Gasworks Park in Seattle is a great park for a lot of people. It’s also a historic Coast Salish fishing site, and the first stop on this audio tour that immerses us in the stories and languages of the Salish Sea area.
Gasworks Park in Seattle is a great park for a lot of people. It’s also a historic Coast Salish fishing site, and the first stop on this audio tour that immerses us in the stories and languages of the Salish Sea area.
What does it mean to live in a place for thousands of thousands of years?
Did you know that there are geoduck clams older than Washington State?
Indigenous Coast Salish peoples continue to steward this land and preserve its language, despite settler colonialism, industrialization and gentrification. Listen to connect to the Salish Sea area, as a step towards creating healthier human relationships with this changing ecosystem.
“As young as I can remember, it has been the beach and the water that my existence has been drawn to.”
“Treaties are guaranteed by the Constitution, yet they are broken every day by environmental degradation.”
“I think I can feel where water is. I use it to orient myself. Once I feel where is water, I can then figure out where I am.”
“It's such a soft feeling.”
“You know the history of the Ship Canal, don’t you?”
“The river and salt water have been important to our people since the beginning of time.”
Part story, part sound collage, this piece is scored entirely with the sounds of the waters and animals who live in and around the Salish Sea.
Voices featured are: Ken Workman (Duwamish), Warren King George (Muckleshoot), Michelle Myles (Tulalip), Archie Cantrell (Puyallup), LaDean Johnson (Skokomish), Owen Oliver (Quinault / Isleta Pueblo), Lydia Sigo (Suquamish), Randi Purser (Suquamish), RYAN! Feddersen (FLOW artist, Confederated Tribes of the Colville - Okanogan / Arrow Lakes), and Eric Autry (Seattle Public Utilities), Joseph Sisneros (UW) and Jeanne Hyde (The Whale Museum).
Created by audio artists Jenny Asarnow and Rachel Lam (Anigiduwagi enrolled Cherokee Nation), this audio experience is intended to be listened to on site or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
To listen on site, start at Gasworks Park. Follow the route along N Northlake Way and the Burke Gilman trail to the entrance of the Ship Canal at the Fremont Bridge; and then return the way you came.
Commissioned with SPU 1% for Art Funds.
Administered by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.
City of Seattle, Bruce Harrell, Mayor.
Saltwater Soundwalk (FULL TOUR)
Seattle is an engineered city, but it only happened yesterday
[00:00] [sound of gently lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
[00:00:10] Randi Purser Smith (Suquamish): [Greeting in Lushootseed]
[00:00:19] Archie Cantrell (Puyallup): [Greeting in Twulshootseed]
[sound of whales clicking and calling intermixed with plainfin midshipman humming and growling sounds]
[00:00:29] Ken Workman (Duwamish): [Introduction in Lushootseed]
[00:00:37] Michelle Myles (Tulalip): [Introduction in Lushootseed]
[00:00:40] Archie: [Introduction in Twulshootseed]
[00:00:43] Randi: [Introduction in Lushootseed]
[00:00:46] LaDean Johnson (Skokomish): [Introduction in Tuwaduq]
[00:00:49] Owen Oliver (Quinault / Isleta Pueblo): [Introduction in Chinuk Wawa] Kloshe Konaway Owen Nayka Niem
[sound of waters from around the Salish Sea and its watershed continues]
[00:00:58] Ken Workman: [Lushootseed word] is water, [Repeats Lushootseed word] is gathering.
Collage of interwoven voices:
[00:01:04] RYAN! Feddersen: I think I can feel where water is. I use it to orient myself…
Archie: [Speaking in Twulshootseed / The river and saltwater have been important to our people since the beginning of time]
RYAN!: ...I think, where is water.
Owen: It’s just—it’s such a soft feeling.
LaDean: [Tuwaduq word / fish]
Randi: As young as I can remember, it has been the beach and the water that my existence has been drawn to.
LaDean: Fish, fish, fish in general.
Warren King George (Muckleshoot): The king salmon, the sockeye salmon, the humpy or pink salmon, the silver salmon, the steelhead…
Lydia Sigo (Suquamish): Treaties are guaranteed by the Constitution, yet they are broken every day…
[sounds of plainfin midshipman humming and growling intermixed with sounds of whales clicking and calling]
Warren: … were forced to find a different home.
Lydia: …broken every day by environmental degradation.
