native artist. She did beautiful beadwork, paint, sculpted, crocheted, carved, basket weaved, and she was a very good tattoo artist. She was a den mother to a lot of young people who came to her not only for an ear to listen but for advice as well. She was easily called mom to many. Her most recent favorite pastime was spending it with her grandkids, either making clothes for her granddaughter or her dolls. Building stuff with her grandsons with their Legos or giving them “secret” missions playing Army. She really enjoyed watching all her grandkids practice their Taekwondo.
She has four children with her first husband, Louie Pablo Jr., Louie Pablo III, Colette (Tommy) Kaula, Charlo. Five grandchildren, Aaron, Nico, Echo, Louie, Jarome. She has seven siblings, Gary, Lisa (Lisa) Rocky, Miles, Shawna, Shirley, and Pat.
She is preceded in death by her son, Louie III; her mother, Jeanie; her brother, Rocky; and grandmother Helen. She leaves behind her father, Alvie; and her biological father, Ernie; and numerous cousins and friends. Shannon will be missed by all who were blessed to know her.
Visitation will be Monday, December 21, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home. Interfaith service will be held Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. at the Tulalip Gym. Funeral Service will be Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. at the Tribal Gym with burial to follow at Mission Beach Cemetery.
Tulalip Pharmacist Jane Jacobson describes the contents and uses of a Narcan kit, which are available at the Tulalip Pharmacy. Photo/Niki Cleary
by Niki Cleary, Tulalip News
It’s the time of year that we gather together with our family, reminisce about favorite memories and create new ones. While the holidays are a time of love and generosity, for those down on their luck they can be a painful reminder of better times. Holidays can also bring the added stress of creating the perfect holiday experience (usually accompanied by consumer debt) and they can heighten emotions grief and loss. Many cope with the stress and pain by leaning on prescription drugs or opiates.
Too often deaths in our community are a result of drug overdose. According to a report released early this year, one out of every five heroin deaths in the State occurred in Snohomish County (you can view the report http://www.snohd.org/Records-Reports/Data-Reports). Combined with the fact that drug use spikes during the holidays, chances are someone you know may be in danger of opiate overdose this season.
Other than abstinence, there’s no surefire way to prevent overdose, and the stigma surrounding addiction often prevents people from being willing to even discuss the possibility of a family member’s use or potential overuse of drugs. Tulalip citizen Rico Madison lost his mother to an opiate overdose; the experience has made him passionate about changing the culture of hiding drug addiction.
“I do this because everybody has someone close to them,” he said. “Everyone has been in a situation where they rejected someone who asked for help, or someone they wish they could have helped.”
One of the primary tools to offset the harm of drug addiction is Narcan, also known as Naloxone.
“Narcan is a way to help without enabling,” Rico continued. “It’s like a fire extinguisher, it can’t hurt, it can only help.”
Rico campaigns constantly to encourage everyone to purchase a Narcan kit. Most insurances will cover at least part of the cost.
The simple explanation of a deadly opiate overdose is that the effects of opiates cause your brain to shut down the normally automatic impulse to breathe. Without oxygen to the body, the heart stops and brain damage and death follow. Narcan is a narcotic antagonist; it blocks opiate receptors, which can temporarily halt the effects of the opiate.
Tulalip Pharmacist Jane Jacobson explained, “This is not a fix, it’s a last resort. A dose will wear off in 30-90 minutes, so you still need to call 911, because when it wears off the patient will be back into overdose.”
She described the ‘look’ of an opiate overdose, “They may look like they’re sleeping. They may be breathing very slowly. They may breathe in a long, slow gasp, followed by a long pause. They may have blue or gray lips or may be unresponsive. When a person is only breathing 5-10 breaths a minute, you are looking at brain damage.
“If you even think someone may be overdosing on opiates administer Narcan immediately,” she instructed. “It only works on opiates, if someone is overdosing on something else, this won’t hurt them. There are two doses in your kit. If there’s no effect within two to three minutes, use the other syringe, start rescue breaths and call 911.”
Due to Rico’s activism, Tulalip enacted the Lois Luella Jones Good Samaritan Law, a law that offers limited exemption from prosecution if a person calls 911 for help with an overdose.
“With the Good Samaritan Law you will not be arrested for drug paraphernalia, underage drinking, or non-violent misdemeanors,” explained Jane. “Sometimes addicts want to help, but they don’t call 911 because they’re afraid they will be arrested.”
