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Nlaka’pamux Nation Inventory of Traditional Cultural Properties in the
Upper Skagit River Valley within FERC Project Area # 553-000,
Washington State, USA, and
Mitigation Measures to protect Nlaka’pamux Cultural Properties.
Nlaka’pamux Elders (the late) Susannah Phillips, (the late) Maggie Hance and Amy Charlie prepare to visit sites selected as potential Nlaka’pamux cultural properties in the Upper Skagit River Valley. (NNTC, September 2012)
VI. Executive Summary
The Nlaka’pamux interest in the lands beneath and surrounding the Ross Lake hydroelectric dam built by Seattle City Light [“SCL”] in Washington State was recognized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [“FERC”] of the United States in June 1991. In its motion to intervene in the Ross Lake relicensing application, the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council [“NNTC”] asserted that Seattle did not undertake a serious survey of cultural and historic sites until the Commission staff requested the City to do so, in October 1988, and that the preliminary studies conducted to date had revealed evidence of previously unknown historic sites within the traditional territory of the
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Nlaka’pamux. As a result, NNTC argued, this was an appropriate time under the National Historic Preservation Act and implementing regulations for Seattle to consult with interested tribes and for the Nlaka’pamux to seek intervention. Notice to Intervene was granted in 1991. Seattle City Light agreed to fund the research to create an inventory of Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Properties [“TCPs”] within the area of FERC jurisdiction at the Ross Lake dam in the Upper Skagit River Valley. This was to include a report on the project effects on these areas, with Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council [NNTC] recommendations and cost estimates for mitigation measures for unavoidable adverse project effects. The 2010 Administrative Memorandum of Agreement between the SCL and NNTC reviewed the goals and Scope of Work involved.
The goals of this Project have been achieved:
• Identification of component sites of a potential TCP: one feature and ten critical sites, documented within a solid cultural framework, have been selected by Nlaka’pamux Elders and leadership;
• historic and field research is collated in a Project-designated data-base;
• schedule of potential project effects on each feature and site is laid out;
• recommendations, schedules, and projected costs for mitigation measures are included;
• mechanisms required for mitigation discussions on the part of the NNTC are in place: the Nlaka’pamux Cultural Heritage policy guides the conversation, and personnel with expertise and experience in this area are on NNTC staff or associated Councils and Boards;
• a respectful working relationship between all parties involved in the research - the SCL, NPS and NNTC - was established.
The deliverables due under the 2010 Administrative Memorandum of Agreement are attached:
• Public Report: NNTC Inventory of Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Properties within FERC Project Area # 553, Washington State, with bibliography and appendices.
• Confidential Report: NNTC Inventory of Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Properties within FERC Project Area # 553, Washington State, with plans, bibliography and appendices.
• Public Report: The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State, ethnography by Dr. A. Laforet, 2014. • Public Report: Status of TCP Investigations for Nlaka’pamux Nation in the Ross Lake Project Areas, by Kelly R. Bush, Equinox Research and Consulting
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International Inc. [ERCI], 2014.
Additional survey work is required to identify (and protect) other traditional Nlaka’pamux properties. The surveyor time-frame did not allow the investigation to continue further south. The trail does continue down to Ruby Creek to meet with an est- west trail that needs to be investigated. The area between Ruby Creek and Diablo has not been investigated. In the same way the trail leading north of the Hozomeen Rangers’ camp into Canada has still to be investigated.
The process of registering the proposed Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Property documented in this Report is itself a long one. Presenting the required deliverables at this stage by no means signifies that the NNTC investigation here is concluded.
Part 1: Inventory of Nlaka’pamux Cultural Properties
A traditional cultural property [is] a place … that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community’s history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community (Parker and King 1998).
The concept of a traditional cultural property (“TCP”) was developed for the National Register of Historic Places 1 and published as National Register Bulletin # 38, (King and Parker 1990) subsequently entitled Guidelines for the Evaluation and Documentation of Traditional Cultural Properties.
Research to identify Nlaka’pamux Cultural Properties
Archaeological research over the past two decades in the Upper Skagit River Valley surrounding Ross Lake reservoir has created an expanding database of hundreds of archaeological sites which was helpful in informing a general indigenous use of the valley over the last 10,000 years at least. The research was led by the senior archaeologist at the North Cascades National Park, Robert Mierendorf, who was generous in forwarding all information to the Nlaka’pamux once the Nlaka’pamux interest in the area was established in 1991.
1 The National Register of Historic Places (the “Register” or NRHP) which consists of sites, structures, and objects “significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture” (emphasis added) was established under the National Historic Preservation Act [the “NHPA”] of 1966. Section 101(d) in the 1992 amendment to the Act states specifically that properties of “traditional religious and cultural importance to Indian tribes … may be determined eligible for inclusion on the National Register”.
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Archival research into the Upper Skagit River Valley, now the location of the Ross Lake reservoir, confirmed the same paucity of historical information as exists for other Nlaka’pamux watersheds. The topography of the Nlaka’pamux Nation, with its deep canyons and ravines, fast waters, steep, rocky and densely forested mountains makes for difficult travel. Few non-native traders and adventures ventured here before the Fraser River Gold Rush in 1858 and the Canadian/USA Boundary Commission surveys of 1859, and those adventurers wrote more of the mosquitoes and dangers of their travel than of the indigenous populations.
However, the U.S. Boundary Commission did produce two maps drawn by “Indians” of the Skagit River drainage and the mountain ranges at and south of the newly established boundary line and showed indigenous place names. Subsequent to the submission of the NNTC Draft Report in 2014, the “Report of Henry Custer, Assistant of Reconnaissances made in 1859 over the routes in the Cascade Mountains in the vicinity of the 49th parallel was located. This was a particularly useful find as Custer’s report corroborated the findings of the NNTC ground crew. The map that came out of the Survey, U.S. North West Boundary Survey, Map of Western Section (1866), also showed the indigenous place names. [Appendix 22] The names of the mountains and creeks mentioned in these
Thiosoloc was hired was a guide by the US Boundary Commission in 1859. He did not accompany the Commission as far as Skagit and prepared this map for them: the creek and mountain names were likely added by Commission translator George Gibbs. The surveyors commented on the accuracy of the map. [US Boundary Commission, Map 26, Series 69, RG 76, US National Archives]
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documents can be deconstructed linguistically to demonstrate that these are Nlha.kapmhhchEEn (Nlaka’pamux language) place names. Here we see that lower part 2 of this valley was named as Steh-tatl Valley.
That this was recognized as Nlaka’pamux territory was confirmed by the maps of anthropologist James Teit who had arrived in the Nlaka’pamux territory in the late 1880’s. He worked with Nlaka’pamux who were already adults at the time of the Gold Rush and Boundary Commission, to sketch out the extent of the Nlaka’pamux Nation. Their plans and sketches consistently included within the Nation that part of the Upper Skagit River Valley now in Washington State that is the focus of this study.
Events following 1858 largely constrained the Nlaka’pamux to the tiny “Indian Reserves” along the Fraser, Thompson and Nicola Rivers, and severely eroded an economy that had depended on strategic travel to different resources at different times of the year.
While Nlaka’pamux travel to the Upper Skagit River Valley was reduced, it certainly did not cease. Archival photographs and oral history confirm that Nlaka’pamux continued to travel to the Upper Skagit Valley through 1858 to the 1940’s for the rich traditional resources there, but specific destinations, resource locations and trails were not documented. Nlaka’pamux continue to come to this valley for traditional harvests and events, but they come to a landscape that is radically different.
Cultural Framework developed by Nlaka’pamux Elders Nlaka’pamux Elders had been informed and involved in the research for this Project from the start through the monthly nkshAytkn (Our Family, Relations, Ancestors) cultural gatherings held in different parts of the Nation each month. Elders and informed Nlaka’pamux had also been involved in formalizing the Nlaka’pamux Cultural Heritage Laws which had sustained the Nlaka’pamux Nation for centuries and which the Elders now feel should be carefully documented to assist the future generations. Elders’ discussions and studies around cultural practices, heritage and law were particularly relevant to the research for this project and were particularly germane in the more profound and complex context of past and present relationship with and obligation to the Nlaka’pamux temEEwuh and Nwuha.beetn, crucial deliberations in the defining of a TCP in this instance. The significance of this Project to the Nlaka’pamux lies in the connection between the temEEwuh - that is the land and all that is in and on it, the Nwuha.beetn – that is everything that is there for us to use - and the Nlaka’pamux: it is a fundamental part of being, and of being Nlaka’pamux. It involves, also to an extent that is not understood in the Western world, a specific duty to protect that relationship.
2 Note that Nlaka’pamux people today tend to use the words “the Skagit” to specifically describe the Upper Skagit River Valley and the name Steh-tatl is not familiar as is the case for too many old place names. This tendency is beginning to be reversed in the indigenous world as communities reclaim their original names.
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Hence the importance that the Project include both an Inventory of Nlaka’pamux cultural properties as well as an opportunity to explore ways to protect them. For the Nlaka’pamux Elders, King and Parker’s definition of a “traditional cultural property” includes a recognition of the significance of the spiritual and physical relationship between their land and the Nlaka’pamux, and of the mutual responsibility of care. They were thus particularly careful to lead the cultural research to support the eligibility of the Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Property described in this Inventory.
Ground survey by Nlaka’pamux Cultural Surveyors The NNTC has developed an effective research and mapping/interview methodology to document Nlaka’pamux occupation of and use of the mountain watersheds in the Nation over the past three decades. Ethnographies have been prepared for mountain watershed areas that remain well used at specific times of the year for specific purposes by people who have always practiced this, and had learned their practices from their parents, uncles and aunts, and their grandparents. There is little archival documentation of those areas but there is considerable oral history for a solid ethnography and detailed Land Use maps in each. However, the Ross Lake dam was constructed and the valley was flooded more than seventy years ago. The regular methodology developed by the NNTC was not appropriate for a landscape that had been so fundamentally transformed so long ago. The Project interview/mapping methodology referred to in the early SCL/Nlaka’pamux Nation Agreements had to be revised. Historical, cultural and ethnographic research was therefore carried out contemporaneously with a ground survey of the area by Nlaka’pamux cultural surveyors who have long-term experience and expertise in this work in other Nlaka’pamux watersheds. The NNTC was confident that the evidence of traditional cultural properties within the Project Area would be recorded on the land. This has been the NNTC experience from the Nlaka’pamux Use and Occupancy Mapping and Interviews: the maps and oral histories are corroborated by the evidence on the ground. The NNTC proposed therefore that research on the ground by experienced cultural surveyors would result in careful, properly documented evidence of Nlaka’pamux cultural properties in the Project Area to a standard and detail that would meet the requirements of this Study. A crew of four Nlaka’pamux experienced ground cultural investigators spent four weeks in the field in September/October 2011 and returned to the Upper Skagit River Valley in the spring of 2012, during the reservoir draw-down. They had not anticipated the quantity and extent of their preliminary findings. They were also not prepared to experience the power of relationship with the Upper Skagit River Valley that they are familiar with in their home watersheds.
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Documentation for the Inventory of Nlaka’pamux Cultural Properties On their return from the reservoir, the information, documentation and photographs from the field research were transferred to a database specifically designed for this Project. After debriefing sessions with the Project team, the field surveyors were interviewed individually, using a questionnaire designed to tease out the geographic, botanical, geologic, environmental and cultural clues that determined their research and findings. A follow-up, detailed culturally-based questionnaire was designed for Elders selected for their experience, expertise and knowledge in different fields in order to confirm or further explore the findings of the field team. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Plans, photographs and reports were presented to the Elders and the NNTC leadership for selection of the Nlaka’pamux feature and sites to be visited by them. Elders were finally able to visit these sites in September 2012. Earlier research and discussions had exposed a wider perspective on the research to be carried out here, but the Elders were also initially unprepared for the immediacy and power of the communications and experiences of their first site visits: time collapsed and exposed the unbroken Nlaka’pamux relationship with the Upper Skagit Valley. Their experiences drew the Elders, the cultural investigators and the Project itself out of a simple forensic study and set them down firmly in the present day. The final selection of the Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Property as presented in this Report was confirmed on their return. The recognition of the principal Nlaka’pamux nwuha.shEEtn (trail) was determined as key to understanding the Nlaka’pamux presence in the area: the nwuha.shEEtn connects the Nlaka’pamux cultural sites, identified and unidentified. “We are not storks,” explained lead cultural surveyor Higginbottom, “we didn’t just drop into certain sites”. No site can exist in isolation in this remote valley. Ten Nlaka’pamux cultural sites associated with and inseparably connected to the nwuha.shEEtn were selected as demonstrating a wide range of activities of historical, cultural and spiritual relevance. The methodology described above has resulted in an informed report. The descriptions hereunder of the selected Nlaka’pamux sites and features, added their significance within the context of Nlaka’pamux cultural and spiritual values and heritage, lay the groundwork for the Inventory required under the terms of the SCL/Nlaka’pamux Settlement Agreement. We note where possible project effects might be an issue or where it was clear that further detailed research is required.
The Proposed Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Property The proposed TCP is thus defined as the principal Nlaka’pamux nwuha.shEEtn (trail) with ten associated sites that are contributing component elements. It is their inalienable interconnectedness that determines their cultural integrity, while their value to the culture and economy of our ancestors and to the Nlaka’pamux of today, together with our own current obligations to the temEEwuh, determine their cultural significance. The proposed Nlaka’pamux TCP meets the eligibility requirements of the National
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Register of Historic Places, demonstrated by applying the different Criteria required as laid out in National Register Bulletin 15 (in Section 5 below). NNTC recognizes that registration as a TCP is a lengthy and complex process, and additional field work and research is required to accomplish this goal. The NNTC will pursue the goal of registering the Nlaka’pamux Cultural Property described in detail below in the Report.
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Part 2: Ross Lake Dam Project Effects on Nlaka’pamux TCPs and Recommended Mitigation Measures
Project Effects Three major effects of the Seattle City Light (SCL) operations of the Ross Lake Dam for power generation impact Nlaka’pamux interests. 1. While the logging and flooding of the Upper Skagit River Valley might not come within the purview of this Project, the impact of the loss of the valley floor (a continuing Skagit Project operation) continues as a deep psychological and cultural shock, for it is the valley in its whole that is integral to what is significant, the fundamental connection between the Nlaka’pamux and the Valley. Reservoir action, the annual draw-down and refilling of the lake, however, does pose a current concern as buried sites are further eroded in the process. 2. Second are the cumulative indirect effects of all the agreements, regulations and SCL funding streams for activities in the Area of Potential Effect [the “APE”]. Activities that result from the construction of Ross Lake dam have the potential to cause the most immediate impact on Nlaka’pamux cultural properties identified to date in the APE. National Parks Service [“NPS”] construction and maintenance of the lakeside recreation facilities may pose the greatest proximal threat. While the NPS would certainly have expanded the earlier timber industry roads and established more trails and recreational facilities in the Park if there were no reservoir here, there would likely not be as many and they would not have been located at nor so concentrated within a narrow and specific area, i.e. the shores of a newly created lake, in fact the APE. It was the construction of the dam with its very attractive water recreational potential that gave a specific form and shape to the NPS present use of the valley. 3. The physical changes to the surface morphology of the basin by processes such as increased erosion by wave and wind action are less immediately obvious. The more specific project effects on identified Nlaka’pamux cultural sites and features selected for protection under this Project are itemized in this Report. The NNTC strongly recommends that the survey of the area, determined by the principal Nlaka’pamux trail at mid-montane level, should be continued, as we are also concerned about the vulnerability of Nlaka’pamux cultural sites outside of the APE. Visual or auditory impacts to sites outside of the FERC boundary could occur from SCL and NPS works inside the APE. The NNTC is concerned about the more likely and wider-ranging impacts from NPS activities at sites or features that might not be recognized by untrained eyes: trail segments outside the APE or associated trail marker trees, for example. NNTC is also concerned about the potential impact at spiritual sites associated with the trail.
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Mitigation Measures The Settlement Agreement of 1993 provided in addition an opportunity to lay out “potential mitigation measures in and near the Project area” (3.2). The Settlement Agreement (Section 3.3.3) confirms the City will implement actions proposed as determined in further negotiations. Most of these project effects - effects that are the result of the locating, building and maintenance of the federally-licensed hydroelectric dam here - are the result of activities managed by another federal agency, the NPS, but there is no formal agreement between the NPS and Nlaka’pamux Nation with regard to protection of Nlaka’pamux cultural heritage sites. While “within its power to do so, the City shall ensure that the NPS includes Nlaka’pamux in Project related archaeological studies and mitigation planning” (3.3.1 Settlement Agreement) the Nlaka’pamux must rely on U.S.A. legislation currently in place 3. However, unless there is active collaboration and cooperation in place between the three active parties in this area (SCL, NPS and NNTC) to research and advise of cultural sites and locations - and corresponding research and information- sharing of potentially harmful activities - the NNTC is concerned that any legislative protection might be an afterthought, too late to prevent any damage. The fact that the area along the shoreline coincides with the location of a traditional cultural property may not have been foreseen during SCL construction does not cancel out the fact that it is here. It presents a challenge in co-operation among all holders and users of the area. Under these unforeseen circumstances, co-operation and confidentiality protocols or Agreements with the relevant department of the U.S. Government need to be set in place as soon as possible to ensure that the following Mitigation recommendations (which were required under the Settlement Agreement) can have any meaningful substance.
3 National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 which covers Bulletins 15 and 38, and Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993.
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Recommended Mitigation for Project Impacts on Nlaka’pamux Cultural Properties
Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
1) Ensure proper watershed management practices: NNTC site visits at specific shoreline erosion sites. Erosion along the shoreline and in the 2) Re-vegetation of wetland drawdown area. vegetation: i.e. sites in bays where this could be done. Upland species 1. Logging and could be used to stabilize banks in flooding selected sites along rest of shoreline.
SCL, NPS and NNTC vigilance and co-operation during ongoing Reservoir operation and planned activities at TCPs that are exposed during draw- down (e.g.Site 8).
1) SCL and NPS to each advise and consult with NNTC at inception of proposed projects. 2) Tribal input into management recommendations for both SCL and NPS ongoing maintenance projects and new Future construction projects which could impact projects and 2. Agreements Nlaka’pamux cultural sites. and Partnerships programmatic maintenance projects 3) NNTC to develop separate collaborative TCP site management protocols with SCL and NPS, including the provision that a Tribal monitor can be on site at critical times. Collaboration needs to be formalized.
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Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
1) NNTC to document situations where mitigatable impacts have already occurred and to inform SCL, as well as NPS if latter administers site in question. 2) NNTC to provide both SCL and NPS with geographic locations of identified sites Proposed construction associated with Nlaka’pamux trail of recreation facilities which comprise the Nlaka’pamux (docks, campgrounds TCP identified to date. This will 2. Agreements and toilets), increased enable co-ordination and and recreation use, collaboration with each of both Partnerships(co increased maintenance parties to determine if protective ntinued) of facilities that have measures can be implemented for ground disturbance that such proposed TCP. This would obscure or deface the also assist SCL and NPS surface of the earth. maintenance and construction workers to avoid cultural sites where possible. 3) Assist with devising solution- based alternatives for activities that threaten cultural objects and sites, or access to them. 4) The continued cultural survey in APE is also important to avoid unintended damages.
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Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
1) Documentation of existing erosion and compaction conditions where they are observed. Joint SCL and NNTC visits to NHR eligible sites that might be Soil compaction impacted should be included in through increased joint mitigation plans. recreation and maintenance leads to Minimize/eliminate ground increased erosion and disturbance from maintenance runoff vehicles. While this is recognized BMP and implemented by SCL, agreement for the same practices 2. Agreements by NPS in vicinity of and Partnerships Nlaka’pamux proposed TCP (continued) needs to be assured.
1) Completion of Nlaka’pamux Trail Survey outside of the existing APE. SCL offers continuing logistical support; 2) Agreement with NPS NPS trail maintenance whereby Tribal monitor to be and construction advised beforehand of any trail maintenance or construction; NNTC to pursue Management protocol for Nlaka’pamux trail feature with both SCL and NPS.
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Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
Tribal monitor to assist with cultural identification training workshops with SCL and NPS. While most Inadvertent damage to Parks personnel may be trained in sites and items at sites. recognition of archeological clues, (e.g., rock shelters or NNTC workshops are especially removal of unidentified and specifically recommended for culturally modified recognizing cultural clues. trees) by construction Meetings with NPS staff to date and maintenance crews. have highlighted the importance of recognizing the difference between archeological and cultural surveys and sites.
Tribal monitor can give workshops 2. Agreements on cultural significance of sites and Inadvertent disrespect and Partnerships appropriate respect at these sites. of sites by SCL and (continued) NPS crews. Consultation early in the planning process can assist in identifying these sites.
Tribal monitor to be available to train or consult with NPS and SCL Understanding the consultants and staff to identify cultural value and plant species and animals that are significance of certain important to the Nlaka’pamux so plants and animals. that activities can avoid impacting them.
Necessity for NPS and NNTC Archeological surveys discussions on Nlaka’pamux and/or excavations, monitoring of survey for within and outside of integration, preservation and APE. cultural consultation purposes.
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Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
Public access to Preventative measures include culturally significant tribal Elders consultation and sites will reduce tribal consultation; tribal monitor privacy and increase to assist with solutions and noise at sites where this 2. Agreements monitor on-going situation. is inappropriate and Partnerships (continued) Potential vandalism of Tribal monitor to check sites sites by general public. regularly. Consultation with Specific objects or NNTC for possible protective features are vulnerable, placement of objects. (e.g. ochre boulders).
Increased use of Upland areas (e.g. Lake Hozomeen campsite) as the sites in the reservoir have been removed Continue to fund TCP from use while the identification and inventory in the reservoir is being areas outside of the FERC operated. These upland boundary. areas would not be 3. Reservoir overused and run down operation if the reservoir did not exist.