Michelle: [Lushootseed word / Seattle]
Randi: It was like a barren wasteland or desert.
LaDean: We as a people in general love the fish.
Archie: The river and salt water have been important to our people since the beginning of time.
Archie and Lydia: [Speaking Twulshootseed and Lushootseed words together / saltwater]
[plainfin midshipman sound and the sound of lapping waves continue]
[sound of water at Gas Works Park, Lake Union]
[00:02:11] Warren: [Speaking in Southern Lushootseed]
[Repeats in Southern Lushootseed]
[Repeats Southern Lushootseed name / Hit the Water] Hit the Water.
Warren: The Lake Union is a good memory for me.
My name is Warren King George. I was born in 1965 in Auburn, Washington, very near the present-day Muckleshoot, bəqəlšuɫ, Reservation. My father’s bloodline is how I'm enrolled in the bəqəlšuɫ Tribe.
Gas Works Park is a great park for a lot of people. Most people who visit the park, I don't think they have any idea of the traditional history and the traditional value of that area; of that—banks of the Lake Union. Gas Works Park is a great park for a lot of people. And the last time I was there, I got to fish that water with my sister[European name] who carries the traditional name [Says Lushootseed name]. And we got to fish together. We fished for sockeye. We got to exercise a treaty right. Sockeye salmon—[Says Southern Lushootseed word twice] is the way you can say that in Lushootseed. You know, it’s rare that we get a treaty sockeye fishery.
[Repeats Southern Lushootseed word / sockeye]
And we fished in Lake Union. Lake Union falls within the usual and accustomed area of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. There was so much activity going on that day with boaters and sailboaters and jet skis and people walking their dogs and, and families enjoying the picnic and couples, you know, walking around, holding hands and people flying kites. And there was sunbathers. It was strange because I was there for a totally different reason.
[Sounds of people talking, bicycles and music at Gas Works Park]
The place that my sister and I fished was very near [Says Southern Lushootseed name twice]. It was just east of [Southern Lushootseed name].
[sounds of Gas Works Park fades out]
[00:05:24] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed] The river and salt water have been important to our people since the beginning of time.
[sound of gently lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
[00:05:56] Ken: [Says Lushootseed name / Workman] Workman.
[Speaks in Lushootseed] Workman is my name.
[Speaks in Lushootseed] I am Workman of the Duwamish tribe.
[Speaks in Lushootseed] Great, great, great, great grandson of Chief Seattle, I.
So that city over there is named after my great, great, great, great grandfather. So, Seattle. Hey, Grandpa. How you doing?
So we say [Lushootseed phrase], which means, “Come ashore”.
[Speaks in Lushootseed]. Come ashore onto this land. [Speaks in Lushootseed]. Welcome my friend. And that generally is enough. And people go, “Okay! The Duwamish said we can be here.” [Laughs] So we all have a good time, but we also do the same thing when we're on somebody else's land. We recognize that that's their land. Those are their people, ancient people in the ground, and they've been there for a long time and you just can't, you know, be trespassing. You have to ask for permission.
[sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp continue]
Except today our land is downtown Seattle with Space Needles and skyscrapers and billionaires upon billionaires upon billionaires. So it’s changed. Hundred and seventy years ago there was nothing over there except beaver and elk and deer and seagull and seals and stuff like that.
[sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
But here we are. It's a wonderful day. It’s blue sky and clouds and the air is crisp, and the city is all lit up from the sun. Over here where the stadiums are, the baseball stadium and the football stadium, just about a half mile to the north of them is the ancient village of [Lushootseed name].
Our names are about places.
[sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp fade out]
[00:08:48] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed] The Lushootseed language comes from the land.
[sounds of water at Kayak Point Regional County Park]
[00:09:06] Michelle: [Says Lushootseed name twice]
[Lushootseed name] is a very ancient name—a prehistoric name.
[00:09:26] Ken: Our names are about places.
[00:09:30] Michelle: [Says Lushootseed name twice]
It is a name of a place, of a bay, and since 1855, the name of a reservation. Tulalip… Tulalip… The name is mispronounced by so many people, but Tulalip is nearest to the right pronunciation for the Snohomish Indian word [Says Lushootseed name / The Long Bay] which means, “The Long Bay”.
