“We carried the stories”

In the last couple of days, I had the joy of exploring more of the Islands with not only my parents, but also my long-time childhood best friend, Quincy. She and I go all the way back to 1st grade, and we essentially regard each other as sisters, living on opposite coastlines. We spent yesterday in Port Townsend exploring the shops and boat-building venues, one in particular in which a 17-year-old girl was building a wooden canoe on her own. It was wonderful to see a younger generation embracing life on the water, and a reminder to me that I have spent way too much time living in urban environments (no offense, Boston, I do love you).

Wooden canoes in Port Townsend, WA.

Another highlight for Jack’s marine education was sea kayaking today with my parents. We had a guided tour just north of Deception Pass and enjoyed more bull kelp, many coastal invertebrates at the low end of the tide, and a mother harbor seal and her pup on a rock. Jack expressed to me how much he loves “little sea animals”, especially “blobs” (anemones), which of course warmed my marine biologist heart to Poseidon and back. I towed the hydrophone with me in hopes of hearing any orca chatter, but alas, nada. This was the first time I had seen him this excited and engaged in the natural world, and I am so deeply grateful that he got to be part of this trip, especially alongside his grandparents.

Jack converseing with a Frilled Dogwinkle (Nucella lamellosa).

We took some time on the mainland to explore the Hibulb Cultural Center at the Tulalip Reservation, where I could get a closer look at some of the maritime customs of Coast Salish tribes pre and post-colonization. This museum was fantastic in how it presented the Snohomish people past and present, and truly brought to light the fact that the Tulalip is strictly a term for an artificial assemblage of tribes from all over the San Juan Islands and mainland who were corralled into the Tulalip Reservation following the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. This treaty required that over a dozen unique groups give up their land, language, and cultural practices in exchange for unlimited fishing, hunting, and foraging across all lands. Did this agreement work out hitherto in perpetuity? Of course not.

From the Hibulb Cultural Center, depicting the decades of issues between the U.S Government and the Coast Salish tribes on the topic of fishing rights.

Here is a big part of this that brings me back to something Rosemary said in our conversation on Monday. She spoke of the fact that pre-colonization, Coast Salish women were just as active fishermen as the men were. There was no gender discrimination when it came to such roles; babies were not given names until they were old enough to connect with their world, and so gender had no place in deciding a person’s rights or abilities. Such things were, as she said, a “white man thing”. So, when European-American settlers brought their notions of gender roles to the Pacific Coast and struck a treaty that guaranteed the cultural erasure of indigenous Americans in exchange for “unlimited fishing” (which we know it wasn’t anyway), here’s the rub: it always meant only half of the indigenous population anyway.

Indigenous women were expected to fit into Euro-American ideals of women’s gender roles, and thus were legally excluded from the practices (and businesses) that they had practiced for hundreds of generations. If indigenous women weren’t allowed to be fishermen - from a business or ownership standpoint - then the indigenous population as a whole was being stifled even twofold what we already knew it to be. Rosemary went on to reference the major salmon decline in the 1920s that resulted in fishing commissions by the Washington State Department of Fisheries, at which “we [women] carried the stories, but only the men were allowed to speak. So women whispered to the men what to say.”

A woman “greeter” at the Hibulb Cultural Center. Also, my dad.

Rosemary’s perspective was keen in my mind as I wandered into another exhibit, one that honored and brought solemn reference to Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women (and People, as it has been predominantly women who are victims of violence, but not exclusively). This movement brings awareness and action to the disproportionate amount of violence, death, and trafficking that indigenous women experience in the US as compared to their white peers. More in-depth information on that can be found here if you are interested. What a surreal and devastating juxtaposition.

The exhibit on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women (& People)

I have so much more to process and research and say on this subject, especially as we continue to witness the rise of authoritarianism in our country, which coincides directly and noncoincidentally with the oppression and silencing of women. As Coast Salish women continue to rise and reclaim their rightful presence and voice in the waters of the Pacific Northwest, I will continue to listen and hope to learn from their example.

Tomorrow, I leave this part of the world and hop to the next…..

This mermaid is in my parents’ dining room, overlooking the Salish Sea. I’d envy her for the view, but methinks she never actually sees it.