Narcan kits are available at the Tulalip Pharmacy. Tulalip employee insurance covers the cost with only $8.00 co-pay, and Washington’s Applecare covers the kits at 100%. For the uninsured, the kits cost $105 for non-Tulalips and $65 for Tulalip citizens.
Each kit comes with a pharmacist’s consultation and purchasers watch a video that explains how to use it. Photo/Niki Cleary
“We have a lot of kits in stock, made up and ready to go,” said Jane. She pointed out that the kits, while generally sought after by families and friends of those suffering addiction, are useful for many populations.
“We also recommend people on chronic pain management medications have kits on hand as well,” she said. “Hopefully you won’t need it, but it’s here if you do. It’s better to have a kit just in case than be in a situation where you could have used it and saw a friend or family member pass away when you could have gotten something to save them.”
If you have a kit and use one dose, replace it even though there’s another dose still in the kit.
“You always want the second dose,” said Jane, reminding that sometimes a single dose isn’t enough to halt the overdose. Each kit comes with a pharmacist’s consultation and purchasers watch a video to explain how to use it. Narcan is prescribed as a four-day supply, so a client can pick up a new kit every four days if they choose.
“If people want to come in and get kits as a family, we can do that too,” said Jane.
“I don’t want to go to another funeral because of overdose,” said Rico. “I want people to understand that it’s easy, it’s the difference between life and death and it only takes 20 minutes.”
A fire extinguisher, a life preserver, a first aid/CPR class; we don’t think twice about most tools designed to save lives. If you can learn something or buy something and save someone’s life, it’s a no-brainer, right? Narcan is no different. This holiday season, while you’re shopping and heading to and from dinners and holiday parties, please think about scheduling a trip to the Tulalip Pharmacy to pick up a Narcan kit. It may be that the greatest gift you give this year, is saving someone’s life.
The model Angyaaq, which means ‘open boat’ to the Sugpiat peoples of Alaska. Photo/Micheal Rios
by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
The Burke Museum, located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, is home to more than 16 million historical artifacts and objects. The thing is, only a few thousand are on display on a daily basis. Of those millions and millions of artifacts hidden away in archives and storage rooms, there is no telling how many hold cultural keys that could unlock indigenous knowledge once thought lost or destroyed forever during colonization and European settlement.
Enter Dr. Sven Haakanson, member of the Alutiq people of Kodiak, Alaska. Sven is a world renowned curator of North American ethnology and currently the head of Native American anthropology at the Burke Museum. Sven has joined the Burke team to use the museum’s amazing collection and vast resources to find those keys to indigenous knowledge currently hidden away.
“For me, the real privilege is having access to such an amazing collection because when I look at ethnographic pieces I don’t see an art piece, I see a historic object,” says Sven. “I see something that we can use the museum as a way to bring back a lot of that traditional knowledge, that we thought was lost, and put it back into a living context.”
A prime example of rediscovering indigenous knowledge that was thought lost forever has been the finding of simple model boat. Well, it was thought of as simple and sat away in collections until Sven came across it and realized he had stumbled across long lost knowledge.
What he found was a model Angyaaq, which means ‘open boat’ to the Sugpiat peoples of Alaska. This model Angyaaq is one of only a dozen known to exist and hold secrets to a long ago mode of transportation. It demonstrates a lost building tradition, models the difference pieces needed, and material and engineering techniques used to build a full-size Angyaaq – like marine animal skins to wrap the hull and lashing to tie all the pieces together. This model is key to Sven unlocking and reviving a practice of boat making absent on Kodiak for nearly 200 years.
According to Burke researchers, the Angyaat (plural for Angyaaq) were an essential part of the Sugpiat peoples of Southern Alaska’s livelihood and culture for thousands of years. An open boat used for transportation, hunting, trading, warring and more. Angyaat were a symbol of prosperity and wealth. Remnants of these boats are present in archaeological sites; yet, by the 1820s, roughly twenty years after contact, Russian settlers had either taken or destroyed all Angyaat in an effort to restrict the Native peoples’ ability to move, gather in large numbers, and display their wealth and power. Due to this destruction, very little is known about a type of boat once common on Kodiak Island.
What Sven set out to do was first make successful models of the model, in an effort to teach himself how to build the open boat without the use of modern methods. “No nails, no glue” in order to replicate and then teach the traditional way. After many intricate sketches and even more attempted models later, Sven had taught himself how to replicate the Angyaaq model using the same traditional techniques. The next phase is to use the model to build a full-size, working boat.