[sounds of water at Kayak Point Regional County Park lapping in the background]
[00:10:10] Michelle: [Lushootseed Introduction] Michelle Myles
[00:10:45] Michelle: So first off, we're going to talk about some names that are located around Tulalip [Says Lushootseed name]. The first one we're going to talk about is [Repeats Lushootseed name twice]. It was the largest Snohomish village [located in present-day Everett].
[Lushootseed name / Rock Point, otherwise known as Priest Point—that’s where Father Cheruse had his first school.].
[Speaks in Lushootseed] And that is the place where the wooly dogs were kept.
Spee-Bi-Dah. Spee-Bi-Dah. And it still holds that name till this day.
[Lushootseed name] That's what we call Seattle.
[Speaks in Lushootseed / A place located in the southern end of Portage Bay. There was a marsh there.]
[Lushootseed name / the portage from Lake Washington to Lake Union]
[Lushootseed name / deep for canoes. A bluff at the foot of Lake Union]
[Speaks in Lushootseed] In Lushootseed it means a place where jumping occurred. Nowadays there are a number of houseboats that are moored along this waterfront. And so that's located near Gas Works Park.
[Lushootseed word / deep. A place with rocky shoreline, there may have been a dropoff there.]
[Lushootseed phrase / where a trail descends to the water at the southern end of Lake Union.]
So what's fascinating about all these land formations, you have to think back that when our people were naming these places in Lushootseed, there were no planes at that time. Our people had to walk, travel by canoe, and for them to name all these locations around Washington State all through Seattle, all the way up until you get to Canada, is amazing.
[sounds of water at Kayak Point Regional County Park fades out]
[sounds of people talking at Gas Works Park]
[00:13:17] Warren: [Speaking in Southern Lushootseed]
[sound of gently lapping water in Lake Union at Gas Works Park]
The place that my sister and I fished was very near [Says Southern Lushootseed word twice]. The literal translation means “Hit the Water.” The reason why we call [Southern Lushootseed name] “Hit the Water” was historically and traditionally that was one method of fishing, and you would, we would hit the water to drive the fish into these traps. We were fishing near, very nearby [Southern Lushootseed name]. Hit the Water. That was an old fishing site, an old village site.
[sound of birds chirping at Lake Union, sound fades out]
[sound of plainfin midshipman hum and growl intermixed with whale clicks and calls]
[00:14:35] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed ] We fish with nets.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] We dive for geoduck.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] We trap for crab.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] We dig clams.
[sound of flowing water and birds on the banks of the Puyallup River]
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] And we trap for shrimp.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] We continue to gather, fish, and travel by water in our traditional waterways.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] I feel connected to our waters.
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] The rivers and saltwater have been important to our people since the beginning of time.
[sounds of the Puyallup River continue]
[00:15:58] Randi: It is the water that supports all of the life we seek to support and feed our families.
[sound of plainfin midshipman hums, grunts and growls intermixed with whale clicks and calls, and the sounds of the Puyallup River banks]
[00:16:20] Michelle: [Says Lushootseed word / Seattle twice]
[00:16:25] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed / I feel connected to our waters]
[sounds of the Puyallup River banks fades out as sounds derived from midshipman hums continue]
[00:16:42] RYAN!: I think I can feel where water is. I use it to orient myself. Once I feel where is water, I can then figure out where I am.
Hi, my name is RYAN! Feddersen. I'm a visual artist based in Tacoma, Washington. I'm also a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, descended from the Okenagan and Arrow Lakes Bands.
Water, when it's alive, is continuously moving. And I'd like to pose that water and bodies of water have inherent rights as all life does. When we do not treat those bodies of water respectfully, and when we act destructively, we are violating their rights to live.
[sound of gently lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
[00:17:43] Eric Autry (Seattle Public Utilities): So, let’s see. Here's what we've gone to in the past 24 hours or so. Yeah, we had a spill from a garbage truck, and what happened was the contents of the garbage truck caught on fire and the garbage truck had to dump its load in the street.
[sound of birds and water at Erlands Point at low tide]
There was a spill of sewage. We had another garbage truck this morning spill a bunch of antifreeze. And we had a diesel spill at an intersection. When I show up to some of this stuff. And I'm like, oh no, I don't want to touch this. [Laughs]
My name's Eric Autry. I'm a senior environmental compliance inspector and I'm the lead of Seattle Public Utilities spill response program. Our motto is “Only rain down the drain.” You know, my whole job is to make sure that pollution isn't getting into the water through the storm water system.