Access is reduced for Continued collaboration with SCL Nlaka’pamux at draw- for regular access for Elders and down. Nlaka'pamux researchers.
Vigilance by tribal monitor on Increased erosion, effects on TCPs above and below saturation and siltation. the high-water level.
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Effect on Cultural Action Mitigative Action Properties
While work already in process in some locations, NNTC Lowered water table recommends collaborative due to the continued research to contemplate 3. Reservoir raising and lowering of alternative options to fluctuating operation the water levels. This water level. Consider many of the (continued) will potentially lead to soft shore and planting long term vegetation alternatives being used in issues. reservoir and other shoreline settings.
Because the area of highest use by the SCL and NPS coincides largely with the area of highest Nlaka’pamux cultural use, the Mitigation phase of this project is critical.
NNTC Mitigation Recommendations:
1. Comprehensive cultural ground survey Preliminary findings in this report demonstrate that the continuation of the comprehensive cultural survey should be contemporaneous with mitigation considerations. Immediate mitigation negotiations should take into consideration the fact that much research still needs to be done as neither the NNTC nor the SCL anticipated the amount of ground research this Project would entail. The NNTC strongly recommends that the first task in protecting Nlaka’pamux traditional cultural properties is a comprehensive study by the Nlaka’pamux to locate and define the old trail system, with flexibility to examine areas outside of the FERC boundary. The significance of any Nlaka’pamux traditional cultural property in a remote mountain environment can be better understood and appreciated in a culturally appropriate context.
2. Early consultation with NNTC on Planning Schedules
It is the NNTC experience in similar situations within the territory that much time and money is saved by the proponents if the NNTC is advised at the earliest planning stages of any proposed project or even programmatic activities. The NNTC proposes that it be advised of scheduled planning meetings.
• The NNTC is ready to identify specific sites of concern and to discuss with appropriate agency, either SCL or NPS, what activities occur at those sites and determine ways to complete activities with eliminated or reduced impact.
• Relevant historical and ground research has been collated and is stored in a data-
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base system designed for this Project on an on-going and long-term basis.
• The NNTC has guiding cultural heritage principles in place and this qualifies the NNTC as an efficient consultant.
• The NNTC has a mitigation management team with leadership, elders and technicians qualified to negotiate/help resolve mitigation measures where TCP impacts cannot be avoided.
• If NPS and SCL are unable to allow for mitigation measures to protect Nlaka’pamux cultural properties until they are formally recognized as TCPs, SCL should fund the eligibility process of the sites described herein.
3. Nlaka’pamux Monitor on Site
The most urgent Nlaka’pamux recommendation is that an Nlaka’pamux Monitor be on site in Upper Skagit River Valley for any new developments by SCL, and SCL has expressed agreement for such presence. While the current NPS emphasis is on archaeological research in compliance with NHPA and other federal laws to protect cultural resources in areas developed for NPS activities, the NNTC propose an Nlaka’pamux presence during the process to ensure that the research is understood in a larger cultural context, both for protection and education but also for the purposes of further documenting of the Nlaka’pamux Cultural Property for registration.
There are many additional benefits for both the SCL and NPS. An Nlaka’pamux monitor
• could serve as cultural consultant to archaeologists or botanists, and other specialists called in for any reason; also to Park Rangers, habitat restoration workers, trail and campsite maintenance crews, etc.
• provide cultural training to SCL and NPS workers on site or to visiting specialists,
• access the data collected for this Study, and future studies, in addition to the data deemed Confidential,
• provide certainty about the programmatic, project or mitigation work at a site,
• identify other culturally important sites and add to the general information about the area,
• prevent or minimize unanticipated disturbance of cultural sites,
• foresee how scheduled works might impact sites.
This would be of benefit to all Parties and the NNTC suggests a sharing of costs to make this possible.
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4. Continued Co-operation between all Parties on site
The initial cooperation between the NNTC, the SCL and NPS in carrying out the preliminary Inventory of Nlaka’pamux Traditional Cultural Properties in the Area of Project Effect augured well for the future. This is a project that relies for its success on the continuing contribution of the expertise and experience of each organization.
Legislated Accountability
As both FERC and NPS are federal entities the NNTC has requested the Secretary, Dept. of Interior to put the relevant US federal departments on notice that there are mapped and described Traditional Cultural Properties on land that they are responsible for. While the NPS would not knowingly (since they will have the maps and descriptions of these Historic Properties) disturb or destroy Traditional Cultural Properties, NNTC does have concerns that their actions, or in some cases inactions, may be disturbing or destroying Traditional Cultural Properties because of their archaeologically-biased perspective as opposed to an Nlaka`pamux cultural one. NNTC is therefore requesting consultation on such actions as part of the NPS responsibilities to Section 106 of the National Historic 4 Preservation Act.
For the Nlaka’pamux Nation this early work has begun the healing from the radical severance from and the physical transformation of the Upper Skagit River Valley and brings with it an optimism for the restored understanding of our historical and cultural relationship with this valley. It is our hope that sharing this information with others who love this beautiful valley may lead to a shared responsibility for a respectful and caring stewardship of a place that has nurtured the Nlaka’pamux for millennia.
4 Copy of this letter is found at Appendix 20.
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THE NLAKA’PAMUX IN WASHINGTON STATE
Andrea Laforet, Ph.D. 3/30/2020
Prepared for the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council by Andrea Laforet Consulting, Inc. 20200501-5391 FERC PDF (Unofficial) 5/1/2020 1:15:47 PM
The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State1
Andrea Laforet2
January 6, 2014
Updated March 30, 2020
Introduction:
The substantial portion of the original Nlaka’pamux (nɬeʔképmx) homeland that lies to the south
of the headwaters of the Skagit River was inadvertently placed within the jurisdiction of the
United States by the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which established the 49th parallel as the boundary
between British and American interests. This was followed in 1855 by the Treaty of Point Elliott
in which the signatory Native American groups agreed to “cede, relinquish, and convey to the
United States all their right, title, and interest in and to the lands and country occupied by them”
including land,
Commencing at a point on the eastern side of Admiralty Inlet, known as Point Pully, about midway between Commencement and Elliott Bays; thence eastwardly, running along the north line of lands heretofore ceded to the United States by the Nisqually, Puyallup, and other Indians, to the summit of the Cascade range of mountains; thence northwardly,
1 This paper is a component of a project to document Nlaka’pamux traditional cultural properties within the Skagit Hydroelectric Project area and to develop mitigation plans for impact on these traditional properties. Funding for this work was provided by the City of Seattle Light Department under the U.S.A. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Settlement Agreement between the City of Seattle Light Department and the Nlaka’pamux Nation, Skagit River Hydroelectric Project FERC No. 553, signed March, 1992. Prepared by Andrea Laforet Consulting Inc. for the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, January 2014 and updated March 2020. 2 In writing this paper I have benefitted from the substantial knowledge of several Nlaka’pamux people, including Annie York, Nathan Spinks, Elsie Charlie, Marion Dixon, Annie Acar, Paul Oppenheim, Gordon Antoine, John Haugen and Robert Pasco. I am also indebted to Irene Bjerky, who brought the baptismal record for Angele Youla to light, Steven M. Egesdal for helpful discussion of the etymology of “Hozomeen” and Nancy Turner, for discussion of the larger issues related to controlled burning of mountain harvest areas. The staff of NNTC, including Pauline Douglas, Tawnya Collins, Serena Hunsbedt and Jeannie Charlie, smoothed the path in many ways. 1
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
following the summit of said range to the 49th parallel of north latitude; thence west, along said parallel to the middle of the Gulf of Georgia3... in exchange for certain reserved lands, rights to fish, hunt, and gather on unclaimed land, and
services to be provided from a defined sum of money to be administered by the United States
Government. Only Native American groups with permanent residences in Washington Territory
were signatory to this treaty; the Nlaka’pamux were not among them, nor were they or other
Canadian Aboriginal groups included in the U.S. Indian Claims Commission inaugurated by the
Indian Claims Commission Act of 19464. The Nlaka’pamux have nonetheless continued to
consider the land, waters and resources in this region as a part of their historic homeland5.
In the Canadian sector of Nlaka’pamux traditional territory the intersection of the Fraser and
Thompson Rivers at the present-day site of Lytton, and the junction of the Thompson and Nicola
Rivers at the present-day site of Spences Bridge have created four river valleys, i.e. the steep,
forested Fraser canyon, the drier, somewhat more open mountains of the Fraser River valley above
Lytton, the even drier Thompson River valley and the lightly forested Nicola River valley. In
Washington State the Skagit River and the upper reaches of the Nooksack River were flanked in
1846 by high forested mountains. Prior to the arrival of Europeans the diversity of resources
offered by these valleys and the mountains and plateaus adjacent to them was pivotal to the
Nlaka’pamux economy. The upper Fraser River valley, the Thompson River valley, and the Nicola
valley and the Fraser Canyon differ from one another in climate and, to some extent, in flora and
3 Treaty of Point Elliott. www.historyLink.org. The Treaty of Point Elliott was proclaimed in April, 1859. 4 Daniel Boxberger. An Ethnographic Overview and Assessment of North Cascades National Park Service Complex. (Seattle, WA: U.S. National Park Service, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, 1996), 24.
5 Access to this area by peoples neighbouring the Nlaka’pamux has been noted and discussed by Teit (1930), Duff (1953), Smith (1988), and Boxberger (1996), among others. 2
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
fauna. The Fraser canyon and the Skagit region, on the other hand, have many features of climate,
topography, and faunal and plant resources in common.
The only comprehensive ethnography of the Nlaka’pamux is The Thompson Indians of British
Columbia6, written by James Teit and published in 1900 as a volume of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition. Teit recorded 66 named winter villages in Nlaka’pamux territory. Winter villages
were located on the flat land along or above the river bank near the fishing stations of the
families who lived there. Each household was an extended family, consisting of a man, his wife
or wives7, their children, the man’s parents and often his brothers or male cousins who were in
the same relationship to him as brothers born to his own parents. A village could consist of
several related households. Village locations in the Fraser Canyon, where flat land with close
and reliable access to creeks was relatively scarce, were fixed and permanent. There was more
choice and flexibility for changing new winter village sites in the Thompson and Nicola River
valleys, but each of the valleys had a series of named villages with associated families who lived
there from one generation to another, and moved to equally well known and established resource
areas in the mountains and plateau areas in other seasons of the year. Groups of hunters wintered
in the Skagit region, moving there in late fall and staying for up to seven months.
The symbolic centre of Nlaka’pamux country is near the junction of the Thompson and Fraser
Rivers near Lytton, at the site where Nƛ’ík’smtem, the son of Coyote, one of the supernatural
beings central to Nlaka’pamux historic cosmology, came down to earth8 after a sojourn in the
6 James Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 169-174. The Nlaka’pamux (nɬeʔképmx) have been identified in the historic and scholarly record by other non-Aboriginal names, including “Couteau,” which had fallen into disuse by the late 1800s, and “Thompson.” 7 The Nlaka’pamux of this era practised sororal polygyny, in which a man might take two or more wives. These were often sisters or first cousins, who, in the Nlaka’pamux kinship system, were equivalent to sisters. 8 See “NLiʹksEntEm” in James Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians, Memoir of the American Folk-Lore Society VI, 1898, 25. 3
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
upper world. In 1846 the village farthest downriver on the Fraser River was Spuzzum, several
miles upriver from the historic boundary with the Tait at Sawmill Creek. The village farthest
upriver on the Thompson River was SLaz, near the historic boundary with the Secwepemc
(Shuswap). The immediate neighbours of the Nlaka’pamux were the Secwepemc (Shuswap) to
the north and east, Stuwix (Nicola Valley Athapaskan) and Okanagan, to the west, Stl’atl’imx.
Fig. 1 “Map Showing Location of the Thompson Indians and Neighbouring Tribes, In James Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 166.
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
(Upper Lillooet) to the west and north, Lil’wat (Lower Lillooet) to the west and south, the
Halkomelem-speaking Tait and Sto:lo along the Fraser River to the west, and, farther south, the
Nooksack and Upper Skagit to the west, and directly to the south, the Klickitat
Language
The language of the Nlaka’pamux, Nlaka’pamuxcin (nɬeʔkepmxcín), is classified by linguists as
belonging to the Salishan language family9. Nlaka’pamuxcin is a distinct language, with a
complex grammar, and an extensive vocabulary. In 1846 it was spoken throughout
Nlaka’pamux country, with some regional variations in vocabulary, pronunciation and idiom.
Nlaka’pamuxcin was spoken as a second language at the borders of Nlaka’pamux territory where
bilingualism was common, particularly among families who were intermarried with families of
neighbouring territories. Nlaka’pamuxcin is related in history, grammar and vocabulary to
Stl’atl’imx, Secwepemc, and Okanagan, and more distantly related to Halkomelem, Nooksack,
and Lushootseed. Nlaka’pamuxcin is entirely different in structure, grammar and lexicon from
the Athapaskan language spoken by the Stuwix of the upper Nicola Valley and Similkameen.
Population
There are virtually no comprehensive population estimates for the Nlaka’pamux for the period
prior to 1846. While stationed at Kamloops in 1846 Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Trader
Archibald McDonald attempted to take an informal population estimate from “Coutamine”
visitors to the Fort, i.e. visitors from the vicinity of the confluence of the Thompson and Nicola
9 See Laurence C. Thompson and M. Terry Thompson, The Thompson Language (Missoula, MT: University of Montana, 1992) and Laurence C. Thompson and M. Terry Thompson, Thompson River Salish Dictionary. (Missoula, University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics No. 12, 1996)
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
Rivers. In a report to the Governor and Council of the Hudson’s Bay Company in February1830,
McDonald, then at Fort Langley, estimated the male population, either adult males or household
heads, of five major Nlaka’pamux villages between Spuzzum and the village he designated as
“Whee y kum” [i.e. Teit’s “Koiaum” in the vicinity of Boston Bar] at 75010. It is not entirely
certain what proportion of the total population even of this limited region of Nlaka’pamux
territory, these figures represent. Extrapolating from McDonald’s estimates, Cole Harris has
suggested a population at that time of 7500 in the limited area of the Fraser Canyon between a
point just south of Boston Bar and Yale11, a stretch of territory that, at that time, would have
included several Halkomelem-speaking villages. However, Wayne Suttles has cautioned against
the full acceptance of McDonald’s figures, particularly for the Upper Halkomelem living
immediately downriver from the Nlaka’pamux boundary, citing smaller estimates for the entire
population provided less than ten years later by James Murray Yale12.
Even at this early date the Nlaka’pamux population had likely been affected by introduced
disease. Simon Fraser saw evidence of smallpox in Nlaka’pamux villages in the Fraser canyon
in 180813, evidence that may be consistent with a coastal small pox epidemic posited by Cole
Harris in the early 1780s14. The Nlaka’pamux may have suffered in a measles epidemic which
10 “McDonald’s Report to the Governor and Council 25 February 1830.” In The Fort Langley Journals 1827-30, ed. Morag McLachlan, Appendix C. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 219-20. 11 Cole Harris. “The Fraser Canyon Encountered.” In The Resettlement of British Columbia. Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997). 107.
12 Wayne Suttles. “The Ethnographic Significance of the Journals” In McLachlan, The Fort Langley Journals 1827- 1830, fn 5 258. Suttles cites James Murray Yale, “Census of Indian population [from Fort Langley] crossing over to Vancouver’s Island and coasting at about latitude 50’ from there returning southward along the mainland and up Frasers River to Simpsons Falls.” January 1, 1839. HBCA B.223/2/1:30-53.
13 W. Kaye Lamb, ed., The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser 1806-1808. (Toronto: Macmillan, 1960), 94.
14 Harris, “Voices of Smallpox around the Strait of Georgia,” In The Resettlement of British Columbia, 18.
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swept in 1848 through the interior of British Columbia along the established Hudson’s Bay
Company brigade route from the Columbia River to Kamloops15. Through the mid-to-late 1800s
a series of epidemics further reduced the population. James Teit estimated that in the smallpox
epidemic of 1862 at least one-fourth to one-third of the Nlaka’pamux died, in spite of the light
impact of the epidemic in Fraser canyon localities where some people were vaccinated. Writing
in the late 1890s, Teit estimated that at the time of contact, roughly forty years before, the
Nlaka’pamux population had been approximately 5000. Estimates made in the mid-1870s16
placed the Nlaka’pamux population at that time in the vicinity of 2000 people.
The population was continuing to decline in Teit’s day, because of measles, tuberculosis,
influenza and other introduced diseases. Harris has noted,
The decline noted in 1878 reflected, in proportions not yet known, the measles epidemic of 1848, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, a variety of unidentified and probably introduced diseases, and the effects of alcohol and warfare. Infant and child mortality rates were exceedingly high...cumulatively the effects were probably worse than those of any smallpox epidemic. The Indian reserve commission17 was travelling through an ongoing demographic disaster18. This decline was reversing itself by the mid-1900s, when Aboriginal populations in British
Columbia as a whole began to rebound19. By that time the Nlaka’pamux had lost access to
15 Robert Galois, “Measles, 1847-1850: The First Modern Epidemic in British Columbia,” B.C. Studies 109 (spring 1996), 34.
16 Israel Wood Powell, “Notes Documenting Interrogating of Various Tribes” ( National Archives of Canada. R.G. 88, vol. 494; Canada, and “Summer Census of Indian Tribes No. 2, 1877-1878.” RG88, vol. 494.) 17 A reference to the Indian Joint Reserve Commission (IJRC) funded by the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia in the late 1870s. 18 Harris, “The Fraser Canyon Encountered,” 120. 19 John Douglas Belshaw, Becoming British Columbia, A Population History, (Vancouver: UBC Press 2009), 31.
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significant portions of their original homeland as well as to the resources that had been the
mainstay of the economy prior to the arrival of Europeans.
The Nlaka’pamux Economy
The Nlaka’pamux economy of the era prior to European settlement was based on mobility, co-
operation among household members, and intensive application of effort in specific areas at the
season of their greatest productivity. It depended on knowledge of and access to the multiple
ecological zones positioned at different elevations from the river foreshore to the highest points.
The work was co-ordinated according to a complex timetable beginning in the early spring and
extending to the late fall, a timetable set by the life cycle of game animals, the ripening of plants,
and the runs of spring, sockeye and coho salmon, and steelhead. The economic year began in the
late fall, with winter hunting in mountain areas, including the Skagit watershed. Winter was also
a time when tools, clothing, basketry and cordage could be made for use in the coming year.
While winter village sites included work areas, there were, as well, work areas at different places
in the mountains utilized at appropriate times of the year for harvesting cedar planks, bark and
roots from living trees, drying pelts, drying berries, and making stone hide scrapers and
projectile points.
In early spring Nlaka’pamux families gathered the shoots of young plants such as thimbleberry
and wild rhubarb. In late spring they gathered the roots of avalanche lily, nodding wild onion,
rice root, spring-beauty root and bitter-root and the fruit of prickly pear cactus. From early
summer, when the thimbleberries, wild strawberries and then Saskatoon berries appeared, to late
fall, when huckleberries were ripe in the mountains, they gathered and dried wild fruit as each
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species ripened. Year after year, family groups returned to the areas where these foods could be
gathered in quantity.
The rivers, river banks and associated resources constituted one axis of the economy, while the
upland areas and their associated resources constituted the other. The salmon, steelhead, and
sturgeon fisheries comprised the riverine sector; systematic hunting and the harvesting of wild
vegetables and fruit, medicinal plants and the materials required for basketry, cordage, house
construction, clothing, and tools and weapons of all kinds comprised the mountain and upland
sector. The operational units were groups of family members, with women of one or more
extended families working together to gather and preserve vegetables and fruit, and men of one
or more extended families hunting together. During the salmon runs the male members of
families associated with a particular fishing site caught the fish, while the women of the same
families butchered them and arranged them on drying racks.
With the exception of deer fences, salmon-fishing stations and eagle eyries, which were owned
by individuals20, Nlaka’pamux had access in common to the resources in all parts of
Nlaka’pamux territory for hunting and gathering edible roots, berries and materials for cordage,
tools and other items. The people in each local area hunted and gathered food most frequently
within that area, but travel to hunt or gather food in other areas of Nlaka’pamux territory was
also common21. Members of neighbouring societies who were related to Nlaka’pamux families
could access mountain and upland areas with permission. Teit noted,
The hunting-territory seems to have been considered the common property of the whole tribe. Among the Spences Bridge and Nicola bands any member of the
20 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 293-4.
21 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 293. 9
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Shuswap or Okanagon tribes who was related to them by blood was allowed full access to their hunting-grounds, the same as one of themselves... However, for members of neighbouring societies the kinship connections were pivotal to access.
Teit continued,
If, however, a person who was not related to a Thompson Indian were caught hunting, trapping, or gathering bark or roots, within the recognized limit of the tribal territory, he was liable to forfeit his life22. When travelling to upland areas for the purpose of gathering or hunting, the Nlaka’pamux went
to specific, known places to harvest particular resources at the time of year in which they could
be expected to be available23. Both hunting and harvesting occurred in a cultural landscape
accessed by trails and defined by place names. Trails existed at both high and low elevations and
were open to all. Horses were introduced in the late eighteenth century24 and where possible
trails were negotiated by horse as well as on foot.
There were named places along trails which served as markers for location, distance and use.
An example from the southern part of Nlaka’pamux territory serves as an illustration. The trail
from Spuzzum to Nk’mém’peʔ, a primary place for gathering and drying wild vegetables and
berries place on ɬq’íkn’, known in English as Broadback Mountain, had named rest stops along
the way, i.e. Nmícaʔqtn, C’ul’ʔéʔpeʔ, Scuweʔw’úʔxw, and Q’iʔmín’tn. Q’iʔmín’tn was also a
temporary camp site. Resource areas were Nk’əxk’éxmn, Sʕwiʕwyáqs, Kwǝl’kwl’eẃt and the top
of the ridge area bounded by Nk’mémpeʔ and Stqwáw’s. Women stayed here for weeks each year
to gather and dry berries and edible roots. Racks for drying berries remained through the year.