Photo/Micheal RiosPhoto/Micheal Rios
“By building this traditional boat in the traditional style, we are taking information that was lost from my community in the 1800s and figuring out innovative ways restore that indigenous knowledge,” explains Sven. “We are not just reverse engineering the model, but we will build a full-size one so we can share that information back into the communities from which it came. This is just one example of thousands that we can do for the next 100 years for our local Native communities both here in Washington and in Alaska.”
“The amazing can happen when you look at these museum objects not just as beautiful art pieces, but think about the history embodied in them. Think about what it means to the indigenous peoples and how they can then take this lost knowledge and re-embrace it while celebrating it. For me, it’s a process of rediscovery, of looking at how innovative, how adaptive, and how scientific my ancestors were. In that, this Angyaaq is just one example of who knows how many others we have and haven’t explored yet. I’m hoping this will be a catalyst for asking even more questions and continue to be innovative as we search through the past.”
Over the summer, Sven will travel to Kodiak Island to work with tribal members on the construction of several model Angyaat, with the goal of training students how to build a full-size, working boat in the future. Practicing this reconstruction with community members is helping share Sugpiat heritage and traditions, restoring knowledge that’s been lost, and providing a research model for others around the world to emulate.
Until then, Sven with continue to hone his Angyaat building skills as he hosts a live exhibit that can be witnessed by all. Witness the revival of a lost practice as part of a special month-long program at the Burke Museum. Visitors can see the finished Angyaaq in the Maker-Market from December 20 – January 3. Check burkemuseum.org/maker for the up-to-date boat construction schedule.
It has been 100 years since water flowed in this now former farmland along Ebey Slough. The place is unrecognizable from what it was just four months ago.
“A lot of things are going to change really fast in here,” said Todd Zackey, as he and a team of researchers from the Tulalip Tribes navigated the waters Monday.
In August, the Tulalip, along NOAA and Snohomish County breached a levee along the slough, flooding the land and returning its natural state.
Now, researchers are casting nets into the water to see what fish are showing up. The goal is to create a salmon spawning habitat to help in increase their numbers around Puget Sound.
Researchers are casting nets into the Ebey Slough to see what fish are showing up. (Photo: Eric Wilkinson / KING)
Right now, though, there are far more questions than answers.
“Can we punch a hole in the dike and have the salmon respond in a positive way?” asked researcher Matt Pouley. “Are we going to see a population response over a reasonable amount of time?”
So far only a few salmon have been spotted, but that’s to be expected for this time of the year. There are plenty of other fish, though, and that’s a good sign.
No one is in a hurry. This is a long term project. It will likely take a century for full restoration of these waters.
And this project is about more than strengthening the fish supply. It’s about a way of life that goes back thousands of years for the Tulalip, and preserving that tradition for generations to come.
“The tribe is, in essence, losing part of its culture,” said Zackey. “Restoring salmon is restoring the culture of the tribe.”
Damen Bell-Holter is used to making headlines, as the first member of the Haida Nation to ever step on an NBA floor.
Now the 25-year-old, 6’9″ gentle giant, a former member of the Boston Celtics, is making headlines of a different kind. Bell-Holter, now playing professionally overseas in Finland, is speaking out about the issue of youth suicides, which have plagued First Nations communities.
I sat down with him to find out why the issue touches home for him — and how he is taking action.
CT: Why has youth suicide become a signature issue for you?
DBH: Growing up in Hydaburg, Alaska, it was a big problem. My home life wasn’t ideal, with alcoholism and abuse and all those things. I had cousins who committed suicide. When you’re in a town that small, with only around 300 people, almost everyone’s family has been through it. It seemed like there was a suicide every year.
CT: What’s going on, and why is this happening?
DBH: When you’re stuck in small communities, that’s all you can see. You don’t really have big hopes for the future. I was extremely fortunate because I had basketball as an outlet, which was huge for me. But if you don’t have an outlet like that, there’s a lot of negativity in these small towns. And all it takes is one moment of weakness and struggle.
CT: What have you decided to do about it?
DBH: Since my sophomore year in college, I’ve been holding basketball camps for kids every single year. My goal was to give back and work with kids, and since I started doing that, I discovered what a big issue youth suicide is in so many communities. It’s a real pattern.