[sounds of Erlands Point fade out]
[sounds of outdoor water tap turning, spraying a hose, a person drinking water, washing dishes, and a washing machine]
[00:18:56] RYAN!:
Painting watercolors.
Shaving your legs.
Swimming and making pools.
Doing the dishes.
Shampooing your hair.
Shampooing a pet.
Growing food.
Watering herbs.
These are all very mundane things that we do. But as banal as these tasks are, they’re possible through us having access to and consuming this clean water.
[00:19:42] Eric: I don't think as like, community members, we think about how our actions could cause stormwater pollution—things like washing your car, or having a leaking vehicle, spraying out a paintbrush in your driveway—you know, pretty innocuous things that you're like, “Ah, this isn't a big deal”. But it's the combination of all of these things together that has an effect on the environment. If you’re putting something on the ground, on an impervious surface, you’re putting it in the water. It’s gonna get there. The road, your curb, your driveway—that's the water.
[sound of gently lapping waves]
[00:20:26] Archie: [Says Twulshootseed word / saltwater twice]
[00:20:33] Lydia: [Lushootseed word / saltwater]
[sound of rain]
[00:20:42] RYAN!: From where you’re standing a cloud rolls overhead. It squeezes a drop as it makes its ascent up. As this drop falls it lands on the corner of Interlaken and 36th.
[00:20:59] Eric: A drop of rain is going to hit the ground, and build up with other raindrops.
[00:21:06] RYAN!: As more water joins it, it begins its path down the streets.
[00:21:13] Eric: Underneath this trap and then out into a pipe.
[00:21:18] RYAN!: Through the industrial spaces.
[00:21:19] Eric: The pipe on 35th connects to a mainline on Stone. 74,948 feet of pipe end up discharging out of that pipe at the end of Stone Way, directly out to the Ship Canal.
[Sounds of Fremont Bridge lowering intermixed with sounds of Lake Union at Gas Works Park]
[00:21:40] RYAN!: And it ends up at the edge of Lake Union.
[00:21:44] Eric: So the amount of stormwater that enters the water at the Ship Canal is ginormous. It might spend a little bit of time in Lake Union...
[00:21:56] RYAN!: It swirls with those waters and eventually finds its way through the Ship Canal…
[00:22:02] Eric: …Ship Canal…[simultaneously with RYAN!]
[00:22:04] RYAN!: …Carrying it between the two halves of North and South Seattle and bringing it into the Shilshole Bay. And travels into the Sound.
[Sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp intermixed with sounds of water at Kayak Point Regional County Park]
[00:22:17] Eric: …the Puget Sound, and…[simultaneously with RYAN!]
[00:22:18] RYAN!: From there it joins the Salish Sea.
[00:22:20] Eric: …the Salish Sea…[simultaneously with RYAN!]...on its journey to the ocean.
[the sound of gently lapping waves]
[the sound of waves roaring in the Pacific Ocean at La Push]
[00:22:29] Ken: This is the same water that’s over in Japan. It’s over in Asia. It’s over in Europe, South America.
[roaring waves continues]
[00:22:43] Eric: If you think about the journey of a raindrop before there was a bunch of paved streets, those first few drops of rain would start to infiltrate into the soil, go into groundwater, or they’d reach a point where they’re actually going into small creeks, streams, going into rivers, going into Puget Sound or the—well, it wouldn’t be a Ship Canal back then. But yeah, into Lake Union.
[sound of running water like a river]
And that’s the way this area used to work, there used to be little flows of water, all these little tiny flow paths that gather together, and we took it and put it into pipes and controlled it so we can build.
[00:23:26] RYAN!: All of the stone surfaces that we place over the land, we’re essentially creating deserts in the city.
[sound of gently lapping waves in Lake Union at Gas Works Park]
[00:23:42] Ken: Today our land is downtown Seattle with Space Needles and skyscrapers and billionaires upon billionaires upon billionaires.
[sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
[00:23:54] RYAN!: We have a responsibility to be reflective of the resources that we use and how we use them.
[00:24:03] Warren: Engineers made some vast changes, irreversible changes,
[00:24:10] Eric: I think the ultimate goal is no pollution. Not a certain amount, but zero. And I don’t know that I’ll see it, but maybe my kids or my grandchildren will see that.
[sounds of water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp continue]
[00:24:24] Randi: When we were little, you could not walk out there without being squirted by a horse clam, and sand dollar herds seemed to move about everywhere out there.