22 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 293. 23 See, for example, Andrea Laforet and Annie York, Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939 (Vancouver : UBC Press, 1998), 66-69 on the use of resources on Broadback Mountain. Nlaka’pamux living along the Thompson River also travelled to specific upland areas in that region to harvest resources according to a specific seasonal timetable. 24 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 257. 10
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Cedar roots for the basketry that provided everything from water buckets to food dishes to
cradles to storage containers were available at Kwǝl’kwl’eẃt. Kwǝl’kwl’eẃt was also a particular
historic site, as the place where people had died in a famine long ago. Nk’mém’peʔ was a
principal site for gathering vegetables, including q’wəq’wíle (hog fennel or wild carrot), sk’ém’ec
(dog-tooth lily root), múleʔ (chocolate lily or rice root), tətúwn’ (springbeauty), qwlewe (nodding
wild onion). xílxǝl (cinquefoil) was dug nearby. Elderberries and currants were also gathered
here. The trail which led from the Lytton area to Botáni valley also had names designating rest
stops, camping sites and harvest areas25.
To extend trails over rivers or along sheer cliff faces people in the Fraser Canyon, particularly,
built suspension bridges. Simon Fraser noted this in 1808:
We had to pass where no human being should venture. Yet in those places there is a regular footpath impressed, or rather indented, by frequent travelling upon the very rocks. And besides this, steps which are formed like a ladder, or the shrouds of a ship, by poles hanging to one another and crossed at certain distances with twigs and withes, suspended from the top to the foot of precipices, and fastened at both ends to stones and trees, furnished a safe and convenient passage to the Natives – but we, who had not the advantages of their experience, were often in imminent danger, when obliged to follow their example26. Trail extensions and bridges were made out of rope, honeysuckle or other tough, flexible, vines,
with a waterproof binding of cherry bark, taken from a young branch in a long spiral. Annie
York noted,
They heat the cherry wood tree young and cut the bark off like a ribbon. They cut it in long strips, and they heat it, and then the honeysuckle, they get that and they twisted it and they got the rope, the Indian rope mixed with it, and they twisted it. And they make a suspension bridge in several places – it’s just hang on a cliff, a swing bridge.
25 Nathan Spinks, personal communication. 26W. Kaye Lamb, ed., The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser 1806-1808, 96.
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...And they make it like that, even long before the whites came, they make these just like a cable, twisted, and they used to have one here at Spuzzum Creek, long one, but it’s not wide, just wide enough for you to walk on it27. Present-day Nlaka’pamux living on the Thompson River have commented on the use of trail
markers in forested areas, e.g. blazes, young trees with trunks or large limbs bent to indicate the
direction of the continuation of a trail, or ‘candelabra’ trees, i.e. trees having several large
branches reaching up around a common centre28.
While the local area was very important to the Nlaka’pamux sense of community and place, the
cross-country trails linked the Nlaka’pamux with one another and with their neighbours on all
sides. The quickest way to travel was across country. From SLaz, the northernmost village on
the Thompson River, trails led west to Hat Creek and the Pavilion region, and southwest to the
mountains, High Mountain and T’ǝm’siékm, between the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, and
eventually to the Fraser river villages, and south by east to Nq’áwmn, at the present site of
Gladwin, on the Thompson River, and the Nicola Valley. Other trails led from Pukáist and other
villages on the east bank of the Thompson River villages to the resource areas of Highland
Valley, northeast of Pukáist, and the Nicola Valley. From Nq’áwmn a trail led east to the village
of Sx̣íx̣nx (Shackan) or Fourteen-Mile in the Nicola Valley. Another trail led over the mountains
between the Nicola Valley villages and the Fraser Canyon villages near Anderson Creek, Boston
Bar, and Boothroyd. Paul Oppenheim29, who was living in the Nlaka’pamux community of
Coldwater near the Nicola Valley, recalled travelling over it with his family. “We go as far as
27 Andrea Laforet, interview with Annie York, September 13, 1973. 28 Michael Klassen, “Identification Guidelines for Trail Marker Trees (TMTs) and other Shaped Standing Trees (SSTs) in the B.C. Interior” (presentation to Archaeology Forum, November 3, 2010).
29 Interview with Paul Oppenheim, September 2, 1987. NNTC Archives. 12
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ɬp’éw’s [where] the water runs both ways. It’s a summit.” Here and at mǝlxítekw30, called in
English, “Indian Meadows,” Nlaka’pamux people picked huckleberries and Saskatoon berries,
gathered cedar roots for coiled baskets, hunted and dried meat. This area was also a junction
point. From here travellers could continue west to the Fraser Canyon, or turn south to
Tulameen31. Sx̣iyptǝ́tn32 was a trail that led through the Cascade Mountains to and from the
village of Pethluskwu (péɬuskwu) upriver from Spuzzum33.
The Nlaka’pamux were not the only people in this region to create, maintain and use trails at
various elevations. In 1847 Alexander Caulfield Anderson, attempting to find a suitable fur
brigade route from the lower Fraser River to Kamloops through the Cascades, was helped to
locate existing trails by both a Nlaka’pamux hunter who encountered his party by chance and by
Blackeye, a Similkameen chief34. Working with Sto:lo elders and staff, David Schaepe published
a preliminary account of Sto:lo trails in the Chilliwack forest area and Sto:lo traditional territory
in 199935. Through analysis of maps from the 1850s Daniel Boxberger has concluded that
Aboriginal groups had extensive knowledge of the North Cascades region prior to European
settlement36.
30 Cf Thompson River Salish Dictionary, p. 194, ʔemeɬtkw, “when you get over being tired.” 31 Interview with Gordon Antoine. July 14, 1987. NNTC Archives. 32 See Thompson River Salish Dictionary, 425, x̣iyptxən, “take shortcut walking through mountains, esp. following gullies or passes.” 33 Laforet and York, Spuzzum,. 257. 34 Nancy Marguerite Anderson, The Pathfinder. A.C. Anderson’s Journeys in the West. (Victoria: Heritage House Publishing Company, 2011), 115 and 117. 35 David Schaepe, Tracking the Ancestors A Pilot Inventory of Aboriginal Trails Within Sto:lo Traditional Territory and the Chilliwack Forest District. (Sto:lo Nation for Ministry of Forests Chilliwack District, 1999).
36 Daniel Boxberger, “Native American Knowledge of the North Cascades in the 1850’s.” (poster presentation at the Northwest Environmental History Symposium, Pullman, Washington, August 1-4, 1996). Cited in Schaepe, Tracking the Ancestors...”. 7.
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Fig. 2 Historic Trails of the North Cascades. Hope Mountain Centre 2009. Reproduced with permission.
The map, “Historic Trails of the North Cascades,” shows multiple trails through the area between
the Fraser River at Fort Hope and the Similkameen River. Several of these are associated with
dates following the arrival of European entrepreneurs, but virtually all of them are likely based
on Aboriginal trails.
They include a trail following the Tulameen River and another leading to and from Boston Bar in
the Fraser Canyon. At least some trails through the Cascades became accessible to the horses
that were introduced into Nlaka’pamux country circa 1800. Teit wrote,
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In July and August, when the route was open, Similkameen and Okanagon sometimes crossed the Cascade Mountains and visited the people of Hope on Lower Fraser River. After horses became common this trade became important and was followed annually. Large packs of dried fish and oil, and in later days even salted salmon, were transported over this trail37. As the mountains could receive substantial snowfall as early as October38, horse transport was
likely limited to the summer.
In Nlaka’pamuxcin the word, tmíxw, connotes not only the physical land, but all that is in it and
on it. Tmíxw is of profound significance in Nlaka’pamux thought. A particularly significant
quality of the land is x̣aʔx̣áʔ. The word, x̣aʔx̣áʔ, is used in several senses, with the meaning and
force shifting slightly according to the context in which it is used. X̣aʔx̣áʔ is an unchanging
impersonal supernatural quality of certain parts of the land. It is also a quality inherent in certain
animals, e.g. wolf and grizzly bear, and it is, as well, a quality which human beings could
achieve through intensive training. Places in Nlaka’pamux territory that were known to have
supernatural power were nx̣aʔx̣aʔúym’xw. A lake or pool in a stream that was x̣aʔx̣áʔ was
nx̣aʔx̣áʔtkwu, “water having supernatural power.” It was necessary to know how to recognize
lakes and other features of the land that were x̣aʔx̣áʔ, for it was dangerous to approach them. An
untrained, and therefore unprotected, person who drank from, or bathed in, a lake that was
x̣aʔx̣áʔ could become núkwukw, unsettled in his mind to the point of being mentally ill, and could
only be cured by a sǝxwnéʔm or shaman. Some protection could come through training for the
37 James Teit, “The Okanagon,” in Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus, ed. Franz Boas (Washington:Smithsonian Institution, 1930). 254.
38 H. Spencer Palmer to Colonel R.C. Moody, November 23, 1859 in “Copy of Despatch from Governor Douglas, C.B. to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, January 9, 1860.” British Columbia Archives. In 1859 Palmer, a member of the Royal Engineers, travelled from Fort Hope to Fort Colville via the Tulameen and Similkameen valleys. “Before closing my description of this mountain I may mention that the snow, which in winter falls to a depth of from 25 to 30 feet on its summit, renders the route impracticable for at least seven months of the year, and dangerous before the 1st of June or after the 1st of October. Mr. McLean of the Hudson Bay Company, who crossed in 1857 or 1858, on the 16th of October had a very disastrous trip, and lost 60 or 70 horses in the snow.”
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kind of strength and power which came from a relationship with a particular supernatural being.
Most Nlaka’pamux underwent training of this kind at puberty, and some continued to train in
adulthood. It was through this extended training that human beings could, themselves, become
x̣aʔx̣áʔ. Places having the quality, x̣aʔx̣áʔ, represent a fusion between natural and supernatural
for which there is no single word in English. In Nlaka’pamux thought, however, natural and
supernatural are two, inseparable, aspects of every phenomenon.
In Nlaka’pamux thought all phenomena have life. The word for “people,” séytknmx, is applied
both to human beings and to non-human beings. To human beings with traditional training non-
human beings appeared in two forms, i.e. the physical form apparent in the waking world, and a
human-like form which was visible to human beings only during direct encounters which
generally took place within a dream, sʔíkwlxw, usually experienced when the human person was
in isolated circumstances away from places where people lived. Mountains were primary sites
for hunting and harvesting plant foods and materials, as well as sites of supernatural power39.
Remote, lonely places at high elevation provided habitat for mountain goats and grizzly bears,
powerful animals that were, themselves, x̣aʔx̣áʔ, but they also included locations that were
x̣aʔx̣áʔ, places where Nlaka’pamux went to train both at puberty and often in adulthood.
The deliberate seeking of an encounter with such a supernatural being was part of the education
and coming-of-age of every Nlaka’pamux boy and many of the girls. Isolation from other
people, fasting, physical exercise and prayer, were part of the training. Ritual cleanliness, i.e.
isolation, fasting, abstention from sexual intercourse, was essential. Not everyone was
successful, but those who were generally came away from the experience with a special ability in
39 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 345. 16
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some activity, e.g. hunting, curing, warfare, or gambling, conferred on the person by the
supernatural being during the encounter through the medium of a particular song, or snéʔm.
Snéʔm is a specialized word for song. Following the encounter and the transfer of the song, it
was said that the supernatural being had become the person’s snéʔm, and although the details of
these experiences were not usually discussed, the identity of a person’s snéʔm could often be
deduced from the fur which he used for his headband or other signs which he sewed on his
clothing. Every phenomenon was a kind of living being and had the potential to become a
snéʔm.
The person who had an encounter with a snéʔm in a sʔíkwlxw was asleep. The non-human
being initiated the encounter. The human being could hear (and some encounters were entirely
auditory, with no visual component) but could not speak. The non-human being could speak to
the person. The form taken by the snéʔm might have no resemblance to the form it had in the
waking world. The snéʔm bestowed a gift in the form of a distinctive ability, e.g. for hunting,
and also often bestowed a song. The snéʔm taught the person the song, and faded away, and the
person awoke, still singing. The person was able to take the song and the knowledge of the
implications of the encounter, into waking life. Although an encounter with a sneʔm was often
sought through intensive training, it could happen unexpectedly, particularly to someone who
was in isolated circumstances. Nor was this experience confined to pubescent children; one
could encounter a snéʔm at any age40.
40 In his “Notes on Songs of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” (Canadian Museum of History, n.d), James Teit presented 26 summaries of snéɁm encounters, 15 of them first-person accounts provided by 8 people, 5 men and 3 women. Analysis of the events presented indicates that the experiences could vary considerably in minor details, but the dream, the apprehension of being in the presence of the supernatural, and a change in the subsequent condition of the human being were constant factors. 17
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The gift of the snéʔm increased the recipient’s ability to function in activities essential to social
and economic life. Shamanic ability, strength as a warrior, and the ability to be an excellent
hunter, were all prestigious. Hunting was more prestigious than fishing. This hierarchical
ordering was based on the different qualities of the non-human beings who became snǝnéʔm41.
Water, mountain tops, grizzly bear and wolf were especially strong. Among the animals hunted
in the Skagit region, wolves, goats, grizzly bear, and deer were x̣aʔx̣áʔ. Hunting was thus part of
a relationship between a human being and beings that were both more knowledgeable and more
powerful.
The Skagit Valley
The presence of Nlaka’pamux in the Skagit valley is supported by information from various
sources. In June, 1846, Alexander Caulfield Anderson, travelling through the mountains east of
Hope in search of a suitable brigade trail from Kamloops to Fort Langley for the Hudson’s Bay
Company, met “an Indian from the Forks of Thompson’s River” who was hunting beaver near
the junction of the Skagit and Sumallo Rivers and was able to guide Anderson’s party to the
summit of the mountain pass42. Anderson found that the route recommended by the
Nlaka’pamux hunter was a “well marked trail43.” Teit wrote, “[h]unting-parties who visited the
most southern part of [Lower Thompson] hunting- grounds were sometimes absent for seven
months, returning only when the snow began to melt in the mountains44. The Skagit Valley was
closest geographically to the Fraser Canyon; however, Nlaka’pamux hunting territory extended
41 Plural form of snéʔm. In Nlaka’pamuxcin plurals are generally formed by doubling the first syllable of the word. 42 A.C. Anderson, “Journal of an Expedition under the command of Alex. C. Anderson of the Hudson’s Bay Company, undertaken with the view of ascertaining the practicability of a communication with the interior, for the import of annual Supplies,” cited in J.C. Goodfellow, “Fur and Gold in Similkameen,” (The British Columbia Historical Quarterly, 2, 1938, 74). Note: Goodfellow incorrectly cites 1847 as the date of this expedition. 43 Anderson, The Pathfinder, 115. 44 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 39. 18
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far beyond the riverine locations of the winter villages. Teit noted that the Nlaka’pamux hunted
thirty to forty miles on either side of the Thompson River45, and in a comparison of Shuswap and
Thompson territories circa 1750, he noted that the Shuswap lived near Kamloops Lake, on south
Thompson River, and on Salmon Arm, and that [the] “Thompson hunted south and west of this
region, as far as the upper and middle Similkameen, and beyond to the south46.” In a series of
maps provided to Boas, Teit included one that delineated Nlaka’pamux territory south of the
international boundary.
45 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 170. 46 Teit. “The Okanagon,” 213.
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Figure 3. Nlaka’pamux (Thompson) territory below the 49th parallel. Excerpted from Teit Map (4) “Eastern Washington Approximate Boundaries Interior Salish Tribes about 1825-1855,” 1910-1913. American Philosophical Society, Franz Boas Collection of Materials for American Linguistics (Mss 497.3 B63c) Section 59. Permission required. Collins wrote,
The Thompson, who lived in the interior of British Columbia on the Thompson River, a tributary of the Fraser, and on the Nicola River came overland into Skagit territory. They made portage between a tributary of the Fraser River [the Tulameen River?] and one of the northern headwaters of the Skagit River. They came in the winter on snowshoes and sometimes stayed through the summer to hunt and fish47.
She added, “The northern headwaters of the Skagit River were in British Columbia, not far from
the Fraser River and its junction with the Thompson. The Thompson came south along the river,
travelling on land48.” She also commented, “The Thompson travelling on snowshoes into the
region in recent times and the Skagit practice of using snowshoes and crossing the Cascade
divide on the snow suggests long familiarity with mountain travel49.”
An area of forested mountains with a significant river valley through which the Skagit flowed,
this region was an extension of the resource-rich mountain-meadow-lake country that formed
the eastern portion of Nlaka’pamux country south of the Thompson River and east of the Fraser
River. Similar in topography, climate, flora and fauna to the Fraser canyon, it also offered
certain resources not locally available to Nlaka’pamux living in the Thompson River area. In
the headwaters of the Skagit River the coastal ecosystem meets the interior ecosystem, with a
correspondingly rich diversity of plants and animals. The area is the westernmost point for
47 June McCormick Collins, Valley of the Spirits. The Upper Skagit Indians of Western Washington. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974), 14-15.
48 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 18. 49 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 66. 20
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Ponderosa pine, and the easternmost extent of Broadleaved maple; consequently both were
available to Nlaka’pamux. Similarly, the region is the westernmost point for yellow cedar, but
is also home to Western Red Cedar. Salal was found in the northern part of the region, with
Saskatoon berries plentiful in drier areas. The cottonwoods characteristic of the lower Fraser
canyon are also found here. The Skagit Region was part of the range of animals and plants
familiar to the Nlaka’pamux of the Fraser canyon.
The ecosystem of the Skagit headwaters supported a substantial range of the food and medicinal
plants gathered by the Nlaka’pamux, but the faunal resources were also significant. The region is
and was home to blacktail deer, whitetail deer, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, mountain goat,
beaver, marmot, rabbit and game birds, all animals customarily hunted by Nlaka’pamux. The
Fraser Canyon was home to the sector of the Nlaka’pamux population with an established
tradition of weaving mountain goat wool. The abundant deer population supported by the Skagit
river valley would also have been a draw. Deer meat, roasted, boiled or dried, was a major
component of the Nlaka’pamux diet, and was also used to make nkéxw, a staple Nlaka’pamux
dish. Deer hides were essential for clothing in pre-trader days, and were also a significant
commodity in trade to neighbouring societies. Deer bone awls were a significant tool in the
manufacture of coiled baskets. Dried goat meat, blankets, goat skins, dressed elk and deer skins,
as well as deer, elk and goat fat, were traded historically by the Nlaka’pamux of the Fraser
Canyon to Coast people50.
Hunting often involved the co-operation of several men and a detailed knowledge of the habits of
deer and their habitat in the area in which hunting took place. Deer were shot at salt licks, while
50 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 259. 21
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swimming across rivers, and when driven by a large party of hunters, assisted by hunting dogs,
into a valley or gulch. While the bow and arrow was important in deer hunting, technologies
such as deer nets and deer fences, i.e. fence-like structures approximately 4.5 feet high and up to
half a mile or more long, made of poles, with narrow openings at intervals set with snares to
catch deer going through were used, at least in the Thompson River area. Deer fences were
placed in narrow valleys or mountain passes used by deer to travel from one mountain to
another. Teit observed that the Lower Thompson did not use deer fences often, preferring
nooses placed on deer trails to catch the deer by the head or antlers.
He noted,
Some Indians, especially single men, while hunting on the mountains, endured much hardship and exposure. Some of them would start out with cold weather in the winter- time, taking with them neither food nor other clothing than that which they wore. They lived entirely on what they shot, and used the raw deerskins for blankets. They made rough kettles of spruce-bark or deer’s paunches51 In deep snow in the mountains, hunters wearing snowshoes also ran down deer and elk. In deep
snow with a thick crust dogs could also run deer down52. Bear and mountain goat were hunted
with bow and arrow, and bear were also captured in dead-falls53.
The two animals prominent in the ethnographic references for the Skagit region are mountain
goat and bear. Amoss cites the mountain goats found on the slopes of Mount Baker, harvested
not only for meat but also for the wool that was used to weave blankets and robes, as an
important Nooksack resource. Goats were also highly valued by the Nlaka’pamux, not only for
their meat and horns, but also for their wool, which was spun with dog hair and woven into
51 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,. 246. 52 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 248. 53 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 249. 22
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blankets and robes by Nlaka’pamux women of the Fraser canyon. Collins confirmed that the
Skagit and Nlaka’pamux shared ritual practices associated with hunting bears.
The bear appears to have a special place in Upper Skagit folklore, a common motif being his appearance in human guise...The people living far upriver gave a special treatment to the bear, cutting off the head, braiding the flesh and placing the head in the woods, presumably to ensure the continued supply of bear. The Upper Skagit reported that the Thompson alone of their neighbours engaged in similar practices54.
Later in her monograph Collins wrote, “The Upper Skagit had a first fruits ceremony for the first
bear taken in the spring. Most did not remove the head of the bear and treat it in a ceremonial
way. The Thompson who visited their area did this, braiding the flesh and putting the head on a
pole in the woods 55.” Teit recorded two Nlaka’pamux songs sung for bears at the time they
were killed. Of one of them, Teit wrote,
This kind of song is called .nkwai.kEn or nkwekEn and the words used in it .nkwaikEntEn or .nkwei.katEn. It is a kind of mourning song sung by all present when a bear (of any kind) is killed. These songs were also occasionally sung to deer and other animals when killed. The slayer of the bear led in the singing of the song and if any others were present they had to join in the song. The song was sung shortly after the bear had been killed and also sometimes later whilst skinning him and cutting him up. The singer (slayer of the animal) always put words in the song addressing the bear (and often his kind as well) praising him for his generosity in pitying the hunter and allowing himself to be killed, excusing himself (the hunter) for having killed his friend (the bear) and asking that he (the hunter) will have continued success in hunting, and have good luck in every way, become possessed of much goods and wealth. Anything else he may desire is also mentioned. The song is very ancient and is supposed to have originated in very remote times by the bear speaking to a man and telling him to sing this kind of song when he killed a bear and thus he would obtain good luck56. Teit noted that the second song, “said to be as old as bear hunting,” was also sung at the death
of a bear, and occasionally other animals. “Besides showing respect and gratitude to the bear
54 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 54. 55Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 150. 56 Teit, “Notes on Songs of the Indians of British Columbia,” Song No. 45, VI M 79. 23
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(and bear kind) by singing the song the hunters expected to obtain good luck in hunting and
become wealthy57.”