As a result, about 60-70 per cent of the time in my camps doesn’t even involve basketball. I talk to kids about domestic violence, about alcohol abuse, about drugs. I’ve done over 40 of these camps over the last few years, all the way from Alaska, to Haida Gwaii, to mainland B.C., to reservations in lower 48 states like Washington, Oregon and Utah.
CT: Why is it so important for First Nations kids to hear from you?
DBH: Kids in these small communities are really stubborn. If someone from the lower 48 states is talking to them, they just think, ‘You don’t know what we go through.’ But when I come and talk to them about my home-life growing up, then they realize, ‘Hey, that’s my story too.’
CT: Losing young people in this way is particularly heartbreaking. What would you say to communities going through this?
DBH: The biggest thing is to keep kids involved. Demonstrate a lot of positivity, make sure kids are coming to the gym, keep them active, and show them that you care. Some communities, like Skidegate on Haida Gwaii, are really great at that.
CT: To kids who are in a dark place right now, what would you say to them?
DBH: Your home-life doesn’t have to dictate your future and how you feel about yourself. Suicide doesn’t have to be an option. Everyone has struggles: I had thoughts of suicide when I was a kid, too. I thought there was nothing better for me out there. But if I had taken my own life, I would have affected my family and my community for generations to come. I wouldn’t be here sharing my story right now.
CT: How has the response been to your youth camps?
DBH: The great thing about native communities is that when someone does something special, everyone really comes together to support them. I’ve had so much support from Haida Gwaii, and towns like Skidegate and Masset, with people telling me they’re proud of me. Hopefully I’ll have an effect on these kids, even just a few of them, because here I am — Haida from a small Alaska town of 300 — and I’ve seen the highest levels of basketball in the world, doing things I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do.
By Lorraine Loomis, Chair Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Billy Frank Jr., longtime chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, received many awards during his life and continues to be honored since his passing in 2014.
His life was celebrated last month when President Barack Obama posthumously awarded him the Medal of Freedom. It is the nation’s highest civilian award.
Billy would have been delighted to receive the medal, but even more delighted by the attention that such an award can bring to the issues he fought for every day: protection of tribal cultures, treaty rights and natural resources.
We hope the United States will honor not only Billy’s life, but also his dream, by taking action on the Treaty Rights at Risk initiative that was the focus of his efforts for the final four years of his life.
Salmon recovery efforts cross many federal, state and local jurisdictions, but leadership is lacking to implement recovery consistently across those lines. Billy believed that the federal government has a duty to step in and lead a more coordinated and effective salmon recovery effort. The federal government has both the legal and trust responsibility to honor our treaties and recover the salmon resource.
That’s why he called on tribal leadership to bring the Treaty Rights at Risk initiative to the White House in 2011. It is a call to action for the federal government to ensure that the promises made in the treaties are honored and that our treaty-reserved resources remain available for harvest.
Tribal cultures and economies in western Washington depend on salmon. But salmon are in a spiral to extinction because their habitat is being lost faster than it can be restored.
Some tribes have lost even their most basic ceremonial and subsistence fisheries – the cornerstone of tribal life. Four species of salmon in western Washington are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, some of them for more than a decade.
“As the salmon disappear, so do our tribal cultures and treaty rights. We are at a crossroads, and we are running out of time,” Billy wrote not long before his passing.
Over the past four years under the Treaty Rights at Risk initiative, we have met often with federal agency officials and others to work toward a coordinated set of salmon recovery goals and objectives. Progress has been slow, and at times discouraging, but we remain optimistic.
An important goal is to institutionalize the Treaty Rights at Risk initiative in the federal government through the White House Council on Native American Affairs, created by President Obama in 2013.
Economic development, health care, tribal justice systems, education and tribal natural resources are the five pillars of the council. With one exception – natural resources – subgroups have been created for each pillar to help frame the issues and begin work.
That needs to change. A natural resources subgroup is absolutely essential to address the needs of Indian people and the natural resources on which we depend. A natural resources subgroup would provide an avenue for tribes nationally to address the protection and management of the natural resources critical to their rights, cultures and economies.
We are running out of time to recover salmon and we are running out of time for the Obama Administration to provide lasting and meaningful protection of tribal rights and resources. Recent meetings with federal officials have been encouraging. We are hopeful that the natural resources subgroup will be created in the coming year.
The creation of a natural resources subgroup for the White House Council on Native American Affairs would truly be a high honor that the United States could bestow on Billy’s legacy.