[00:24:35] RYAN!: Water, and bodies of water, have inherent rights as all life does.
[00:24:46] Lydia: We are at a critical turning point. Honoring treaty rights has the power to protect Puget Sound for future generations.
[sounds of drinking water, water boiling, a washing machine, a child spraying a hose]
[00:25:00] RYAN!:
Drinking water.
Taking a bath.
A washing machine.
Making beer.
Flotillas.
Water skiing.
Drinking coffee.
Making ice.
Putting out fires.
Aquaculture.
And rainbows.
[sound of birds and water at Erlands Point at low tide]
[00:25:39] Randi: It is the water that supports all of the life we seek to support and feed our families.
[00:25:52] Archie: [Twulshootseed language / trans: The river and salt water have been important to our people since the beginning of time]
[00:26:08] Randi: Randi Purser Smith [Lushootseed Introduction]
Erlands Point is an ancestral home for my family. It is a site of a historical village of the Suquamish people. I am fortunate, and I think blessed, to have been born and raised there. As young as I can remember, it has been the beach and the water that my existence has been drawn to. I've always stuck my head underwater and just looked since before I got my first scuba mask at five years old. And then as an adult making a living fishing, shrimping, crabbing, clam digging, geoduck diving.
When we were little, you could not walk out there without being squirted by a horse clam, and sand dollar herds seemed to move about everywhere out there. There was always a layer of weeds that rose up like a garden when the tide came in that hid cucumbers and starfish and spider crabs and the like, and we used to eat the mussels off the rocks out there. We waited for flounders with spears fashioned with forks and knives borrowed from our mom's kitchen. And when we dug we feasted on cockles, butters, and then the steamers were further up the beach by the Island and all the way up to the high tide. And one time while trolling with a rowboat, we caught a beautiful cutthroat right off the Point.
But today, plastic litters that whole stretch. And during a minus tide last summer, I was shocked to see such a drastic change from my childhood recollections. It was like a barren wasteland or desert, just plain mud. And I'm sad for my granddaughter in a way I'm sure our father was sad for us, seeing salmon dwindle right before our eyes. Our kids can't be raised in the same life that we were. It is the water that supports all the life we seek to support and feed our families.
[Speaks in Lushootseed]
[sounds of seashore birds on the Hood Canal, lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp, whale sounds, plainfin midshipman hums, grunts and growls plays]
[00:29:27] Lydia: We are the original caretakers of this area and have been here for thousands and thousands of years.
[sounds of gently lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp and seashore birds on the Hood Canal continues]
We are the original caretakers of this area and have been here for thousands and thousands of years. Our traditional ways were designed around the principles of honoring, respecting, and even worshiping the natural world. It is a sad irony that our traditions were called primitive when Native people maintained a pristine wilderness and have always shared beautiful and vibrant cultures. We have been here since the Ice Age.
[sounds of plainfin midshipman hums and whale sounds continue]
[00:30:30] Randi: [Speaks in Lushootseed]
[00:30:42] Owen: one of the strongest memories I have of Canoe Journey was my first official time going on Canoe Journey. Let's see, I had to be like, maybe 14 years old. That first day, I was put in the canoe by my cousin who was skippering it, Tony Johnson, and we had to come out of the Columbia River and go into the Pacific Ocean.
[Greeting in Chinuk Wawa] Kloshe Konaway Owen Nayka Niem. Hello everyone, my name is Owen Oliver. I come from the people of the lower Columbia River, the Salish Sea, and the Southwest Pueblos of Isleta. However, I'm enrolled Quinault.
When a river is coming, and then it's also meeting the force of an ocean, there's a part called the bar where it's basically impossible to get past unless you're paddling straight for about four hours in one spot. When you're paddling in one place, you're having the water splashed on you. You're having seagulls come around you. You can hear the ocean. You can smell the ocean. You smell that entrance, almost that curtain that's being opened into the Pacific Ocean. And that's shared by so many Indigenous communities.
[00:32:03] Lydia: We are the original caretakers of this area and have been here for thousands and thousands of years. Every day tribes work to revitalize ancient ways that were driven underground for decades because of forceful assimilation by the United States government.
[00:32:29] Owen: …You're paddling straight for about four hours in one spot.