Chert from ancient quarries on and in the vicinity of Hozomeen Mountain and other types of tool
stone were also significant resources that drew Nlaka’pamux to this region. An archaeological
investigation of a chert quarry on Desolation Peak by Robert Mierendorf found that “the quarry
had been used at least sporadically for the last 7600 radiocarbon years, a time that spans much of
the postglacial history of the valley,” with the dated radiocarbon samples suggesting that the
most intense use of the site had been made between 5000 and 3500 years BP58. This was one of
several quarries noted by Mierendorf, and he also noted the likelihood of others in the area.
Hozomeen chert was valued, particularly by the Nlaka’pamux of the lower Fraser canyon, for
projectile points and blades for utensils such as scrapers and burins used in tanning hides. Teit
wrote, “Arrow-heads were made of glassy basalt, which was obtained at a certain place north of
Thompson River. The Lower Thompson found stone for their arrow-heads near the headwaters
of Skagit River. Many were made out of large chipped heads which are found in great numbers
in the valleys. The Indians believe that the latter were made by the Raven59.”
In 1895, Teit included ten stone projectile points or pre-forms for projectile points and sent them
as part of the collection he made for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In
the American Museum of Natural History catalogue these are listed simply as “stone spear
head.” However, in his handwritten list of items purchased and amounts paid for this collection,
57 Teit. “Notes on Songs of the Indians of British Columbia,” Song No. 89, VI M 123. 58 Robert R. Mierendorf, Chert Procurement in the Upper Skagit River Valley of the Northern Cascades Range, Ross Lake National Recreation Area. (Seattle, WA: North Cascades National Park Service Complex, U.S. Department of Interior, 1993.) Technical Report NPS/PNRNOCA/CRTR- 93-001, p. 45, 46.
59 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 241. 24
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included in the American Museum of Natural History record for Accession 1895-32, he has the
line item, “1895 Jan.10 By J.A. Teit for (Raven) arrow heads (No. 18) 00.00.” Accession record
1895-32 includes Teit’s own handwritten catalogue of the items collected, cross-referenced with
the catalogue numbers assigned by the museum. This handwritten catalogue is stamped
“Registrar’s Office rec’d June 22, 1895 Ans’d.” Against Teit’s No. 18 and the AMNH numbers
16-1004-16-1013 is Teit’s entry:
Some arrow and spear heads, ten in number (perhaps the largest is a stone knife). The Indians call all these of whatever shape and size “skimaist60” (meaning cut or flaked stone) and claim that from time immemorial they had found them in considerable numbers in certain parts of the country and always in the shape of spear or arrow heads. They also say that these “skimaist” [to] or “tataza” were never made by them or their ancestors, but were made by the raven (concerning which they have a legend). The Indians used to look for “skimaist,” take them home, cut them up and shape them to suit themselves, sometimes making from four to six arrow heads out of these arrow stone. The Indians say they made their own arrow heads very small and sharp, and would never think of shooting such clumsy arrow heads as “skimaist.” They say that these arrow stone very much resemble the arrow heads in use amongst the Eyut tribe both for size and clumsiness. – the bag in which these arrow stones are enclosed is a regular bag for holding “skonkun” or gambling sticks.
This bag, also assigned by Teit the number, 18, was made for Teit by Antko, his wife61, and is
listed with the other items purchased.
Six of these items are included in the American Museum of Natural History’s online database.
60 “aist”. cf Thompson River Salish Dictionary, 1276, eyst,̓ “stone.” 61 (Susannah Lucy) Antko (1867, approximately, to 1899) was from the vicinity of Spences Bridge. Lucy Antko and James Teit married on September 12, 1892. (B.C. Vital Events Record 1892-09-1695556). 25
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Fig. 4 a) AMNH 16- 1007
Fig. 4 b) AMNH 16-1008.
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Fig. 4 c) AMNH 16- 1009
Fig. 4 d) AMNH 16-1010
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Fig. 4 e)AMNH 16-1012
Fig. 4 f) AMNH 16-1013
Figs 4 a) – f) “Raven arrowheads”. Collected by James Teit for the American Museum of Natural History, 1895. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. A journalistic reference in a mid-nineteenth century American magazine has become a solitary,
but significant, resource for scholars endeavouring to understand the place of Mount Baker in the
social geography of Aboriginal societies of this region. In 1869 Edward T. Coleman published an
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account of his ascent of Mount Baker in Harpers New Monthly Magazine. On the way, his two
Nooksack guides left the party briefly to verify their route.
The Indians soon came back in great wrath, occasioned by the discovery of a piece of wood cut by an axe. This trace of man in such a desolate and uninhabitable country deeply interested me, but had a violent effect on my savage companions. They explained that the Thompson River Indians had evidently been poaching on their hunting-ground. They were all the more exasperated as the same had been done two years ago, when one was killed by the hunter who had joined us at the forks. No lord in England guards his preserve more jealously; no Highland laird could be more irate against deer-stalking than was this same Indian. Looking at the peculiarly silent and harmless-looking hunter, we could never have attributed to him such a violent deed62. It is not entirely clear what was assumed to have been poached, although Amoss has suggested
mountain goats63, nor is it absolutely certain that the guide was correct in his assumption.
Nonetheless, the incident strongly suggests that in the mid-to-late 1860’s there was an ongoing
dispute at this time between the Nooksack and Nlaka’pamux over entitlement.
In Nooksack Place Names Richardson and Galloway provide two names for Mount Baker, the
Nooksack name, Kweq’Smánit64 and Kwelshán, “the high open slopes of Mount Baker,” as well
as the Skagit name, Teqwúbe765. They suggest that the Halkomelem name, kwǝlxʸɛˑlxw, as well
as the name in the Lummi dialect of Northern Straits Salish, kwǝlšɛn, are cognates of the
Nooksack name. The Nlaka’pamux name for Mount Baker, kwǝlxelǝxw, also appears to be a
cognate of Kwelsha´n.
62 Edward T. Coleman, “Mountaineering on the Pacific,” (Harpers New Monthly Magazine 39, 1869), 803-4. 63 Pamela Amoss, Coast Salish Spirit Dancing: The Survival of an Ancestral Religion, (University of Washington Press, 1978) 6.
64 Allan Richardson and Brent Galloway, Nooksack Place Names Geography, Culture and Language. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 150. 65 Richardson and Galloway, Nooksack Place Names, 151. 29
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Fig. 5 Excerpt of Thiusoloc’s map. Reproduced in A Sto:lo Coast Salish Historical Atlas, p. 12566. Reproduction of original and permission required from U.S. National Archives.
66 U.S. National Archives and Records Service. RG 76. Records of Boundary and Claims Commissions and Arbitrations. Series 69, PI-170, Entry 215. Folder No. 3. Map 27. Size: 21.3" X 19.5". Date: 1859. Original and permission pending.
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The map of the Skagit region drawn by Thiusoloc67 in 1859 for Henry Custer, who worked on
the survey of the international boundary suggests that it was incorporated into the system of
geographic naming of several Aboriginal societies, including the Nlaka’pamux. Names that can
be recognized as Nlaka’pamux68 include “spes-paas,” “swampy place,” [spés, “pond;” spǝspés,
“ponds”]; “swoi-aist” [sʕwíy: “burned”; “aist”, i.e. éy̓ st ” meaning “stone,”]; pap-lashe-ko”
[péɬuskwu: “lake”, pépɬuskwu: “little lake”]; and “Hozomeen,”[“x̣wǝz”: sharp69, “mín” is a
relational suffix conveying the idea of “means” as in the means to do something]. Another peak
is labelled “Skwome—han” or “Skwome- kan” [sqwǝ́m: “mountain”, with the suffix “qín,” i.e.
“head” or “ridge” when applied to topographic features. The name, “Nohokomeen,” which does
not appear on Thiusoloc’s map, but is in contemporary use, e.g. “Nohokomeen glacier,” and
“Nohokomeen Falls,” is phonologically resonant with Nlaka’pamuxcin. The name contains
elements, such as the nominalising prefix, “n,” the morpheme, “qwúʔ,” i.e. “water,” and the
relational suffix, “mín,” which all figure in Nlaka’pamuxcin.
The Nlaka’pamux system of geography included the naming of mountain peaks, as did the
Halkomelem70 and Nooksack systems, and Mount Baker and “Hoz-o-meen” and “Skwome-han”
or “Skwome- kan” and “Kwai-tee-kan” notated on Thiusoloc’s map can be seen as extensions of
a mountain system that, among the Nlaka’pamux, included Skí́kiʔkiʔx, Yoʕ’wáʔq, C’ǝmc’ə́meʔ,
Sx̣wiƛ’éc’, Yuyuwénɬp, T’áx̣, Slax̣áʔc, ɬq’íkn’ and C’ǝtǝx̣áy᾽, near Spuzzum.
67 Keith Thor Carlson et al, A Sto:lo Coast Salish Historical Atlas, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, University of Washington Press and Sto:lo Heritage Trust, 2001), plate 42 pp. 124, 125.
68 I am indebted to John Haugen for his help in confirming the identification and translation of Nlak̓ apamux place names on this map. 69 Steven M. Egesdal, personal communication. 70 Keith Thor Carlson, “Mountains That See and Need to be Seen: Aboriginal Perspective on the Degraded Visibility Associated with Air Pollution in the British Columbia Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley,” A Traditional Knowledge Study Prepared for Environment Canada, May 2009. 31
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Although Richardson and Galloway suggest that Thiusoloc, himself, was Thompson, it may be
more likely that he was of dual heritage. The name, “Thiusoloc,” appears to be of Halkomelem
origin, and Thiusoloc was both a high-ranking resident of a Halkomelem-speaking village. Duff
noted that Sto:lo high-ranking families sought marriage partners of equal rank and that
historically marriages were arranged with families in Spuzzum. Marriages also occurred
between Nlaka’pamux hunters and women in villages near Chilliwack, and in this instance, the
Nlaka’pamux spouses tended to remain in the villages of their wives71. It is very possible that
Thiusoloc was related to Nlaka’pamux of the Fraser Canyon. The Canadian census for 1901
recorded Thomson Uslick as a resident of a Fraser Valley reserve72. His age was given as 67,
suggesting that he was born in 1834 and in his mid-twenties during the boundary survey. Annie
York, who was born in 1904, remembered a cousin of her grandmother, originally from
Spuzzum, who had married a member of the Uslick family at Chilliwack73. In recalling his trip in
1872 to the Thompson and Nicola Rivers the missionary, Thomas Crosby, wrote, “I took with
me, as interpreter, a young man, a native of the Thompson, who had lived on the Chilliwack
since he was a boy, and hence spoke the An-ko-me-num74 language as well as his native
tongue75.” There are many other late nineteenth and early twentieth century connections between
Spuzzum families and families in the Upper Fraser Valley, particularly following the
71 Wilson Duff, The Upper Stalo Indians of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, (Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum Department of Education, 1953), 95.
72 Canada Census, 1901. 73 Andrea Laforet interview with Annie York, July 25, 1975. 74 i.e. the language spoken by the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. 75 Thomas Crosby, Among the An-ko-me-nums or Flathead Tribes of Indians of the Pacific Coast, (Toronto: William Briggs, 1907), 195. 32
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establishment in 1879 of the joint reserve at Seabird Island. The Nlaka’pamuxcin place names
Thiusoloc provided to Henry Custer may be the names he learned from Nlaka’pamux relatives.
An indirect suggestion that the area was used as a source of food plants is provided by Henry
Custer, who wrote, “Fires are very frequent during sum[m]er season in these Mountain forests
and are often ignited purposely by some of the Indian[s] hunting in these Mountain regions, to
clear the woods from brush & make travel easier76.” While clearing trails may have been among
the purposes of burning, the Nlaka’pamux used controlled burning in other regions to renew the
growth in grounds used year after year for picking berries or gathering root vegetables77.
Custer’s note about deliberately set fires suggests that the mountains of the Skagit were used for
gathering berries and root vegetables spring through summer, as were the mountains near
Spuzzum78. At Sʕwiʕwyáqs and Nk’mém᾽peʔ the Nlaka’pamux carried out controlled burning to
increase the quantity and quality of the wild vegetables, assessing the weather and setting fires
when rain could be expected in two days79.
Relations with the Upper Skagit
76 Custer, Henry, “Report of Henry Custer, Assistant of Reconnaissances Made in 1859 Over the Routes in the Cascade Mountains in the Vicinity of theth Parallel,” Typed manuscript, Pacific Northwest Regional Office, National Park Service, Seattle. 1866, p. 20. Cited in Robert R. Mierendorf, Chert Procurement in the Upper Skagit River Valley of the Northern Cascades Range, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, 12.
77 Nancy Turner, personal communication. 78 Laforet and York, Spuzzum Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939, 66 ; for a discussion of controlled burning see also Dana Lepofsky and Ken Lertzman. “Documenting ancient plant management in the northwest of North America.” Botany 86, (2008), 129-145. 79 Laforet and York. Spuzzum Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939, 68. 33
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On all sides of their territory, the Nlaka’pamux had borders with neighbouring societies, such as
the Stl’atl’imc, Tait, Stuwix, and Okanagan, who spoke different languages, and had different
cultural perspectives but some cultural practices in common with the Nlaka’pamux. At each of
these boundaries, there was some intermarriage, with the attendant visiting, exchange, the
privileges and obligations shared by relatives, including permitted access to resources. There was
also occasional armed conflict. The Nlaka’pamux/Upper Skagit boundary differed from the others
in that the winter villages of the two societies were on different river systems and distant from
each other. Nonetheless, in the years immediately prior to colonization Nlaka’pamux and Upper
Skagit cultural practices were similar in regard to the harvesting and use of mountain foods,
hunting methods and technologies, and basketry technologies.
Upper Skagit people interviewed by Collins in the early 1940s recalled substantial conflict. In
their cultural memory, this was a relationship characterized by cross-border skirmishes and, on the
part of the Upper Skagit, the fear of Nlaka’pamux attacks. Collins wrote
The Upper Skagit had association with nearby peoples representing three major cultural groupings: those living on the coast, the islands, the river flowing east into salt water like the Skagit River itself; those to the west in the Plateau; and the Thompson, to the north. The Thompson are placed in terms of culture groupings with the Plateau but the Upper Skagit regarded them as apart from other interior peoples80.
Collins continued,
They were usually regarded as enemies and there are accounts of skirmishes with them. They killed Upper Skagit adults whom they found in the woods, decapitating the men and leaving their skulls so as to shock their relatives. Women, and occasionally men, they killed by thrusting a sharpened pole into their bodies and then seating them on the ground
80 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 9. 34
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in what looked from a distance like a living pose. They kidnapped babies whom they took for slaves81. At least some of these encounters were triggered by the same kind of concern for the
maintenance of boundaries and resources. Collins wrote,
[Upper Skagit v]illages owned the rights to food-getting sites within their territory, such as fishing sites, berry patches and meadows. Village rights tapered off as one moved from the houses along the river toward the ridges which separated the Skagit people from the Nooksack, the Stillaguamish and the Plateau peoples. Nevertheless, Upper Skagit did not expect to find unrelated Nooksack, Stillaguamish, Thompson, Methow or Okanogan on their sides of the divides. Persons who wished to hunt and fish in the locale of neighbouring villages were expected to visit their relatives there first to announce their presence, their intentions, and to be given tacit permission. This was never withheld. Part of the objection to the Thompson incursions into Skagit territory was that they did not behave in these accepted routines82.
According to Collins the Upper Skagit were a relatively peaceful people, capable of deciding in
council to retaliate against a Nlaka’pamux raid but not generally initiating combat83. In spite of
the ferocious reputation of the Nlaka’pamux and the vividness with which their attacks were
remembered Collins characterized their attacks as “sporadic84.” Nevertheless, even in the 1940s
when Collins was conducting her field work she perceived that “[s]ome Upper Skagit still fear
the Thompson and feel bitterness for children captured by them.”
Coleman’s brief account suggests that in the mid-1800s relations between Nlaka’pamux and
neighbouring peoples of this region could involve armed conflict. The lack of contextual data in
Collins’ monograph and the general absence of other data make it difficult to interpret the place
of the events that generated these memories in the overall history of Nlaka’pamux relations with
81Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 14-15. 82 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 80-81. 83 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 112. 84 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 115. 35
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the Upper Skagit. It is possible that at a particular point the Nlaka’pamux cultivated the
reputation of fierce and fearsome warriors in order to test previously established boundaries or to
protect hunting grounds for their own use. During the time before European settlement
Nlaka’pamux conducted warfare largely for the purposes of revenge, adventure and plunder85. It
was a matter of raid and reprisal conducted against neighbouring peoples who had similar
concepts. War expeditions were conducted according to strict protocols, led by a specially
chosen leader and assisted by a shaman. Teit sketches a pattern for the Nlaka’pamux as a whole
that has the Nlaka’pamux of the lower Fraser Canyon less inclined to wage war than the
Nlaka’pamux of the upper Fraser Canyon and the vicinity of Lytton and the Thompson River.
However, this was not a hard and fast rule and even the Lower Thompson had slaves until the
mid-1800s. Neither war nor peace was a permanent condition, but warfare was not the only
political strategy for determining or maintaining relations with other groups. Intermarriage was
also standard.
In keeping with the latter principle, relations between the Nlaka’pamux and Upper Skagit were
confirmed through marriage. Collins wrote “There were a few marriages between the Upper
Skagit and Thompson in historic times, after a truce had been reached with one of the Thompson
hunting bands.” The lingering memory of previous relationships with the Nlaka’pamux did not
appear to Collins to “affect their attitude to the few Upper Skagit who were partly of Thompson
descent, or to prevent friendly relations today between members of the two groups86.”
The International Boundary
85 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 267 86 Collins, Valley of the Spirits, 14-15. 36
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The severing of the Skagit region from the rest of Nlaka’pamux country was an inadvertent
consequence of the Treaty of Oregon. There was no consultation with the Nlaka’pamux or any
other Aboriginal group. Until the late 1850’s there was no marked border, although the process
of surveying and marking the boundary involved Aboriginal map-makers and guides and could
hardly have gone unnoticed.
The sense of loss the Nlaka’pamux of the lower Fraser Canyon experienced is recorded in a
song87 for Mount Baker, said to have been composed by Kesnen, a singer who lived in Spuzzum
in the mid-1800’s.
c̕e xeʔ tk snéʔm
ʔe xeʔ tk sʔiƛm̓
xwuy ̓ kn ʔiƛm̓
tətəʔ [k] sc̕ətmús kt ʔe k syémit uʔé tk sqwəḿ
nq̓wiyénk us ʔiɬ c̕éʔk�w us tk c̕eʔk�wqin e c̕eʔk�wqín us təteʔ xwúy ̓ ɬaq̓wut ɬʔe k syémit kt uʔe tk sqwəḿ
təteʔ xwúyce̓ ʔ [k] smen̓xms e skwúkwpiʔkt
heléw̓ nxwelix n ɬe sxeʔqins
snxwuyt̓ ̕us [s]x̣ wix̣wiƛé̓ c̕ nəx̣wnox̣w nkmenks�
ʔiɬzéƛt̓ us qwyeyiʔɬ
ʔe skwúkwpiʔ cúkw e xéʔe ʔe smén̓xms nc̕aʔqwuʔéctns
cúkw xéʔe e sx̣áʔc nc̕aʔqwuʔéctns, néw̓ etm e sx̣ác
ʔe pátns e sq̓wətéyqw xwlúk�w us néw̓ etm,
ʔescíqw , ʔespíq, ʔestqwəzq́ wəzt ʔiɬ nkwəkwúsn̓.
87 Laforet and York, Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories, 59-60. 37
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This is the song. This is the song. I'm going to sing. We won't face again to that mountain to pray. When it's sunny, then it begins to shine, that mountain top that glitters. We won't bow to pray toward that mountain. Our chief won't smoke his pipe again. The eagle flies at its top. In spring the mountain goats run on its slopes. Then the baby goats are born. But the chief is finished smoking his pipe there. Finished is the smoke rising from his pipe, the wind blowing the smoke. The flag across the line flutters The red, the white, the blue and the stars.
The degree to which this was, at first, a symbolic loss rather than a practical loss is uncertain.
However, over time the existence of the international boundary came to be at least a symbolic
impediment to travel, economic activity and trade for Aboriginal people whose territories and
social and political connections covered a wide area of the plateau. It reinforced other factors at
work which were subtly changing the place of the Skagit watershed in the place of Nlaka’pamux
economy in the late 1800s.
38
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Mierendorf notes88,
An intriguing and somewhat mystifying fact is the apparent disappearance of Native populations from the upper Skagit Valley in the last century. Few Indian people were seen in the northern Cascade Range, none in the upper Skagit River Valley, at the time of the first explorations by non-Indians. Some of the first such explorers were the Hudson’s Bay Company trappers, who are known to have used trails established by Indian people, but who left no record of their travels through the valley. However, at the time of his 1859 travels through the valley, Henry Custer observed evidence of Native people’s presence, noting that “We found an Indian trail leading through the Klesilkwa valley, faint though as all these trails are, & observed subsequently its continuance through the entire length of the Skagit valley explored by us.” (Custer 1866: 22). He also observed, in valleys adjacent to the Skagit, two abandoned bush structures built by Indian people. Custer’s observations here agree with those of George Gibbs, who noted that many Native American trails throughout the northern Cascades appeared to have “fallen into disuse”, and he attributed this to “the diminution of the tribes and the diversion of trade to the posts” (Gibbs 1877: 169). Whatever the reasons, the accumulating archaeological evidence suggests that Native populations at time in the prehistoric past made much more use of the valley than the historical record might suggest.