[sound of waves roaring in the Pacific Ocean at La Push]
And I think it takes that kind of sense of knowing where you are to keep that fight to get into the ocean. If you're paddling for four hours, what's that end goal? Why are you doing that? Why don't you turn around and just not, you know?
But we knew just paddling and paddling that we would eventually get past that, and then we'd be able to go into the Pacific Ocean. And this was really fundamental to me because it allowed me to understand how my ancestors operated, but also, what's the meaning of Canoe Journey in the Salish Sea. It was something that my grandfather started with many other people in 1989, and it’s really helped me build these foundational steps to talk about where those good moments of Indigenous success are, and how to spot those. And how to spot when people are doing well, and not well, and how places affect us as people.
[sound of waves roaring in the Pacific Ocean at La Push increases and fades out]
[00:34:04] Ken: Oh by the way, you know the history of the Ship Canal, don’t you? The Ship Canal goes in, in 1916. And in the construction of the Ship Canal, Lake Washington was lowered nine feet.
[sounds of plainfin midshipman hums, grunts and growls]
[00:34:20] Owen: Nine feet. And there’s stories of people were sinking in their canoes.
[00:34:24] Warren: Well, engineers made some vast changes, irreversible changes, to Lake Washington and Lake Union, and the Cedar River and the Black River.
[00:34:36] Ken: The Black River was dried up.
[00:34:38] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed]
[00:34:40] Owen: We knew that it would affect all our salmon.
[00:34:44] Warren: One of the impacts, one of the many impacts of diminishing the flow of the Black River, is they eliminated virtually all of the fish runs that used that route, virtually wiping out that whole system.
[00:34:58] Owen: Back then people didn’t like salmon. The settlers called it dirty Indian food.
[00:35:02] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed]
[00:35:05] Warren: Well, we're still in recovery mode, you know. So many decades have passed. So many generations of salmon have passed, and we're still trying to recover from that.
[00:35:16] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed]
[00:35:18] Warren: You know, I mean, I totally understand the concept or the objective about commerce and the value of commerce…
[00:35:25] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed]
[00:35:26] Warren: …But in doing so, the king salmon, the sockeye salmon, the humpy or pink salmon, the silver salmon, the steelhead; all those anadromous fish that utilize that system were wiped out, or were forced to find a different home.
[00:35:46] Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed]
[00:35:48] Warren: And we, as Native Americans, totally understand that phrase or that concept of finding another home.
[00:35:56] Ken: The Black River was dried up. The last of the Duwamish were living on the Black; were run off their land. Their river was dried up. And so we couldn’t live down there anymore. And so of course it didn’t matter because these were just Indians, Duwamish Indians living down there. Seattle is an engineered city. And so all of this stuff is connected and the irony is, it only happened yesterday. It’s not like you know, it was a long time ago and get over it. It all just happened yesterday. [Laughs]
So, here we are, I’m sure when grandpa said [speaks in Lushootseed], you know, come ashore my friends, [speaks in Lushootseed], he had no idea that Seattle would change in 170 years into this monster city where we have some of the richest people in the world living.
[ambient music plays]
[00:36:56] Lydia: We have been here.
[00:36:58] Owen: What I like to tell people is that the Denny Party landed on Alki in 1851, and within four years all that treaty land was already parceled up. That was in four years. That was my undergraduate career at UW—four years. It worked that fast, that Native people in the Salish Sea and around are already seen as objects. That we can move these people. We could restrict these people to reservations. And once we're moved, then it's not our traditional territories.
[00:37:30] Lydia: We have been here since the Ice Age.
[sound of waves roaring in the Pacific Ocean at La Push]
[00:38:07] Owen: I left for my ancestral lands and went out of the Columbia river up the coast of Washington to land at Quinault. Just pristine, long, sandy beaches with these rocks that erupt out of the water. Waves are crashing against those rocks, you see those splashes of water making those dances. You can just glide your canoe on the beach and pull it up a little bit, and just leave it right there. And it's just—it's such a soft feeling. That sand is so soft when you touch it, and it kind of sinks your feet into it, but also that it's soft because you understand that all your kin are around you as well; that you can be emotionally vulnerable in those spaces, and just understand that other people's struggles there are connected.
[00:39:13] Archie: [Twulshootseed phrase / I feel connected to our waters]
[sounds of the Pacific Ocean at La Push fade out]
[sound of birds and water at Erlands Point at low tide]
[00:39:32] Lydia: As a member of the Suquamish tribe, I rely on natural resources to sustain my family. In 1855, leaders from our tribe, including Chief Seattle and Jacob Wahelchu, signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in which tribes ceded massive amounts of land so that the settlers could live here. And our inherent and sovereign right to fish and hunt in our Usual and Accustomed Areas was promised not to be interfered with. These treaties are guaranteed by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, yet they are broken every day by environmental degradation that threatens our health, our culture, and survival as Indigenous people. We are at a critical turning point. Please help us protect the [Lushootseed word / saltwater][1][2], saltwater.
[sound of gently lapping water at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
Collage of interwoven voices:
[00:40:44] Lydia: The [Lushootseed word / saltwater]
Archie: The [Twulshootseed word / saltwater]
Ken: [Lushootseed word / saltwater]
Lydia, Archie, and Ken together: The saltwater.
Lydia, Archie, and Ken together: [Repeats Lushootseed and Twulshootseed words for saltwater]
[sound of water lapping at the shore]
[00:41:10] Narrator: The oldest geoduck clam ever confirmed was 168 years old. Washington has only been a state for 133 years.
[sound of underwater microphone entering water]
[00:41:21] Owen: I want to see more protections for our nonhuman kin…
[00:41:26] LaDean: [Tuwaduq word / fish] Oysters and clams.
Collage of interwoven voices:
[00:41:28] Owen: …Like orcas, like salmon, seals and all those plant and animal relatives.
Randi: And geoduck.
Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed] Geoduck.
Michelle: Crab and…
Archie: Crab.
Randi: Horse clams.
Archie: Clams.
Randi: Cucumbers and starfish and spider clams.
Ken: Beaver and elk and deer and seagull and…
Jeanne Hyde (The Whale Museum): Southern Resident killer whales.
Owen: Orcas.
Lydia: Orca whales.
Jeanne: They are endangered.
[Sound of orca whales communicating and using clicks]
Collage of interwoven voices:
[00:41:45] Owen: I want to see more protections for our plant and animal relatives, all our nonhuman kin…
Lydia: Salmon.
Randi: Salmon dwindle right before our eyes. And my dad, he liked to talk about a run out of a creek by Marysville that sported 75-pound spring kings.
Warren: The king salmon…
Randi: They don't exist anymore.
Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed] Chinook. Coho. Chum. Steelhead.
Warren: Steelhead, [Speaks in Southern Lushootseed] the sockeye salmon, the silver salmon, the humpy or pink salmon…
Archie: [Speaks in Twulshootseed] and pinks.
LaDean: [Speaks in Tuwaduq] It means fish.
[everyone says fish all at once]
Everyone together: Fish, fish, fish.
Joseph Sisneros (UW): They’re these singing fish.
LaDean: Fish in general.
[00:42:28] Joseph: Very common in Seattle. Most people aren’t even aware of them. Some people call them toadfish, local fishermen call them bullheads. They’re also known as the plainfin midshipman. You'd be amazed of all the sounds that are being produced right there, close to shore.
[midshipman sounds, hum and growl]
[00:42:45] LaDean: My favorite word is [Tuwaduq word / fish]. Number one, I can remember it. [Laughs] Number two is, almost everybody on the reservation loves fish.
[sounds of waves lapping at Kayak Point Regional County Park layered with whale clicks, calls, and plainfin midshipman hums plays]
[00:43:08] Lydia: It really hurts us to see what is happening to Puget Sound, our [Lushootseed word / saltwater], or saltwater.
[sounds of waves lapping at Kayak Point Regional County Park continue]
It is frustrating, because if our treaty rights were truly honored, salmon would not be in danger of fish collapse right now. Orca whales would not be endangered. Our waters would not have toxic chemicals leaching into them. Tribes are in constant legal battles to protect the water and wildlife. We are utilizing our treaty rights to fight for clean and healthy water and fish for everyone. I hope more local citizens will learn about how honoring treaty rights has the power to protect Puget Sound for future generations.
[sounds of waves at Kayak Point Regional County Park, plainfin midshipman humming and grunts continue]
[00:44:16] Warren: And I think that we’re all still trying to do our part to help the salmon and help the people that depend on salmon.
[00:44:25] Lydia: Honoring treaty rights has the power to protect Puget Sound for future generations.
[00:44:42] LaDean: We, as a people in general, love the fish.