Interpretation of this circumstance is complicated by a lack of archival data and, apart from the
references in Collins’ monograph, recorded oral history, an absence that has the effect of
making a single axe cut on Mount Baker a pivotal point in the interpretation of political relations
between the Nlaka’pamux and Nooksack. In a later publication89 Mierendorf notes
the loss of most traditional oral literature and traditional practices relating to the use of the high country that followed the population decimation after the introduction of European diseases in the contact period. As a result, traditional subsistence activities ceased and mountain-oriented bands became displaced by early settlement and mining activities... The cumulative effect of all these factors has been the tacit denial that indigenous people had any real presence in the mountainous interior of the Northwest Coast culture area, this in spite of the fact that such landscapes cover the majority of the land area in northern Washington and British Columbia.
88 Mierendorf, Chert Procurement in the Upper Skagit River Valley of the Northern Cascades Range, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, 10. 89 Robert R. Mierendorf, The Archaeology of Little Beaver Watershed, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Whatcom County, Washington, (Sedro Woolley, WA, December 2004), 8. 39
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The reduction in Aboriginal populations living in the Canadian plateau brought about by the
successive epidemics that began in the late 1700s, is certainly a factor in the reduction of use
of the Skagit area. Another critical factor was the arrival of the European fur trade, which
created a dialectic in Aboriginal cultures between stone and steel, and a derivative, but highly
important, dialectic between the bow and arrow and the gun. As guns, particularly rifles,
became plentiful, stone projectile points diminished in importance. As steel knives, adzes and
chisels became readily available, tool stone, generally, became obsolete.
The demography of Nlaka’pamux country as a whole saw the population concentrated during
the winter months in villages along the Fraser, Thompson and Nicola Rivers. The winter
sojourns of hunters in the Skagit region that might last up to seven months afforded an
opportunity to take intensive advantage of resources in that region between the last salmon runs
on the Fraser River and the summer harvest of plant foods, salmon and trout. The Nlaka’pamux
use of this territory was expressed through regular sojourns by groups of people who were
focused on resource harvest. Their visits were not necessarily restricted to winter. The place
of the resources afforded by this region in Nlaka’pamux economy becomes clearer when pre-
epidemic levels of the Nlaka’pamux population are considered.
Correspondingly the post-smallpox drop in population from the levels suggested by Harris and
Teit may have encouraged the use of sporadic warfare as a means of maintaining the Skagit
River area for Nlaka’pamux use. As Grier has noted in relation to Coast Salish populations90,
Defence of territory....typically requires a significant level of population. The particulars of Coast Salish warfare in precontact times are only now becoming a topic of systematic study, yet it is clear that a major drop in population would pose problems for the maintenance of territories that had evolved over time. The organization of defence itself...may have been
90 Colin Grier, “Consuming the Recent for Constructing the Ancient,“ in Bruce G. Miller, ed., Be of Good Mind: Essays on the Coast Salish, (Vancouver: UBC Press), 293. 40
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undermined significantly. Defence of core territories and resources would become a key factor, particularly through the summer months, when under normal circumstances, only a minimal population may have been left at winter village sites. In a depopulated situation, it may have been difficult to maintain a presence in all areas of one’s territory year-round.
The core activities of the Nlaka’pamux pre-contact economy, i.e. hunting, fishing, and
gathering, remained significant through the 1800s and 1900s and continue to be important
today. However, the place of the products of those activities in the economy of particular
Nlaka’pamux households began to change with the arrival of the fur trade. In 1808 Simon Fraser
noted a copper kettle and a gun, possibly of Russian manufacture, among the Stl’atl’imc
[Askitteh] of the Fraser River above Nlaka’pamux country, and among the Nlaka’pamux noted
other trade items, including copper kettles and a strip of blanket91. Forts were built on the
Thompson River at Kamloops in 181292 and on the Fraser River at Fort Langley in 182793. Both
sites were outside Nlaka’pamux country, although some Nlaka’pamux traded at Kamloops. By
and large, however, Nlaka’pamux country was considered by Hudson’s Bay Company traders
to be an undeveloped hinterland, even at the time Archibald McDonald travelled down the
Thompson River to the junction with the Fraser River in 1826. In his journal of that trip
McDonald records,
About 40 Beaver Skins were got in the vicinity of them that came from below to meet us at the Dalles [possibly Nq’awmn, on the Thompson River between Spences Bridge and Lytton]: for a Blanket of blue stroud or one of 2 ½ pts they at once gave 6 Beaver & 5 for each of two traps I had & which the Indian from below eagerly sought. Giving the goods at
91 Lamb, The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser, 83, 86. 92 The initial fort, built by the Pacific Fur Company, was taken over by the Northwest Company the following year. Following its merger with the Northwest Company in 1821 the Hudson’s Bay Company assumed control of the fur trade at Kamloops. 93The Northwest Company and Hudson’s Bay Company merged in 1821 and continued to operate as the Hudson’s Bay Company. 41
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this rate, which I conceive no sacrifice made; those, with ammunition and tobacco were the favourite articles94. The demand for ammunition suggests that some people in this region, at least, had guns. Whether
or not individual Nlaka’pamux people had guns was certainly not solely up to the traders.
Nlaka’pamux and their neighbours were intermarried at every border; there was a significant trade
network through which commodities moved up and down the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, and
people both travelled to visit relatives and met at social gatherings at places such as the junction
of the Thompson and Nicola Rivers. Both goods and ideas moved within Nlaka’pamux country
and across borders. Nonetheless it is uncertain whether guns became fully available to the
Nlaka’pamux prior to the gold rush.
In the late 1890’s Teit recorded,
The first guns used by the Thompson Indians were flintlock muskets, which were soon adopted in warfare and in hunting. Some of the old men still use them, but repeating-rifles of the latest Winchester and Colt modes are now generally used. They used wooden powder- horns decorated with feathers, and suspended from the right shoulder by a buckskin strap (fig. 226). The powder-horn was worn under the left arm, while the ammunition pouch hung on the right-hand side95.
94 Cole, Jean Murray, This Blessed Wilderness. Archibald McDonald’s Letters from British Columbia, 1822-44, (Vancouver: UBC Press 2001), 45. 95 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 244. 42
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Fig. 6. AMNH 16_1344 powder horn. Reproduced Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. Also reproduced in James Teit The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, fig. 226. Permission required.
The Northwest Trade Gun, “by far the most common firearm in the Canadian Northwest, the
Rocky Mountains and the Missouri fur trade96,” was a muzzle-loading gun requiring powder and
shot. The standard of trade on the Columbia River in 1824-5 set the cost of a gun at 18-20 beaver
skins, with flints costing an additional beaver. “Fine” half-stocked guns cost 30 beaver skins, with
gun powder at an additional 3 beaver per pound97. Maintaining an adequate supply of ammunition
96 Bill Stewart, “Some Observations Concerning Northwest Trade Guns.” Edmonton House Brigade. www.edmontonhousebrigade.com. 97 F. Merk, Fur Trade and Empire : George Simpson’s Journal...(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), 173 43
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and replacing a lost or malfunctioning gun may initially have been more difficult and more costly
than maintaining a supply of bows and arrows. Rifles, pistols, flints, shot, and powder were all
part of the inventory of goods traded at Fort George in 182498; yet in that year George Simpson
refers to the use of bows and arrows in Chinook warfare on the Columbia River. In 1829 the
Cowichan were armed and visited Fort Langley, established two years previously, to acquire
ammunition for their conflict with the Lekwiltok. They were successful in trading skins for three
hundred rounds, in spite of the fact that up to that moment it had been the policy of the Hudson’s
Bay Company at Fort Langley not to supply ammunition to Aboriginal people99. Among the Coast
Salish living to the south, firearms became freely available only much later. For example, a census
taken in 1838 showed that the highest incidence of gun ownership in Puget Sound societies was
10 percent100 and Collins also implied that the Upper Skagit, who were using bows and arrows,
were at a disadvantage in warfare with the northern groups who used guns101. Teit refers to an
account of a conflict between Okanagon and white miners in which some, but not all, the Okanagon
fighters had guns102.
The extension of the gold rush from Oregon and Washington into British Columbia in 1857
was precipitated by news of Nlaka’pamux of the Thompson River mining gold near Nq’awmn
for trade with the Hudson’s Bay Company at Kamloops103. The gold rush on the Fraser and
Thompson Rivers definitively changed the landscape of trade. A trading post established in
1848 at Yale, just downriver from the Tait/Nlaka’pamux boundary, and open only intermittently
98 F. Merk, Fur Trade and Empire, 173. 99 Journal of Archibald McDonald, in Morag Maclachlan ed., The Fort Langley Journals, 1827-30. Cited in Angelbeck, “Conceptions of Coast Salish Warfare” in Miller, ed., Be of Good Mind, 271. 100 Cited in Angelbeck, “Conceptions of Coast Salish Warfare,” 269. 101 Angelbeck, “Conceptions of Coast Salish Warfare,” 270. 102 James Teit. “The Okanagon,”, 270. 103 T.A. Rickard, “Indian Participation in the Gold Rush,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly, (2, 1938),. 9. 44
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during the following ten years, quickly became a store catering to all customers in 1858.
Commerce was brought directly into Nlaka’pamux country104. Commercial enterprises in Yale,
Boston Bar, Lytton, Cook’s Ferry, Kamloops and other newly developed towns, served by a
transportation network of steamers, and roads, supplanted the Hudson Bay Company trading
post model. Work for wages was established as part of the Nlaka’pamux economy. It is very
likely that the Nlaka’pamux had full access to guns by the 1860s.
The demand for tool stone may have been declining since metal tools and guns became trading
commodities, but the establishment of full commercial trade in the late 1850s may have
definitively ended the economic utility of tool stone, including Hozomeen chert. As guns
became plentiful, projectile points became obsolete. By the 1890s flintlock muskets had been
incorporated into the Nlaka’pamux system of trade with established values, e.g. “For 6 sticks
dried salmon 1 second-hand flintlock gun or 1 two-year old horse.” One nearly new flintlock
gun could be traded for 2 large dressed elk skins, and “1 old musket” could be traded for a
canoe, but stone blades and points are not on the list at all105. The Hudson’s Bay Company
discontinued the flintlock in the 1880s106.
The Nlaka’pamux of the 1890’s remembered the chert quarry, and the journeys to obtain chert,
but by that time chert, and tool stone, generally, had relatively little significance in the
Nlaka’pamux economy. Teit collected some bows and arrows for the American Museum of
Natural History in the 1890’s, but arrowheads were not prominent in his collection. In the half
century following the gold rush guns had become a part of Nlaka’pamux culture. During the
104 The Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts at Kamloops and Yale were both outside Nlaka’pamux political boundaries. 105 Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, 261. 106 S. James Gooding, Trade Guns of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670-1970, 63. 45
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early years of the twentieth century he recorded a song from ʕʷypélst̕ , born circa 1848, who had
the trigger of a gun as a snéʔm107.
Settlement by Europeans and the establishment of merchandising by both European and
Chinese entrepreneurs quickly followed the gold rush which took place in the Fraser canyon in
1858. Cloth and clothing made of cloth became even more readily available than it had been
in the days when the Hudson’s Bay Company store was the only outlet for European trade
goods. While shirts, dresses, leggings and moccasins made of buckskin were still known and
used108, the standard dress for Nlaka’pamux people shifted to cloth shirts and trousers for men,
and cloth dresses and shawls for women. The tanning of deer hides was not entirely obsolete,
but fewer hides were required either for local consumption or trade109.
During the period between 1858 and the end of World War II the Nlaka’pamux were under
pressure to alter virtually every aspect of their way of life. The proscription of the work and
services of Nlaka’pamux shamans by the Church of England missionaries who established a
mission centred at Lytton in the 1860’s made it both difficult and much less common for younger
shamans to train in the remote areas of the mountains. Teit mentions one candidate who began
her training on the Thompson River but did not continue. Opportunities to use the remote spaces
in the mountains south of the international boundary also declined. The introduction of residential
schools and the separation of residential school students from their families through eleven months
of the year made puberty training, which also took place in remote mountain areas, virtually
impossible. There were exceptions, and some adolescents underwent traditional training well into
107 Teit. “Notes on Songs of the Indians of British Columbia,” Song 16, VI M 44. 108 See Leslie Tepper, Earth Line and Morning Star NLaka’pamux Clothing Traditions, (Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994). 109 James Teit to Franz Boas, 6 December, 1894. American Museum of Natural History Accession File 1895-32. 46
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the twentieth century, but accounts are few. Attendance at residential schools also meant that
children were not available to accompany their parents and grandparents on hunting or gathering
expeditions. As it was standard practice for Nlaka’pamux grandparents to have a significant, if
not the primary, role in the education of grandchildren children who were away at residential
school missed instruction in Nlaka’pamux knowledge and practices. Many Nlaka’pamux students
finished residential school and returned home to find that their grandparents had passed away.
Hunting and gathering continued but they were constantly challenged by the existence of
individual land tenure and logging. Intertibal warfare was discontinued as the colonial
government settled in after the establishment of the Crown Colony of British Columbia in 1858.
This may be the historical context for the inauguration of intermarriage and peaceful relations
between the Nlaka’pamux and Upper Skagit mentioned by Collins.
By the 1890s hunting, fishing and gathering had been augmented in the Nlaka’pamux economy
by ranching, farming, and the raising of both gardens and chickens. Families had incorporated
gold mining into household economies as a seasonal activity, basketry had become a
commodity marketable and marketed outside the home, both men and women had earned
wages transporting goods on foot along the early highways. Men had worked on railroad
construction and subsequently worked in railroad maintenance; women engaged in paid
domestic work for non-Aboriginal families. The annual economic calendar still incorporated
fishing and preserving fish, hunting and drying meat and harvesting wild vegetables and berries
but the rhythm of work had changed, as had the division of labour within families. Where
women had once focused exclusively on cutting fish to dry during the salmon runs, some
47
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women both fished and preserved fish while men were out working on the railroad110. Entire
families moved to pick hops in the Fraser Valley or in Secwepemc (Shuswap) country.
The use of mountain goat wool for weaving blankets and robes also declined. Some women in
the Fraser canyon, such as Susan Paul, the wife of James Paul Xíxneʔ, chief at Spuzzum in the
early twentieth century, were known to be weavers, and chiefs from the coast were
photographed wearing mountain goat wool robes in the early 1900s, but production had fallen
off by this time. The twining technique was preserved in rugs woven of rags, but the Salish
weaving in wool did not reappear until Oliver Wells worked with Mary Peters of Seabird Island,
a Fraser Valley reserve created in 1879 for both Nlaka’pamux and Coast Salish families, and
Adeline Lorenzetto, a Sto:lo person living in the upper Fraser valley to revive both the twining
and twill techniques in the 1960s111. Mary Peters’ family was originally from the Nlaka’pamux
village of Pethluskwu (péɬuskwu, “lake”). As with other aspects of Nlaka’pamux economic
change, the decline of weaving in mountain goat wool is attributable to a combination of
factors. The Skagit Resource Inventory notes, “after 1897 with the establishment of the U.S.
National Forests, the Upper Skagit lost their traditional hunting rights in this region112.”
Although the Nlaka’pamux were never recognized as having hunting rights in the area, this may
have been an additional impediment.
Nonetheless, some Nlaka’pamux continued to hunt in the Skagit Valley well into the twentieth
century. The Skagit Resource Inventory includes the following excerpt from the reminiscences
110Julia Frank, Kanaka Bar, personal communication, 1987. 111 Oliver Wells, Salish Weaving Primitive and Modern As Practised by the Salish Indians of South West British Columbia, (Sardis, B.C, : Oliver Wells, 1969). 112 Skagit Resource Inventory, unpaginated. 48
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of J.W. Wilkinson, reprinted from The Vancouver Daily Province, 8 February 1931, concerning
the Whitworth Ranch:
George Gordon was the first owner of the property, and he left it to James Wardle, the postmaster and storekeeper at Hope, who later sold to Mr. Whitworth. Gordon was found dead over the unlighted stove at the ranch one spring by an Indian trapper named Yola, from Spuzzum. And the cat was dead, too, from starvation, which goes to show that cats don't always eat dead men, as some say. Gordon was the finest skin-mounter around here. W.L. Flood and Bill Starrett snowshoed in and buried him at the ranch.
Youla [Yola; Yol᾽eʔ], whose English name was Paul, had his home in the group of Nlaka’pamux
villages in the Fraser Canyon that stretched upriver from Spuzzum. In 1878113 he was living
with his wife and daughter in what the census taker described as “Middle village – north of [old
Alexandra Bridge and Chapman Bar and Rombrots114.” This may refer to the village of
Tíkwǝlus, which was located approximately at the north end of the old Alexandra Bridge. At that
time he was listed as having seven horses and six hens, suggesting that he was relatively
prosperous. Appearing in the list immediately following Youla are “kis.kis.poh.kun,” a single
man, and Sa.lah.kun, a man and his wife. In the 1881 census “Yowalah,” his wife, “Noantlah,”
and their three year old daughter, “Quosatko” are living in a household headed by Rowposhelst
and including “Chelaakan” and his wife,” Silkomat.”
Annie York, who was born in 1904, lived at Spuzzum from time to time in childhood, and then
from 1932 until her death in 1991, remembered Youla clearly. She noted that his mother, Qáɬye,
was from the village of Sq’wǝx̣áq, upriver from Spuzzum115.
113 Census of Indian Tribes, summer 1877, 1878. National Archives of Canada RG88 vol. 494 114 Roman Catholic baptism records record the Rombrot family as living at 16 Mile House, located 16 miles above Fort Yale, or approximately 4 miles upriver from Spuzzum. 115Sylvia Albright. “List of Recorded Cemeteries in Nlaka’pamux Nation Territories.” 49
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Fig. 7 Paul Youla. Annie York and Arthur Uquhart album.
Youla had a brother, Kǝskespépx̣n, who lived near Spuzzum and eventually moved to Coldwater,
a Nlaka’pamux reserve established near Merritt. Youla also had a sister, Séʔye [Sha’ya], who lived
in Spuzzum and Yale all her life, another sister who married Ah Ching, a Chinese resident of
Spuzzum, and a half-sister, Sneyíʔ116. His father was Sǝsǝláx̣n117, possibly the “Sa.lah.kun” of the
1878 census.
Annie York noted that Youla had another Nlaka’pamux name. In the baptism records for his
children it is noted as “Noelhaskret.” He and Nu’anthle118 had a son, Felix, baptized July 11, 1883,
September 4, 1992, citing a personal communication from Annie York, 1987. NNTC Archives. 116 Interview with Annie York, July 1975. 117 Laforet and York. Spuzzum Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939, 70. 118 Annie York remembered her English name as “Ann;” the inscription on the grave marker in the Spuzzum Cemetery is “Elizabeth Youle 1838-1910.” Cited in Sylvia Albright, “List of Recorded Cemeteries in Nlaka’pamux Nation Territories.” 50
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and at least three daughters, Paulina, later known as Pauline, baptized July 25, 1884, Christina,
baptized July 28, 1884, and Angèle, baptized February 7, 1888.
Fig. 8 Pauline Youla as a young woman. Annie York and Arthur Urquhart album.
Felix’s spouse came from Boston Bar, further up the Fraser canyon, and Christina married Jesse
James, a Nlaka’pamux, at North Bend. The third daughter, whom Annie York knew as
Q’wǝcátkwu, with the English name,“Shell,” possibly a diminutive of “Angèle119”, likely married
George Pettis120, a Nlaka’pamux man living at Seabird Island Reserve in the Fraser Valley.
Q’wǝcátkwu is a direct analogue of “Quosatko,” recorded in the 1881 census for Youla’s daughter.
119 Early Roman Catholic missionaries in the Fraser Canyon were French-speaking and would have pronounced “Angèle” with a soft ‘g’ that is somewhat outside the phonology of Nlaka’pamuxcin. 120 Annie York remembered his English name as Louis, but Louis may have been a brother. The names, Angèle and Shell, do not appear in the government records associated with this family. The 1901 census records “George Pettis,” listed as married but without listing his wife or children. The 1911 census (for George “Patties”) lists his wife as Sarah, with an additional name that appears to be qetyelhamot (the writing is very tiny and difficult to decipher), with five children, Mary (18), Joseph (17), James (15) and Francis (4), and indicates Spuzzum as the place of origin for the entire family. Mary, later Mary Charles, was the daughter of George Pettis’ first wife, who was also from Spuzzum, and a relative of Annie York’s step-grandfather, Paul Joseph York. Annie York, who knew Mary Pettis Charles well, affirmed that Mary’s mother died, leaving her as an only child. Sarah was 26 in 1911, younger than George, whose age is listed as 42. This suggests she was born about 1886, and this was later reinforced by her death record. Sarah Pettis died 7 January 1950, aged 64, at Seabird Island Reserve. (British Columbia Archives, Vital Events Records: Registration number 1950-09-095145). In 1911 she was too young to have been the mother of Joseph or James, and also too young to have been Youla’s daughter, “Quosatko,” who was alive in 1881. W.W.I records for new recruits, James Pettis and Joseph Pettis, confirm their father as George Pettis. James Pettis is noted as the grandson of Youla in an article by Fred Goodchild cited below. Q’wǝcátkwu may have been George Pettis’ second wife, and Sarah Pettis may have been his third. 51
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Pauline (Seqwmétkwu) married Frank Oscar Carlson in 1919121, and later lived in Lynn Valley in
North Vancouver. Through his children and half-sister, Paul Youla thus had connections in both
the Fraser Valley and Fraser Canyon.
Youla died January 28, 1942 at the reported age of 99122. A newspaper article written by Fred H.
Goodchild for the Vancouver Daily Province in March,1942, estimated his age at death at 112 and
said he had witnessed the China Bar massacre, which occurred in the Fraser Canyon in 1958, at
the age of twenty-nine123. While this is not impossible, it may also be an expression of the way in
which certain signal events can come to define a person’s life in the understanding of those around
him, particularly those who are much younger. During and after his lifetime Youla was
remembered as having witnessed the conflict between Nlaka’pamux of the Fraser Canyon and the
miners who had come into the Fraser Canyon in 1858 and pre-empted the river bars and fishing
sites in order to pan for gold. Another Nlaka’pamux resident of Spuzzum, Chewelnah [Cəwélneʔ],
or “Spuzzum Bob,” was also remembered as having witnessed these events. Chewelnah, who,
enumerated as “Tchoo.wel.na,” was living in 1878 at Spuzzum with his wife and one daughter124,
was said to have been thirteen years old at the time125. Youla was almost certainly older. If, as
his death record suggests, he was born in 1842, he would have been sixteen years old, old enough
to be finished with his puberty observances and finished with childhood. Youla and Chewelnah,
121 British Columbia Archives, Vital Events: Pauline Youla and Frank Oscar Carlson, married at Vancouver 23 June 1919. Registration number 1919-09-200424. 122 B.C. Archives and Records Service, death record. “Paul Yola, 1942 1 28, Seabird Island, age 99, Reg # 1942- 09-026083.” Youla’s daughter and son-in-law lived at Seabird Island. Youla’s grave marker in the cemetery at Spuzzum I.R. 1 has the dates 1831-1941. 123 Fred H. Goodchild, “Centenarian Recalled China Bar Massacre at Yale in 1858.” Newspaper article dated March 7, 1942. (Fred Henry Goodchild was later an editorial writer for the Vancouver Province. In 1951 he published a book entitled, British Columbia, its History, People and Industry. (London: Allan and Unwin) Youla had just died at the “authenticated” age of 112. Andrea Laforet, interview with Theophil and Annie Acar, Yale, B.C. March 20, 1995. 124Census of Indian Tribes summer 1877, 1878. National Archives of Canada RG 88, vol. 494. 125 Andrea Laforet. Interview with Theophil (Phil) and Annie Acar at Yale, 1995. 52
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both witnesses to the Fraser Canyon conflict, have exactly the same family profile in the 1878
census, and this also suggests that they were at least roughly contemporaries.
The village in which Youla and his wife and daughter lived in 1878, together with the two villages
at Spuzzum Creek, had an enumerated population of just under 350 people, although the census
taker noted that the population of the Spuzzum villages, alone, had been 400 a short time before.
Spuzzum, Shwimp, Tí́kwǝlus, and Péɬuskwu were part of a group of villages that stretched upriver
along the Fraser from Spuzzum Creek. Both the families and the villages had overlapping
connections with one another, forged through arranged marriages and kinship obligations. Youla
was said to be related to Pahallok, also known as Pélek, a chief at Spuzzum in the mid-1800’s126.
Youla’s immediate circle included Charles Chapman (Cǝchauten) and his wife, Anastasia, and
their parents and children, William Andrew and his family, William John and his wife, Cǝ́ntkwu,
Andrew James (qwúpseʔ) and his wife, Xintke, as well as James Paul Xíxneʔ, who became chief
at Spuzzum, his brother-in-law, Paul Joseph York and others of the generation born between 1840
and 1860.
People from Spuzzum, Tikwǝlus, Peɬuskwu, Sq᾽wǝx̣aq and other nearby Fraser Canyon villages
routinely hunted on the mountains on both sides of the river. On the east side, the mountains
behind Tikwǝlus formed a continuous hunting, gathering and trout-fishing area from the Fraser
River to the Similkameen and south into through the Skagit Valley.
The diversification of the Nlaka’pamux economy that followed the onset of European settlement
did not eliminate hunting – it continued to be a significant factor in the economy of particular
126 See Laforet and York, Spuzzum Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939, 44 and passim. An Okanagon informant working with James Teit identified “Palak” as the chief at Spuzzum, and “leading chief of the Lower Thompson” circa 1850 (James Teit, “The Okanagan,” 270). In contrast, Anderson (2011:113) identifies him as a Sto:lo chief. 53
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households, and for certain men like Youla, it was a specialist pursuit. He often hunted at
Nx̣ǝtx̣ǝtqéɬc’iʔ, a ridge east of Anderson Mountain near Spuzzum, and might stay up on Anderson
Mountain all winter, hunting and drying meat for his family’s use, and coming out in the spring.
His range included of the mountains around Spuzzum and extended into the upper Fraser and
Skagit Valleys. In autumn, Spuzzum people, generally, hunted mountain goats on Sx̣wiƛ’éc’ and
C’ǝmc’ə́meʔ near Spuzzum, as well as in the Skagit Valley. Annie York recalled that Youla,
hunted mountain goats on Mount Baker with her brother and Paul Joseph York 127.
The photograph reproduced below, published in The Hope Standard in April, 1972, was provided
to the paper by August Milliken, a resident of Yale village at the entrance to Fraser Canyon.
Milliken, a local historian who had a strong interest in the history of the Aboriginal people of the
Fraser Canyon, has identified the people in the photograph as “one of the numerous groups who
went to the Skagit Valley every late summer, the women to pick and dry berries, the men to hunt
bear for skins and bear grease.”
127 As Paul Joseph York was not born until the 1860’s this would have been at least a generation after the conflict noted by Coleman. 54
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Fig. 9 Hudson’s Bay Company Store at Yale. Reproduced from The Hope Standard, published April 19, 1972. Courtesy of The Hope Standard. Original in Vancouver Archives, OutP836. In the late twentieth century Elsie Charlie, a granddaughter of Charles and Anastasia Chapman,
identified several of the people on the porch of the store as members of her family. Anastasia
Chapman128, then a young woman, is sitting on the steps (at right), with her daughter, Lan (Annie)
as an infant. Charles Chapman is standing by the porch pillar (at left). His mother, who also lived
with them, is seated below him, with the horse’s nose obscuring the face of the child sitting beside
her.
128 Anastasia Chapman died in 1930 at the Spuzzum Indian Reserve at the estimated age of 80 years. B.C. Archives Vital Events Records 1930-09-014265. 55
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Fig. 9 a Anastasia Chapman and Lan. Excerpt from Fig. 9.
Fig. 9 b Charles Chapman. Excerpt from Fig. 9.
Fig. 9 c Mother of Charles Chapman. Excerpt from Fig. 9.
Although the newspaper caption says “1880” the date originally recorded for the photograph is
1883129. Lan, whose English name was Annie, married Patrick Charlie, of Yale, and they raised
their family at Péɬuskwu. Elsie Charlie was their daughter. Marion Dixon, whose mother was their
older daughter, Lena Johnny, recalls that when she was a small child her grandparents went to hunt
129 City of Vancouver Archives, Out P836. Donated by Mrs. Grace M. Green in 1957 from the collection of W.A. Dashwood-Jones. William Arthur Dashwood-Jones was born in England in 1858 and emigrated to Canada at the age of 18. In 1886 he married into the Clemes family of Spences Bridge. Beginning in 1908 he served as a deputy provincial assessor. He lived in New Westminster, near Vancouver (http://historyof bc.com, vol. 3 p. 8). 56
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bear in the Skagit, just as Lan’s parents had done. Lan used the bear grease to treat her arthritis,
and dried and pounded another part of the bear as a medication for open sores130.
Prior to the arrival of commercial fur traders, snaring, trapping and hunting animals for furs was
an integral component of hunting, with the pelts either used for household purposes or traded to
other Aboriginal people. With the development of individual trap lines in the late 1800s it became
a somewhat separate enterprise, and Annie York noted that knowledge of the trails through the
Cascades tended to merge with knowledge of trap lines. Elsie Charlie recalled that Charles
Chapman was a trapper, and that he and Anastasia would walk to Hope and swim the horses across
the river to go across the mountains to the Similkameen to trap. In the fall they would stay until
the first snow. They used moccasins and would each need three or four pairs a trip131. The
Chapman’s were not alone in deriving a part of their livelihood from trapping. Annie York noted
that whole families sometimes spent the winter trapping up in the mountains. Jimmy Andrew and
Paul Youla, had trap lines on Anderson Mountain, and Paul Joseph York had a trap line across the
river, near Tikwalus. Andrew James and his wife, Xíntke (called “Tinkeʔ”) also derived a part of
their livelihood from the mountains. Minnie Peters, the daughter of Charles and Anastasia
Chapman’s son, John Chapman and his wife, Matilda, stayed with her grandparents during part of
her early childhood. She recalled,
And old Charlie Chapman used to sit there. Whittle these sticks for that net, you know, the shape of the [mesh]. And he used to have it hanging there. And when I see him put on his moccasins we know he’s going up the mountain. He sit there and sing a song and Yéyeʔ132 says, “He’s going to go.”
130 John Haugen and Bev Phillips, Interview with Marian Dixon, February 15, 2011. NNTC Archives. Bear grease, which remains runny when preserved, was used by the Nlaka’pamux in several ways. Robert Pasco has affirmed that on the Thompson River it was used as a lubricant for equipment well into the twentieth century (Robert Pasco, personal communication). 131 Laforet and York, Spuzzum Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939,.80. 132 “Grandma,” a reference to Anastasia. 57
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Charles Chapman went to the mountains to trap, but also to get gold. Mrs. Peters continued,
He took just so much down and trade for food. But he won’t touch the rest. Any time he wanted it he went up the mountain and get it. You just see him put on his moccasins and tie his moccasins and Yéyeʔ used to fix him this food for him to go up. And he used to go up for two or three days and come down and Yéyeʔ used to tell me that he’s got some gold, he’s going to trade it for some food – we need some sugar and flour and dried food. Access to both the Similkameen and the Skagit Valley was across country. Goodchild’s obituary
for Youla provided a synoptic account of a his pattern of travel, but it may more accurately convey
the degree to which he saw this interior mountain landscape as relatively unified and traversable.
He would go into Hope to get cartridges, fish hooks, a few matches and hard tack one day and be on the trail before dawn the next day. He often went over to Coldwater on the Nicola, where his brother David lived, continue on down the trail to Tulameen, and from there over to Princeton where he would visit the old-timers, swing back west over the Skyline trail, rest and fish awhile at Lightning lakes, then drop down into the Skagit Valley. He was accustomed to stay one sleep at Gordon’s place until he went there one winter’s day and found George Gordon dead in his bed and his cattle dead in their stalls. This place is now known as the Whitworth Ranch. The next day Youla would strike west up the Kleskilkwa, across Silver Creek summit, over the old boundary trail, across the south end of Chilliwack Lake and out at the foot of Mount Baker. He would put in a day at Sumas, then over to Mission City to visit Father Chirouse, and from there take the train back home133.
Goodchild’s source for the article was Joseph Herbert (“Bert”) Richmond, who came to Canada
from England in 1904134, settled at Ruby Creek, near Hope, worked for a time as postmaster at
Spuzzum and subsequently was postmaster at Hope. He married and raised a family in the area.
Richmond knew Youla’s family before World War I – he had helped Youla’s young grandson,
James, who was very ill in 1912, travel from his home in the Fraser Valley to Spuzzum so that
133 Fred H Goodchild, “Centenarian Indian Recalled China Bar Massacre at Yale in 1858,” Vancouver Daily Province, (March 7, 1942). 134 Canada Census, 1911. 58
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Youla could treat him with Nlaka’pamux medicine, and he had served with James Pettis in a British
Columbia fighting unit in France in 1916. In September, 1919 Richmond travelled into the Skagit
with Youla.
Richmond recounted for Goodchild two stories of bear hunting:
Round the campfire that September night he told Bert Richmond of a “mix-up” he once had with a she-bear and her cubs on Hosameen mountain, which is down the Skagit near the border. The bear had both forepaws on Youla’s shoulders and just when the Indian thought it was the end of him and eagle swooped down and flew off with one of the cubs. The bear left Youla to watch the squealing cub and gave Youla time [to] go into action with his 45- 90. He carried the claw marks to the grave with him. The second narrative, which may or may not have taken place in the Skagit Valley, shows Youla’s
command, not only of hunting technique, but also of the Nlaka’pamux approach to bears.
Bert Richmond was with Youla once when they sighted a bear in a berry patch. He stripped naked, crept upwind of the bear [words missing from copy of article] stood up and addressed the bear in an ordinary tone of voice. Generally [sic] the bear stood up too and was then quickly despatched.
By the time Youla was an elderly man the resources required by the Nlaka’pamux economy had
undergone significant redefinition. In the same way that chert and other tool stone was no longer
required for arrowheads, yew wood was not required to make bows, vine maple withes were not
required in the construction of winter dwellings, nettle fibre and Apocynum cannabinum fibre
cordage was replaced by commercial cord. Those that were still required, such as cedar roots,
needed in substantial numbers for basketry, became increasingly difficult to obtain as logging was
established. The logging that took place in the Skagit watershed area may have considerably
reduced or eliminated this resource. By 1937, five years before Youla’s death, Ross Lake had
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extended into Canada and in 1941 Seattle City Light received approval from the International Joint
Commission for further flooding135.
Work in Washington State remained a part of the economy and social life of many Nlaka’pamux
households, but it was different work. Nlaka’pamux families travelled across the border to work
in the hop yards, strawberry fields and orchards. Nlaka’pamux cowboys competed in rodeos in
Sedro Woolley. Some Nlaka’pamux men worked on the construction of the dams, and also as
loggers. As the Coast Salish and other groups have done136, the Nlaka’pamux have maintained
family connections across the border and travel back and forth between Washington State and
British Columbia for family and community events.
Conclusion
As Mierendorf and others have noted, the Cascade Mountain regions and other upland regions
within the homelands of Interior Salish peoples were long considered by archaeologists and
ethnologists to have been subject to less intense utilization than, for example, coastal areas where
resources were more visibly abundant. That view has changed considerably in the light of recent
research. Mierendorf’s survey of the Desolation Peak chert quarry suggests the relatively intense
utilization of that resource for a period of approximately 1500 years in an overall time span of
nearly 8000 years. During that period climatic conditions have changed and changed again, but it
is apparent that during the centuries prior to 1846 the Skagit Valley offered abundant resources
135 Skagit Resource Inventory, unpaginated. 136 In“The ‘Really-Real’ Border and the Divided Salish Community,” B.C. Studies 112 (Winter 1996-97), 64, Bruce Miller has described the border “as an arbitrary but potent fact of life that divides the peoples and communities commonly referred to as Salish.” 60
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integral to an established Nlaka’pamux economy, and was fully accessible to a people who did not
consider mountains to be a barrier to travel.
The utilization of the valley and the surrounding mountains was significantly affected by the
demographic, economic and cultural changes that attended the establishment of colonial
settlements and governments on both sides of the border. By 1946, a century after the ratification
of the Oregon Treaty, the Skagit Valley, itself, had been definitively altered. The Skagit River
shoreline was under Ross Lake for much of the year. As a road was constructed into the valley on
the Canadian side, the land was opened to substantial logging.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century the Skagit region was publicly redefined according to a
cultural template that saw it as “wilderness.” In 1978 the United States passed the North Cascades
Act, creating the North Cascades National Parks Service Complex, embracing 684,000 acres of
“wild land137.” On the Canadian side of the border the Skagit Valley Provincial Park protects
approximately 70,000 acres138. It remains nevertheless a landscape that resonates with those
Nlaka’pamux who visit the region today, and to those who are schooled in the recognition of past
use, it is replete with signs that suggest a long history.
113 North Cascades Park Information Page. https://www.national-park.com/welcome-to-north-
cascades-national-park/
138 27,964 hectares, or 69,071.08 acres. 61
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Bibliography
Amoss, Pamela. Coast Salish Spirit Dancing: The Survival of an Ancestral Religion. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978. Anderson, Nancy Marguerite. The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson’s Journeys in the West. Victoria: Heritage House Publishing Company, 2011. Angelbeck, Bill. “Conceptions of Coast Salish Warfare.” In Be of Good Mind, Essays on the Coast Salish, edited by Bruce Granville Miller, 260-283. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011. Belshaw, John Douglas. Becoming British Columbia: A Population History. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009. Boxberger, Daniel. An Ethnographic Overview and Assessment of North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Seattle, WA: U.S. National Park Service, Cascades National Park Service Complex, 1996. Boxberger, Daniel. “Native American Knowledge of the North Cascades in the 1850s.” Poster presented at the Northwest Environmental History Symposium, Pullman, Washington, August 1- 4, 1996. (cited in Schaepe 1999). Boxberger, Daniel L. and David M Schaepe. “Sto:lo Mapping and Knowledge of the North Cascades, ca 1859.” In A Sto:lo Coast Salish Historical Atlas, edited by Keith Thor Carlson, Albert McHalsie, and Jan Perrier, 124-25. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2001. Bruseth, Nels. Indian Stories and Legends of the Stillaguamish, Sauks and Allied Tribes. Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press. 1977. Carlson, Keith Thor et al. A Sto:lo Coast Salish Historical Atlas. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001. Cole, Jean Murray. This Blessed Wilderness: Archibald McDonald’s Letters from British Columbia, 1822-44. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001. Coleman, Edward T. “Mountaineering on the Pacific.” Harpers New Monthly Magazine 39 (1869): 795-815. Collins, June McCormick. Valley of the Spirits: The Upper Skagit Indians of Western Washington. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974. Crosby, Thomas. Among the An-ko-me-nums or Flathead Tribes of Indians of the Pacific Coast. Toronto: William Briggs, 1907.
Duff, Wilson. The Upper Stalo Indians of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum, Department of Education, 1953.
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Galois, Robert. “Measles, 1847-1850: The First Modern Epidemic in British Columbia.” B.C. Studies 109 (spring 1996): 31-46. Goodchild, Fred H. “Centenarian Indian Recalled China Bar.” Vancouver Daily Province (March 7, 1942).
Goodfellow, J.C. “Fur and Gold in Similkameen.” The British Columbia Historical Quarterly 2 (1938), 67-88. Gooding, S. James. Trade Guns of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670-1970. Alexandria Bay, N.Y., Bloomfield, Ont.: Museum Restoration Service, 2003. Grier, Colin. “Consuming the Recent for Constructing the Ancient.” In Be of Good Mind: Essays on the Coast Salish, edited by Bruce Granville Miller, 284-307. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011, Harris, Cole. “Voices of Smallpox around the Strait of Georgia.” In The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997, 103-136. Harris, Cole. “The Fraser Canyon Encountered.” in The Resettlement of British Columbia. Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997, 103-136. Laforet, Andrea and Annie York. Spuzzum : Fraser Canyon Histories 1808-1939. Vancouver : UBC Press, 1998. Lamb, W. Kaye, ed. The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser 1806-1808. Toronto: Macmillan 1960. Lepofsky, Dana and Ken Lertzman. “Documenting ancient plant management in the northwest of North America.” Botany 86 (2008): 129-145. Maclachlan, Morag, ed. The Fort Langley Journals, 1827-30. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998. Majors, Harry M., ed. “Discovery of Mount Shuksan and the Upper Nooksack River, June 1859” by Henry Custer. Northwest Discovery: (February 1984): 4-21. Merk, F. Fur Trade and Empire: George Simpson’s Journal: Remarks Connected with the Fur Trade in the Course of a Voyage from York Factory to Fort George and Back to York Factory 1824-25 with related documents. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968. Mierendorf, Robert and North Cascades National Park Service Complex. People of the North Cascades. Seattle, WA: U.S. National Park Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1986. Mierendorf, Robert R. Chert Procurement in the Upper Skagit River Valley of the Northern Cascades Range, Ross Lake National Recreation Area. Seattle: North Cascades National Park Service Complex, U.S. Department of Interior, 1993. Technical Report NPS/PNRNOCA/CRTR- 93-001.
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Mierendorf, Robert, David J. Harry and Gregg M. Sullivan. An Archeological Site Survey and Evaluation in the Upper Skagit River Valley, Whatcom County, Washington. Sedro Woolley, WA : North Cascades National Park Service Complex. U.S. Department of Interior, 1998. Technical Report NPS/ CCCNOCA/CRTR- 98/01. Mierendorf, Robert R. Archeology of the Little Beaver Watershed, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Whatcom County, Washington. Report prepared for the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission in fulfillment of Grant 02-01. Report prepared by the National Park Service North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Sedro Woolley, WA: December 2004. Miller, Bruce. “The ‘Really-Real’ Border and the Divided Salish Community. B.C. Studies 112 (Winter 1996-97): 63-79 Richardson, Allan and Brent Galloway. Nooksack Place Names: Geography, Culture and Language. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.
Rickard, T.A. “Indian Participation in the Gold Rush.” British Columbia Historical Quarterly 2, (1938): 3-18.
Schaepe, David. Tracking the Ancestors: A Pilot Inventory of Aboriginal Trails in Sto:lo Traditional Territory and the Chilliwack Forest District. Prepared by Sto:lo Nation for Ministry of Forests, Chilliwack District, 1999. Smith, Allan. Ethnography of the North Cascades. Report prepared for the North Cascades National Park Service in compliance with Contract Number CX-9000-4-E076. Pullman, WA : Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University, Project Report No. 7, 1988. Smith, Marian W. “The Nooksack, the Chilliwack and the Middle Fraser.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 41 (1950): 330-341. Smith, Marian W. “The Cultural Development of the Northwest Coast.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 12:3 (1956): 272-294. Stanley, George F. G., ed. Mapping the Frontier between British Columbia & Washington. Charles Wilson’s Diary of the Survey of the 49th Parallel, 1858-1862 while Secretary of the British Boundary Commission. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970. Suttles, Wayne. “The ‘Middle Fraser’ and ‘Foothills’ Cultures: A Criticism.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 13:2 (1957) : 156-183. Taylor, Herbert C. “The Fort Nisqually Census of 1838-39.” Ethnohistory 7; 4 (1960): 399-409. Teit, James. “NLiʹksEntEm.” In Traditions of the Thompson River Indians. Memoir of the American Folk-Lore Society VI, 1898, 21-29. Teit, James. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History II (I). Jesup North Pacific Expedition IV. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1900.