[sound of orcas singing and clicking]
[sound of birds and water lapping at Potlatch State Park on the Hood Canal]
[00:44:58] LaDean: Enatai. Enatai. Enatai. Something that sleeps a restful sleep.
[00:45:11] Ken: Our names are about places.
[00:45:17] LaDean: [Tuwaduq Introduction]
The Tuwaduq People. I am the great great granddaughter of Frank Allen, one of the many who has helped preserve our Skokomish language.
Enatai. It's a small little beach right on the tip of the Hood Canal, right on the reservation.
Enatai.
[sounds of sea birds and gently lapping waves in the background at Potlatch State Park on the Hood Canal]
It’s...It's calming. You can see seals down there every now and then. It’s rocky—a lot of barnacles. I would wear shoes, I would not wear flip flops down there! As a child I remember going down there with my mother and father. My mother is enrolled here. My father is a full-blooded Ute and he’d never had seafood in his life so my mother introduced him to seafood there.
Enatai.
We'd go down there as a child and get some fresh oysters and clams and take them home and eat them. People on the Hood Canal, we live like kings and queens ‘cause people pay a lot of money for the food that we get here.
[sounds Potlatch State Park fade out]
[00:47:04] Archie: [Says Twulshootseed word for river six times]
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] The Lushootseed language comes from the land.
[Twulshootseed Introduction]
The word [Twulshootseed word / river] meaning river, comes from the sound the river actually makes as the water is running over the rocks: [Says Twulshootseed word for river six times]
The word [Twulshootseed word / saltwater], which refers to the saltwater, comes from the sound the water makes as it crashes onto the shore.
[Says Twulshootseed word for saltwater twice]
The Puyallup [Twulshootseed word / river] is one of my favorite places to be. It begins from the glaciers of Təqʷuʔməʔ flowing northwest until reaching Commencement Bay.
[sound of flowing water and birds on the banks of the Puyallup River]
[Speaks in Twulshootseed / I have the opportunity to net fish on the Puyallup river and dive for geoduck in the Puget sound with my family.]
[Speaks in Twulshootseed] In the Puyallup river, five species of salmon come upriver:
[Lists Twulshootseed names for salmon] Chinook, coho, chum, steelhead, and pinks.
[Continues speaking in Twulshootseed] We continue to gather, fish, and travel by water in our traditional waterways.
[sound of flowing water and birds on the banks of the Puyallup River fades out]
[sounds of plainfin midshipmen humming and growling and whales clicking and singing]
[sound of water lapping on the banks of Lake Union at Gas Works Park]
[00:49:38] Warren: [Speaks in Southern Lushootseed] The place that my sister and I fished was very near [Southern Lushootseed name]. Gas Works Park is a great park for a lot of people. We got to fish together.
[Southern Lushootseed name] is, well it’s hard to get to it's hard to get to nowadays to access because of private property and boundaries, and of course, because it's on the banks of this Lake Union there are a lot of, I guess you would say, expensive homes with a view who have water rights and are protective about those water rights and the access points. And so finding a private property owner who's willing to let tribal members access to that “Hit the Water” place might be a challenge today.
The last time I was there, I got to fish that water with my sister. We got to exercise a treaty right.
1996 I believe. That was the last time we got to fish for [Southern Lushootseed word / sockeye] on Lake Union.
But it was a good memory, it was—it meant more to me than just fishing and spending time with my sister and exercising a treaty right. There was a historical value to it. I was able to repeat something that my ancestors on my father's side did years and years ago.
[sound of water lapping on the banks of Lake Union at Gas Works Park fades out]
[sound of gentle waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp]
[00:52:31] Ken: [Lushootseed word] is water, [Lushootseed word] is gathering.
[the sound of gentle waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp continues in the background]
When I'm here on the saltwater, and these waves are lapping, this is home. On a day like this, the tide is about two feet from high tide. The waves are three inches tall and just lapping against the shore. And so this is the sound that I'm imprinted on.
So this is very much like a duck, you know, as they migrate, they're imprinted. As salmon, they’re imprinted. And so I'm imprinted on this beach. And so when I'm down here and I'm hearing the sound, I could go to sleep right now. This is [Laughs] this is like putting me in a cradle and saying, “Okay, here you go! Lullaby song!”
And so when we're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of years that we've lived here, this is what we're talking about.
[the sound of gently rhythmic lapping waves at Don Armeni Boat Ramp continues and fades out]