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The Nlaka’pamux in Washington State
Teit, James, “The Okanagon.” in Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus, ed. Franz Boas. Bureau of American Ethnology, 45th Annual Report, 1927-1928. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1930), 198-294. Teit, James. “The Middle Columbia Salish.” University of Washington Publications in Anthropology 2:4 (1928) : 83-128 Tepper, Leslie. Earth Line and Morning Star : NLaka’pamux Clothing Traditions. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994. Thompson, Laurence C. and M. Terry Thompson, The Thompson Language. Missoula, MT: University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics No. 8. 1992. Thompson, Laurence C. and M. Terry Thompson. Thompson River Salish Dictionary nɬkepmxci´n. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. Occasional Papers in Linguistics No. 12, 1996. Wells, Oliver. Salish Weaving, Primitive and Modern: As Practised by the Salish Indians of South West British Columbia. Sardis, B.C: Oliver Wells, 1969. Wells, Oliver. The Chilliwacks and their Neighbours. Edited by Ralph Maud, Brent Galloway and Marie Weeden. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1987.
Web Sources
American Museum of Natural History, Division of Anthropology. Anthropology Collections
Database, anthro.amnh.org/north
Ancestry.com, “Attestation Paper. Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force, 101st Battalion. Record for James Pettis, Feb. 7, 1916. Canada, Soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1918. British Columbia Archives Vital Events Records. search-bccarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/
Ancestry.com, “Particulars of Recruit Drafted Under Military Service Act, 1917. Joseph Pettis, Nov. 9, 1917, Canada, Soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1918.”
Nobili, John. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, vol. VIII www.biographi.ca/en/
North Cascades Park Information national-park.com/welcome-to-north-cascades-national-park/
Stewart, Bill. “Some Observations Concerning Northwest Trade Guns.” Edmonton House Brigade. www.edmontonhousebrigade.com
Treaty of Point Elliott. www.historylink.org/File/2629
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Unpublished Sources
American Museum of Natural History. Accession Files, 1895-32. Albright, Sylvia. List of Recorded Cemeteries and Graveyards in Nlaka’pamux Nation Territories. NNTC. Barnard, Tony. Current Population Status of Black Bear, Grizzly Bear and Wolf in the Skagit River Watershed. Report prepared for the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment. August, 1986 Carlson, Keith Thor. Mountains That See and Need to be Seen: Aboriginal Perspective on the Degraded Visibility Associated with Air Pollution in the British Columbia Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. A Traditional Knowledge Study Prepared for Environment Canada. May, 2009.
Canada Census 1881
Canada. Census 1901
Canada Census 1911
Census of Indian Tribes, summer 1877, 1878. National Archives of Canada RG88 vol. 494
Church of England, Lytton, B.C. Lytton Mission. Parish records, NNTC Archives. Klassen, Michael. “Identification Guidelines for Trail Marker Trees (TMTs) and other Shaped Standing Trees (SSTs) in the B.C. Interior.” Presentation to Archaeology Forum, November 3, 2010. Laforet, Andrea. “Minnie Peters Life History.” Unpublished manuscript. August 31, 2003. Palmer, H. Spencer to Colonel R.C. Moody, November 23, 1859 in “Copy of Despatch from Governor Douglas, C.B. to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, January 9, 1860.” B.C. Archives. Powell, Israel Wood. “Notes Documenting Interrogating of Various Tribes.” National Archives of Canada. R.G. 88, vol. 494 Roman Catholic Church. Baptism records. 1860s. Skagit Resource Inventory. Teit, James. “Notes on Songs of the Indians of British Columbia.” Canadian Museum of History n.d.
Correspondence: James Teit to Franz Boas, 6 December, 1894. AMNH Division of Anthropology, Acc 1895-32
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Maps Consulted: Hope Mountain Centre. Historic Trails of the North Cascades. 2009. Map Showing Location of the Thompson Indians and Neighbouring Tribes, in James Teit. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History II (I). Jesup North Pacific Expedition IV. 1900, p. 166. Thiusoloc. U.S. Boundary Commission Map, 1859, Map 27, Series 69, RG 76. Washington, D.C : U.S. National Archives and Records Service. Teit Map (4) “Eastern Washington Approximate Boundaries Interior Salish Tribes about 1825- 1855,” 1910-1913. American Philosophical Society, Franz Boas Collection of Materials for American Linguistics (Mss 497.3 B63c) Section 59.
Video “Hozomeen : A Story about Chert, Identity and Landscape.”. Produced by Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele for Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission. 2010. Vimeo.
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CONTAINS PRIVILEDGED INFORMATION DO NOT RELEASE
STATUS OF TCP INVESTIGATIONS FOR NLAKA’PAMUX NATION IN THE ROSS LAKE PROJECT AREA
NOVEMBER 2014
KELLY R. BUSH EQUINOX RESEARCH AND CONSULTING INTERNATIONAL INC. (ERCI) 20200501-5391 FERC PDF (Unofficial) 5/1/2020 1:15:47 PM
CREDITS
PROJECT COORDINATOR and AUTHOR ...... Kelly Bush, M.A. SEATTLE CITY LIGHT ...... Ron Tressler NLAKA’PAMUX NATION ...... Pauline Douglas
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Equinox Research and Consulting International, Inc. (ERCI) would like to thank the Nlaka’pamux Nation for retaining us to help coordinate their Traditional Cultural Property study for the Ross Lake Project Area.
This project could not be possible without the ongoing support from Seattle City Light and the National Park Service – North Cascades National Park Service Complex.
The great value of this kind of project is in the relationships it creates between those who use this land and those that manage it. We would like to acknowledge the hard work of the field crew and the tribal elders who are willing to share their experience and knowledge to help improve the management of the land. We are grateful to be a part of a comprehensive study that improves consultation and management of Traditional Cultural Properties.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS CREDITS ...... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iii LIST OF FIGURES ...... iv LIST OF TABLES ...... v ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS ...... vi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... vii INTRODUCTION ...... 9 1.1 PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES ...... 9 1.2 STUDY AREA AND PREVIOUS CULTURAL RESEARCH ...... 9 1.3 AREA OF POTENTIAL EFFECT (APE)...... 9 1.4 POTENTIAL SITE TYPES ...... 12 2.0 TRIBAL CONSULTATION ...... 15 3.0 METHODS ...... 16 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN...... 16 3.2 SUMMARY ...... 17 4.0 ELIGIBILITY FOR NATIONAL REGISTER ...... 19 4.1 BOUNDARIES ...... 20 4.2 INTEGRITY ...... 20 4.3 APPLYING CRITERIA ...... 21 4.4 CRITERIA CONSIDERATIONS ...... 22 5.0 RESULTS ...... 24 5.1 TCP MANAGEMENT IN THE ROSS LAKE PROJECT AREA ...... 24 5.2 MANAGEMENT DESCRIPTIONS AND DEFINITIONS ...... 25 5.3 POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE PROJECT ON TRADITIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTIES ...... 26 5.4 SUMMARY ...... 27 6.0 REFERENCES CITED ...... 29
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Regional map showing location of Ross Lake Project Area...... 10 Figure 2: Quad Maps showing Ross Lake Project Area...... 11 Figure 3: Surveyed areas for the TCP study...... 18
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Potential Archaeological Site Types. 12 Table 2: Potential TCP Site Types. 13
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ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS
ACRONYM/ DEFINITION ABBREVIATION Section 404 of the Clean Water Act requires the proponents 404 (Section 404 Permit) of projects affecting waters of the US to obtain a permit from the Corps of Engineers ACHP Advisory Council on Historic Preservation AHPA Archaeological & Historic Preservation Act AIRFA American Indian Religious Freedom Act ALP Alternative Licensing Procedures APE Area of Potential Effect ARPA Archaeological Resource Protection Act BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs CFR Code of Federal Regulations CMT Culturally Modified Tree CPNWS Center for Pacific Northwest Studies CRM Cultural Resource Management CRMP Cultural Resource Management Plan E.O. Executive Order EA Environmental Assessment EIS Environmental Impact Statement EPA Environmental Protection Agency ERCI Equinox Research & Consulting International, Inc. FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FRA Federal Records Act GIS Geographic Information System GPS Geographic Positioning System Device GSA General Services Administration HPMP Historic Properties Management Plan HSA Historic Sites Act NAGPRA Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act NNTC Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council NEPA National Environmental Policy Act NHPA National Historic Preservation Act NPS National Park Service DAHP Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation PA Programmatic Agreement Register, the (NRHP) National Register of Historic Places SCL Seattle City Light Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 requires that federal agencies consider the effects of their actions on historic properties. SHPO State Historic Preservation Officer TCP Traditional Cultural Properties USFS U.S. Forest Service USFWS U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service USGS U.S. Geological Society
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In 2011 the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council (NNTC) retained Equinox Research and Consulting International, Inc. (ERCI) to assist in the coordination of their Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP) study for the Project Area in the Ross Lake Valley in Washington State. The goals of this contract are: 1. To provide local support as they proceeded with their TCP study; and 2. To provide documentation of this effort This document provides the descriptions, justifications, schedules, correspondence and framework for the TCP investigations related to the relicensing process for the Ross Lake Hydroelectric Project. There are a total of three documents produced for this project, including: 1. This technical report on the process of the investigation; 2. Ethnography - The NNTC have contracted with Andrea LaForet to produce their own ethnographic work for this project and it is provided under separate cover; and 3. Confidential data document. The NNTC has created a massive document based on their extensive archival, field studies and elder interviews in a third, private document that is retained at the tribal offices. This document will be shared with the designated representative/Cultural Coordinator from Seattle City Light (SCL) in the hopes of improving the government to government consultations around the many sensitive cultural resources that have been identified in the Area of Potential Effect (APE) for this project and the rest of the Skagit Drainage for which little documentation currently exists. In the last three years the NNTC has carried out intensive and extensive elder interviews, archival research, and numerous field investigations specific to the APE for the SCL project. In the process, they have amassed a substantial collection of cultural data to support what they already knew, that the Upper Skagit Valley is an integral part of their world. They are from and a part of this valley in a way that makes the land inseparable from their culture or their identity. The visceral sense of welcome and belonging that tribal members experience in the Valley is only exceeded by the powerful and sometimes overwhelming feeling of interconnection that they experience when they step into the identified areas of critical importance within the APE. The Nlaka’pamux have identified a significant Nlaka’pamux trail system and mapped eleven sites for management purposes. These eleven sites areas are woven together by a trail of such significance that the field researchers believe that the trail is the spine of these critical areas. As such, we believe the Trail rises to the level of significance to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and the associated critical site areas are all contributing elements. These areas are each identifiable by the features on the landscape and the feelings and experiences of the cultural practitioners. The field researchers and the elders experienced overwhelming relief at being back with their ancestors. However it was the connecting cord of the trail that allowed the practitioners to feel their sense of belonging and place and to experience the sites as they were intended. Eleven critical areas as contributing elements within one larger and connecting Trail TCP are being recommended for Eligible to the National Register of Historic Places.
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It is imperative that both the National Parks Service and Seattle City Light understand that the narrow ribbon of land that was the APE for the field studies on the NNTC was completely inadequate for understanding the nature and character of the system of contributing elements to this eligible property. In the same way that understanding the value of hydroelectric energy to the grid by examining one main river stem would be inadequate, so is our understanding land use and experience as a cultural imperative by looking at a 150 foot wide ribbon at an elevation that straddles 1600 feet above sea level. We use a similar analogy in theoretical analysis that includes the example of: if you examine the longitudinal cross section of a star fruit you see an oval; if you examine a horizontal cross section of the same fruit it will be clearly star shaped. Examining small ribbons of the landscape is a start, but it must be enriched with additional data to provide the context of the assumptions and results. The locations of the trail segments and critical areas will be shared with Seattle City Light’s designated representative/Cultural Coordinator who will also be permitted to review the Confidential Data Document created by the NNTC Archival department. Detailed maps with this information including the character defining features and the project effects will be held at the Tribal offices. It will be shared with the designated representative/Cultural Coordinator when the need arises during regular consultation throughout the life of the FERC license. These specific areas of cultural connection identified within the ribbon of APE are portions of a much larger cultural landscape mosaic that is the Upper Skagit Valley. Repeatedly, field technicians and elders spoke of the land above and below the APE as being a part of them; a part of the whole mosaic. We believe, beyond a doubt, that there are contributing elements and segments of the eligible trail system above and below the APE for this project. A significant trail system is being recommended Eligible as a site to the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property and eleven contiguous critical areas that we believe are contributing elements to this eligible historic property should be considered for nomination to the National Register. In the interest of a long-term partnership in managing cultural resources, Seattle City Light accepts that the Project APE is an area of special concern for the Tribe. When additional TCPs or contributing elements to this TCP are identified through ongoing consultation with the Tribes throughout the life of the license, they should be evaluated at that time. To be clear the NNTC believes this trail is a site and the connected critical areas are contributing elements. They believe this is not necessarily a district of many different properties, but a single property that connects the areas that are joined together as a whole. The use and feeling of the trail provides the deeper cultural construct for their world. This technical report is meant to provide content and structure for continued discussions on the management of TCPs and related cultural concerns in the Ross Lake Project Area. Of the 80,000 Historic Properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the U.S., only 23 are Traditional Cultural Properties. Washington State has two of those properties. We believe that the Nlaka’pamux Skagit River Trail qualifies as a Traditional Cultural Property, as per the federal definition, and should be managed as such by both Seattle City Light and the National Parks Service.
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INTRODUCTION
1.1 PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES A Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) is a historic property that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that are rooted in that community’s history, and are important in maintaining the cultural identity of that community (Parker and King 1998). This report details the process of investigation for TCPs for the Ross Lake Project Area. Its objective is to provide the documentation of the process being used to investigate TCPs in the Project Area according to the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Seattle City Light (Seattle City Light) provided support to the Nlaka’pamux Nation for their TCP study and as part of that process Nlaka’pamux has retained Equinox Research and Consulting International Inc. (ERCI) to assist in technical coordination for the identification and documentation of TCPs according to the NHPA and other federal regulations that protect such properties. ERCI had two main objectives in the overall project: 1. Providing technical support to the Nlaka’pamux; and 2. Providing documentation for the effort of this study. A discussion of Consultation and Federal Trust responsibilities is provided in Chapter 2. There is some general discussion in Chapter 4 on what constitutes a TCP and how these properties are identified, evaluated and managed within the context of federal law. The Results section in Chapter 5 presents the management information that has been collected to date with regard to TCP studies for the Ross Lake Project Area. Also provided are management area definitions that complement the management maps for critical areas of cultural sensitivity. The management areas format is used to discuss ways to manage a resource whose significant characteristics can, often times, lose integrity by being discussed in a secular way.
1.2 STUDY AREA AND PREVIOUS CULTURAL RESEARCH The greater study area for this project includes the northern Puget Sound Culture area. Information on Salish groups was reviewed, especially with respect to federal and state policies that had and continue to have broad reaching effects. The project area of potential effect is a 150 foot ribbon of land that rises above the high reservoir water mark of 1608 feet above sea level. A comprehensive Ethnography has been developed and written by Andrea LaForet as part of this project and will be provided to Seattle City Light under separate cover.
1.3 AREA OF POTENTIAL EFFECT (APE) The Area of Potential Effect (APE) with regard to archaeological and other historic properties was determined by the relicensing process. The APE is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) boundary including Seattle City Light’s Project facilities and formal camping areas, a 150 foot zone extending above the high water marks of the reservoir (Figure 1 and Figure 2). Extensive coordination between Seattle City Light and the Nlaka’pamux First Nation was carried out during the relicensing process in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
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Figure 1: Regional map showing location of Ross Lake Project Area.
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Canada US border
Mt Hozomeen
Ross Lake
Ruby Creek
Skagit River
Figure 2: Quad Maps showing Ross Lake Project Area.
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1.4 POTENTIAL SITE TYPES Archaeological sites and TCPs share some of the same attributes and can, at times, be one in the same; however, fundamental criteria do exist for each. Archaeological sites are those properties that provide the physical evidence or material remains of previous human activities. In contrast, areas or landscape occurrences associated with oral history, origin narratives, or accounts of traditional cultural use with or without corroborating (physical) evidence may be determined eligible to the National Register as a TCP but may not be considered an archaeological site. Expected Archaeological site types for the Upper Skagit/Ross Lake area are provided in Table 1.
Table 1: Potential Archaeological Site Types.
SITE TYPES ACTIVITY Lithic Scatters Stone tools Remnants of stone tools Waste material from the production or maintenance of stone tools Cultural Depressions Depressions from the prior construction and use of subterranean houses Cache pits Roasting or processing pits Any other depression constructed by humans during the pursuance of traditional activities Hot Rock Features Hearth Hot rock cookery Resource processing
Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) Bark-stripped trees Planked trees Aboriginally-logged trees Rock Art Pictographs (painted rock art) Petroglyphs (pecked or carved rock art) Trails Foot paths or engineering paths Cultural Earthworks Burial mounds Burial cairns Fortifications Foundations Rock Alignments Human Remains Articulated human remains Scattered human remains Burial Cemetery Individual (opportunistic and ritual)
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Some of the aforementioned archaeological site types could also be considered a TCP, if they exhibited any of the three criteria listed below (from Parker and King 1983): 1. A location associated with the traditional beliefs of a group about its origins, its culture history, or the nature of the world. 2. A location where religious practitioners have historically gone and are known or thought to go today to perform ceremonial activities in accordance with traditional cultural rules of practice. 3. A location where a community has traditionally carried out economic, artistic or other cultural practices important in maintaining its historic identity. Given information available in ethnographic literature and considering the biogeoclimatic zones present in the Ross Lake Valley, a list of potential TCP site types is presented below (Table 2). This list is not part of a predictive model but is a starting point from which to consider the effects of project developments and what kinds of resources might be affected. This table is meant to be a dynamic document that will be improved by data collated from ongoing studies in the Skagit River watershed. Information related to the Ross Lake Project should be incorporated, but also information that will, no doubt, be forthcoming from a variety of sources throughout the life of the license. Studies such as oral history projects, cultural research carried out by the National Park Service and Indian Tribes, data recovered during the process of implementing the management plan, and private research may all provide breadth and depth of data related to the successful management of TCPs in the Ross Lake Project Area.
Table 2: Potential TCP Site Types.
SITE TYPES ACTIVITY Gathering (resources) Functional plants or Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) Medicinal plants Magical plants Food plants Private Knowledge Questing Ceremonial Spirit Sweat Bathing Legendary Privacy Fishing (5 species of) Salmon, Steelhead, other fish Catching Processing Hunting Bear Beaver Deer Elk Mountain Goat Grouse (woodland birds) Waterfowl Marmot (small woodland mammals) Processing Primary Secondary
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SITE TYPES ACTIVITY Villages Dispersed Seasonal Year-round Gathering Sites (social) Annual or seasonal gatherings for resource procurement, trade, mate selection, and gaming Encampment for travel Campsite Temporary stopovers Small resource procurement Trails Main N/S trails Tributaries (Loops) Connectors Burial Cemetery Individual (opportunistic and ritual) Petroforms Transformer rocks Rock blinds Some types of rock art Navigational cairns Canoe runs Any other alignment or arrangement of rocks created during the pursuance of traditional cultural activities
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2.0 TRIBAL CONSULTATION
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has primary oversight for the Ross Lake Hydroelectric Project and is the lead agency overseeing compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). FERC has delegated day-to-day consultation with concerned federally recognized Indian Tribes to Seattle City Light. FERC recognized NNTC with Intervener Status and The Nlaka’pamux First Nation signed a Settlement Agreement concerning Traditional Cultural Properties with Seattle City light on July 22, 1993. The Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) is the state agency overseeing FERC Relicensing processes. The State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) and the State Archaeologist provide review and technical expertise for reports and process related to relicensing. The National Park Service (NPS) also has ongoing cultural resource management responsibilities in this watershed. Seattle City Light and the Park Service work together on certain developments in the Area of Potential Effect (APE). Seattle City Light is not responsible for management of cultural sites on lands it does not control outside of the APE. This includes non-project related developments undertaken by federal or state agencies or private landowners. FERC and Seattle City Light recognize the long and unique relationship that the federal government has had with Indian Tribes. These responsibilities have grown from the historic relationship between the federal government and the Indian Tribes including treaties, public laws, policies, statutes, and executive orders. Paramount of these relationships are the treaties in which Tribes have ceded portions of aboriginal lands to the U.S. Government in return for promises to protect tribal rights as self-governing communities within the reservation lands as well as certain rights to use resources from off-reservation lands. Accordingly, FERC and Seattle City Light work to reflect federal policy with respect to tribal sovereignty, government-to-government relations, trust responsibilities, tribal consultation and respect for tribal religious and cultural values. Fundamentally, the consultation practice recognizes: Government-to-government relationships according to the President’s Memorandum 1994, and E.O. 13175, whereby consultation is a bilateral process of discussion and cooperation between sovereigns; The need for consultation in good faith with tribal leaders and their representatives in order to develop strong partnerships with federally recognized Indian Tribes; The need for respect of traditional tribal values and customs recognizing that certain historic properties may be essential elements of living cultures and communities; and That information about religious or sacred places can be sensitive and that tribal law may prohibit disclosure of certain information. FERC and Seattle City Light are committed to withholding sensitive information from public disclosure to the extent allowable under law.
The following methods section describes the part of the consultation process related to Traditional Cultural Properties and their identification, documentation and management in the Ross Lake Project Area.
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3.0 METHODS
Seattle City Light initiated consultation with tribal representatives during the FERC relicensing process in the 1980’s. Policy level consultation between Seattle City Light and the affected Tribes began when FERC delegated Seattle City Light to carry out day-to-day consultative authority. Seattle City Light provided mitigation resources to the Nlaka’pamux Nation to carry out the studies needed to identify and evaluated Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP’s) according to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and its associated implementation regulations in the Federal Code. ERCI was retained in 2011 to provide assistance in the process of complying with Section 106 of the NHPA by undertaking the following tasks: To provide local support as they proceeded with their TCP study To provide documentation of this effort To assist in these goals, Kelly Bush (ERCI) has met on numerous occasions and coordinated by phone and email with representatives of the Nlaka’pamux Nation. These meetings included discussions about the logistics of carrying out the field investigations for the TCP study and exploring the ways in which this very sensitive Historic Property could be managed during the life of the license. Detailed methods including the challenges and limitations to surveying in this terrain are discussed in more detail in the confidential data document authored by the NNTC and kept at the NNTC archives. The significant challenges are two fold; the configuration of the APE doesn’t always allow the following of the trail system which is organic like the landscape itself and the reservoir has obliterated segments of the trail, either by the erosion/deposition cycle of the reservoir fluctuations or the water has literally covered segments. These are not insurmountable obstacles but with a limited time and budget for documentation decisions about where to focus the fieldwork affected the data collected on the landscape.
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN The Research Design for Ross Lake TCP Investigations was developed by the Nlaka’pamux. Kelly Bush provided technical assistance with the field work planning and characterization of the components for the study.
Fieldwork took place during the draw down periods for the Ross Lake during 2011 and 2012 when the water was lower than usual facilitating the pedestrian survey of those areas below 1600 feet in elevation that are underwater during the winter months (Figure 3). The survey in these areas is exceptional as there is no vegetation and the visibility is excellent. The field crews used a small boat for their transportation around the lake and carried out a pedestrian reconnaissance survey within the FERC boundary.
These field crew visits were supplemented by field visits from select tribal elders. The field visits documented in this report do not include all the casual and ongoing use of the valley by tribal members; they merely reflect those organized and documented trips associated with this specific research. It should be noted that tribal despite the international border, the limited access and the confinement of the reserve system that tribal members have continued to use the valley through the generations. Not all of these visits are documented for a variety of reasons, but the knowledge of the valley is common within the Nlaka’pamux community.
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3.2 SUMMARY A significant trail system is being recommended Eligible as a site to the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property and eleven contiguous critical site areas that we believe are contributing elements to this eligible historic property should be considered for nomination to the National Register. In the interest of a long-term partnership in managing cultural resources, Seattle City Light accepts that the Project APE is an area of special concern for the Tribe. When additional TCPs or contributing elements to this TCP are identified through ongoing consultation with the Tribes throughout the life of the license, they should be evaluated at that time. To be clear the NNTC believes this trail is a single site and the connected critical areas are contributing elements. They believe this is not necessarily a district of many different properties, but a single property that connects the areas that are joined together as a whole. The use and feeling of the trail provides the deeper cultural construct for their world.
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Figure 3: Surveyed areas for the TCP study.
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4.0 ELIGIBILITY FOR NATIONAL REGISTER
The discussion of determining eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places (Register) is provided here to help provide a foundation for discussion of management of Traditional Cultural Properties in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). As the Ross Lake Project Area has heritage properties, an appreciation of federal laws regarding the protection and management of historic properties is integral to long-term success of implementing the Management Plan throughout the life of the license. The Upper Skagit River and the Ross Lake Valley are rooted in the history of the Nlaka’pamux Peoples, and concerns related to Traditional Cultural Properties within the area of project effect can be managed most efficiently by a close partnership and long-term planning strategies with the communities’ who rely on this valley for their continuing cultural identity. In keeping with the theme of collating data for management purposes, the following discussion focuses on the concepts related to identifying and evaluating Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP) for the Register. Although the Register is designed to recognize strict physical properties relatively fixed in location, places of traditional importance that meet at least one of the eligibility criteria have been listed in the Register from early on in the program (Hardesty and Little 2000: 42). TCPs are not a separate category but can be found within one of the five categories established for the Register. To be clear a TCP can be found in any one of the following broad categories of historic properties. The following five categories are taken from National Register Bulletin 15. 1. Building: The whole building must be considered and its significant features identified. If basic structural elements have been lost it is often considered a “ruin” and is then categorized as a site. 2. Site: This is the category that is often associated with TCPs. A site is the location of a significant event, occupation, activity, building or structure, whether standing, ruined or vanished where the location itself possesses historic, cultural, or archaeological value regardless of the value of any existing structure. 3. Object: this category is distinct from buildings and structures as these constructions are primarily artistic, smaller scale, may be simply constructed, and although mobile are associated with a specific setting or environment. Examples include, but are not limited to: monuments and boundary markers. We often find TCP’s in this category. 4. Structure: this category includes constructions not used for habitation. Examples include, but are not limited to: aircraft, bridge, cairn, dam, earthwork, railroad grade and tunnel. 5. District: A district possesses a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity of sites, buildings, structures or objects united historically or aesthetically by plan or physical development. A district can be discontiguous, such as with archaeological properties when the deposits are related to each other through cultural affiliation, period of use, or site type. Generally the Register excludes from the definition of “site” natural waterways or bodies of water that served as determinants in the location of communities or were significant in the locality’s subsequent economic development. It is the features associated with the waterways that are most appropriate to document for the Register. For example, the entire Skagit River would not necessarily be eligible for the Register, but the features and places along its corridor could be.
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4.1 BOUNDARIES
Documenting boundaries for TCPs can be more challenging than other types of properties as they often include viewshed and audioshed factors that provide the significance of the property to the traditional users. Much of this discussion is taken from Parker and King’s National Register Bulletin 38 (for a more in-depth discussion of boundary determination, see this bulletin, available on line: http://www.cr.nps.gov/publications.htm).
The quiet, unobstructed views of natural settings are often required for clean and strong cultural ceremonies. However, if the boundaries of TCP sites are defined on the basis of these factors alone, this may not always reflect the practicality of managing vast areas of land for multiple uses and in multiple jurisdictions. At a minimum, cultural practitioners should be able to tell when they are within the boundaries of the TCP and, conversely, when they are no longer within the property. This boundary definition should be something that has stood the test of time. For example, someone from the past stepping inside the boundaries of the property today could be able to recognize the same important elements of that property. Where a TCP boundary is defined narrowly, managers must remember that visual or auditory intrusions occurring outside the boundary cannot be ignored. If these intrusions are severe enough they may compromise the property’s integrity and therefore its eligibility determination. The actual uses or practices associated with the use of the property should be carefully considered when determining boundaries; additionally if the nature of the use changes through time so must the management scheme. Regular consultation is critical for this piece of the management protocol. The process of the changes and the reasons for those changes may provide the context needed for determining eligibility, or for the successful management of properties through time. As this project area has two entities that can have an effect on the property it is important to consider the actions of both the Parks Service and Seattle City Light.
4.2 INTEGRITY In order to be eligible for the Register a property must have, “integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association” (36 CFR 60). With regard to TCPs, Parker and King (1983) suggest that the two key determinants are: 1. Does the property have an integral relationship to traditional cultural practices or beliefs? 2. Is the condition of the property such that the relevant relationships survive? Relationship Integrity of the relationship to the property, as perceived by the community of concern, can sometimes be flexible and changing through time. Not all ceremonies require complete silence, wilderness or purity. Sometimes traditional practitioners are flexible in their interpretation of these ideas in order to continue to practice cultural value expressions or ceremonies that maintain the cultural identity of their community. However, sometimes changes in and around the property can so pollute the environment that it can no longer be used for traditional ceremonies. The ensuing transition can place the community in hardship as they search for an alternative location. To appraise the relationship between property and community, it is imperative to have a comprehensive and intimate understanding of how community members perceive the property in question.
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Condition All properties can lose their cultural significance by changes in and around the property, and this can be true in many ways for TCPs. It is important to determine if the setting and elements of the TCP are still in a condition that allows a relationship with the community. A property may be eligible under more than one criterion, and if the condition of a property is invalidated under one criterion it may still be eligible under other criterion. Within the discussion of condition, researchers should consider the possibility of restoration. Part of considering the integrity of a property might be to consider the long-term condition of a property. For example: A well-known sacred bathing site in the Skagit watershed, a clean, deep, year-round pool, was recently (in the past 40 years) adversely affected by logging and the associated road building practices. These recent practices allowed for 3-5 feet of sedimentation in the pool. Traditional users, devastated by the pollution to their pool in the 1980s, stopped visiting the pool and no bathing went on in this pool for almost 30 years. Recently, land managers in the upper reaches of this tributary system have employed extensive stream restoration practices and road improvements, and in the last five years the pool has begun naturally scouring and may be suitable for traditional bathing now or in the near future. If the eligibility determination was carried out in the last five years, without a detailed discussion of the history of use, the condition of the property might impede the determination of integrity. If the management of the watershed involved consultation with the traditional users of the property, these users might be aware of the site improvements and be able to re-establish their use of the property. This kind of discussion might affect how and when the eligibility determination might best be made.
4.3 APPLYING CRITERIA Four Criteria of Evaluation (A, B, C and D) are used to determine the significance of a property; a property must be shown to be significant for one or more of the four criteria. The following discussion is true for all Historic Properties – TCP’s being just one kind of Historic Property. Criteria A: Event Properties can be associated with either a specific event marking an important event in history or a pattern of events (trend) that made a significant contribution to the development of a community. Examples include, but are not limited to: Site of a battle Archaeological site where a new aspect of prehistory was discovered Trail associated with a migration or other distinct trend Railroad station that served as the focus of a community’s transportation system and commerce Site where Native Americans annually gathered for seasonally available resources and for specific and traditional social interactions Landform associated in oral histories with the founding of a Tribe Criteria B: Person Properties associated with the lives of persons significant in the past of a community (See bulletin 32 for Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Properties Associated with Significant Persons). There must be sufficient perspective and scholarly investigation to reveal enough specific information about the person to determine that the contributions were historically important to the community. Properties must
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be associated with the time period or activities related to the time of significance for the person of importance. Usually this is applied to properties that illustrate rather than commemorate the achievements of the Person, and as such, it is rare for this criterion to be used on persons who are still alive. The known major villages of individual Native Americans who made a significant contribution during the contact period or later can qualify under Criterion B. Bulletin 38: Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties also discusses this criterion in some detail. Criteria C: Design Properties may be eligible if they: Represent the work of a master Manifest the distinctive traits of a type, period or method of construction Possess high artistic value or Represent an entity whose individual elements lack distinction Examples include, but are not limited to: Bridges or dams that represent a significant technological advancement Pictographs or Petroglyphs, especially those that are tied to oral histories and other traditions Criteria D: Information Properties may be eligible if they have yielded or are likely to yield data considered important in prehistory or history. The data is considered important if it: Addresses data gaps Presents a challenge to current theories Enhances our understanding of a specific part or of the overall depth of a cultural story Addresses priority areas identified under a state or federal agency policy or management plan The most common site in this category is the archaeological site.
4.4 CRITERIA CONSIDERATIONS Properties that are not usually eligible for the Register, such as religious properties, cemeteries, birthplaces or properties that have received significance in the past 50 years, can be considered for eligibility if they meet one of the four criteria (A, B, C or D) and possess integrity. There are 7 categories of “criteria considerations” that can be used to make a usually non-eligible property eligible. National Register Bulletins 15 and 38 provide descriptions and discussion of these possibilities and an excellent discussion on evaluating integrity of a property. 1. Religious Properties. This can be especially important for Native American groups where the activities associated with properties may be perceived as “religious” (versus cultural) by people who are not members of the community. 2. Relocated Properties. Important for a traditionally important canoe or totem pole or culturally modified boulder or tree depending on a number of factors around the move and the ultimate destination of the property. 3. Birthplaces and Graves. It is important to remember that birthplaces and graves, as with cemeteries, do not make a place necessarily ineligible and in many cases can add to the significance of a property or district.
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4. Cemeteries. 5. Reconstructions are rarely eligible for the register, but just because reconstructions may exist inside the boundaries of a TCP, does not make that TCP ineligible. 6. Commemorative properties such as murals depicting historic events are not necessarily ineligible based on their content. This is especially true if the commemorative property is older than 50 years. 7. Less than 50 years. This is important because significance ascribed to a property in the last 50 years is not considered “traditional.” If a property has documented significance in the past and its significance has been rekindled recently it may be eligible. Some properties have significance on a rare but recurring basis this could put a location that was younger than 50 years eligible as part of an ongoing suite of cultural activities that occur rarely.
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5.0 RESULTS 5.1 TCP MANAGEMENT IN THE ROSS LAKE PROJECT AREA Important to the management of TCPs in the Ross Lake Valley is the identification of areas that require protection and careful management. This would include areas such as those that: Are currently used for ceremonies; Provide resources rooted in the communities’ history and are required by practitioners to carry out their cultural or spiritual activities; and Are considered ancestral in nature (may provide access to immortals or spirit power) and are necessary for cultural continuity. Identifying and documenting these locations in the Ross Lake Project Area requires ongoing consultation with the people who are members of the user communities. It is often difficult to identify and evaluate properties whose nature requires that the users don’t share vital information about these properties. Implementing management consultation while respecting and exercising strict confidentiality requires patience and attention to detail. Stakeholders face a number of issues in managing cultural resources, specifically TCPs, in the Ross Lake Valley. The following discussion explores these issues. Have all the users of a site been identified and consulted? This is problematic for those practitioners who consider the process of documentation detrimental to the value of some spiritual or ancestral sites (Moss 1986). Related to this is the reality of tribal knowledge collated as family knowledge. It is sometimes difficult to identify how cultural information meshes together. It is sometimes difficult to identify gaps and/or bridges in such cultural information. Collecting and analyzing evidence for some uses that are traditional in nature but for which the current associated sites in the Ross Lake Valley are relatively recent due to communities no longer having pristine areas/resources near their current living areas can be difficult. This problem may be compounded as some resources become more difficult to find outside of lands managed by governments, utilities, or other land holding entities. Identification of important cultural properties can be difficult for managers outside of the culture group that places importance on a specific property. The following anecdote describes a pile of sweepings that provided the resting place for the spirit power of the family. “…the people of a certain house swept it out with hemlock boughs; after many years a great pile of debris had accumulated away from the house, and the ‘totem’ emerged out of this pile of sweepings” (Suttles 1987: 129). To remove the pile would be devastating to cultural continuity, but likely an invisible artifact to someone outside the culture. Another example of misinterpretation could arise with the example of the guardian-spirit figure used in the spirit canoe ceremony. “That seemingly crude stick of wood was perhaps deliberately made stark and empty because it only hints at the secret, invisible, unique power of the doctor it belonged to. Probably asking the man who made it, “Why don’t you produce the kind of explicit forms the Kwakiutl made?” would be like asking a Protestant who has just set up a rugged cross, “Why don’t you decorate your church with all those nice plaster images the Catholics use?” (Suttles 1987: 131). This is also problematic when land managers are trying to manage resources that may be identified in the future through oral tradition; many practitioners understand that, “The wisdom is not all lost, it’s sleeping. When it’s time for it to be heard, it is awakened within us so others may learn” (Katz 1995: 243). The following management concepts have been defined through extensive consultation and have provided a framework for the Tribes to provide Seattle City Light with valuable management information without breeching confidentiality protocol.
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5.2 MANAGEMENT DESCRIPTIONS AND DEFINITIONS The entire Ross Lake Watershed falls within the traditional use area of the Nlaka’pamux Nation. The watershed plays a key role in origin myths, self-identity, cultural prose, and community members’ relationships with the earth and their ancestors/immortals. There is a body of published history and a strong oral tradition recognizing the Skagit Watershed as being a critical area to the traditional inhabitants of the greater study area and their descendants and relations. Management area definitions provided below are designed to assist planners during the tribal consultative process with respect to future developments in the Ross Lake Valley. These definitions were not established to limit consultation with respect to any of the developments in the Project Area, but rather to provide context and common language for the stakeholders of TCPs identified in and around the Project Area. It is important to remember that the entire Ross Lake Valley is considered sensitive and has special significance to the descendants of those people that lived, worked and travelled in the Project Area. These definitions are to be used in conjunction with the maps held at the Tribal offices that help identify these areas with relation to developments in the Ross Lake Project Area.
Eleven Critical Areas These are areas that are defined, for management purposes only, as zones that: May have eligible properties associated with them; May require data collection; May require mitigation for development to proceed; Will require close consultation for any development to proceed; May have higher planning and development costs than in non-critical areas; and Are perceived as impossible to trade or exchange.
These zones might include:
o Areas that are currently used in ceremonial activities; o Sites that are considered sacred due to their relationship to origin narratives or immortals within this culture; o Sites with a strong/active spiritual presence; o Spawning beds, calving grounds, mating areas associated with cultural ceremony or activities; o Significant medicinal or functional plant gathering locations associated with cultural ceremony or activities; o Active and traditional hunting or fishing locations that have specific and significant cultural meaning; o Archaeological sites that continue to have cultural significance and/or spiritual presence; and o The trail that connect these places, which may have significance culturally.
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5.3 POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE PROJECT ON TRADITIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTIES
5.3.1 Applying the Criterion of Adverse Effects An adverse effect is found where an undertaking may alter, directly or indirectly, any of the characteristics of a historic property that qualify the property for inclusion in the National Register in a manner that would diminish the integrity of the property’s location, design, setting, material, workmanship, feeling, or association. Consideration should be given to all qualifying characteristics of a historic property, including those that may have been identified subsequent to the original evaluation of the property’s eligibility for the National Register. Adverse effects may include reasonably foreseeable effects caused by the undertaking that may occur later in time, be farther removed in distance, or be cumulative (36 CFR Sec. 800.5 Assessment of Adverse Effects). The following characteristics should be considered when identifying Traditional Cultural Properties in the Project Area and the effects of undertakings on them:
Relationships of surface features including vegetation or more ephemeral objects such as driftwood, feathers, animal remains, fallen trees, sightings. Access to privacy Natural landscape changes that seem unrelated to cultural activities Access to sunlight and shade and its relationship to the ground surface Water quality Access to culturally significant areas Quality of visual environment Quality of auditory environment
5.3.2 Examples of Adverse Effects Adverse effects are, of course, site and development specific and should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Examples of adverse effects cited in regulations include: i) Physical destruction or damage either cultural or natural. ii) Alteration of property. iii) Removal of the property to another location. iv) Changing the character of the property’s use or of physical features within the property’s setting that contributes to its historic significance. v) Introduction of visual, atmospheric or audible elements that diminish the integrity of the property’s historic features. vi) Neglect of a property that causes its deterioration except where such neglect is recognized as a quality of a property of religious or cultural significance to an Indian Tribe. vii) Transfer of property out of federal ownership without adequate legally enforceable restrictions to ensure long-term preservation.
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The kinds of developments that may have an adverse effect on specific locations in the watershed include but are not limited to the following: Development activities that increase general access to a critical area with eligible properties (e.g., developing dispersed camp sites). Increased traffic on trails, as a trail to a location of religious or cultural significance may be eligible with the location. Developments that require land alteration (e.g., installation of fences, signs); culverts; road maintenance or improvements; fire pits, erecting or improving buildings, boat ramps, and comfort stations; brush removal, or tree plantings. Increased permitable use in the uplands, parking areas or campsites. Any development that affects water quality as access to clean pure water is integral to the continued practices of religious or cultural significance. Developments that might change the growth or reproduction of plants and animals of cultural interest. Trail construction or maintenance. Tree thinning. Clean up of natural events such as colluvial events, massive flooding, and wind events. The most compelling effects of the Seattle City Light project on TCP’s in the watershed are of access, erosion, and deposition. The deeper parts of the reservoir completely restrict access to the surface. The areas within the drawdown are subject to, in some cases drastic effects of erosion and/or deposition. The areas above the reservoir high water which may have in the past been accessible by trail systems are now accessible only with a boat. If one has access to a boat it may make access easier to those locations above the reservoir level but sometimes these travel paths are made unstable by reservoir action. Just finding a place to tie up and then getting up to an available trail segment can be made much more difficult by the denuding of the vegetation combined with the effects of soil saturation and destabilization. The indirect effects of increased recreation and the mandates of the National Park Service to encourage this has created an infrastructure that is partially funded through Seattle City Light and the trail building and maintenance is a significant effect to the Traditional Cultural Properties in this valley.
5.4 SUMMARY In the last three years The NNTC has carried out intensive and extensive elder interviews, archival research, and numerous field investigations specific to the APE for the Seattle City Light project. They have amassed a substantial collection of cultural data to support what they already knew, that the Upper Skagit Valley is an integral part of their world. They are from and a part of this valley in a way that makes the land inseparable from their culture or their identity. The visceral sense of welcome and belonging that tribal members experience in the Valley is only exceeded by the powerful and sometimes overwhelming feeling of interconnection that they experience when they step into the identified areas of critical importance within the APE.
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The Nlaka’pamux have identified and mapped eleven critical areas for management purposes. These eleven critical areas are woven together by a trail of such significance that the field researchers believe that the trail is the spine or trunk of these critical areas. These areas are each identifiable by the features on the landscape and the feelings and experience of the cultural practitioners. The field researchers and the elders experienced overwhelming relief at being back with their ancestors when in their critical areas. However it was the connecting cord of the trail that allowed the practitioners to feel their sense of belonging and identity and to experience the sites as they were meant to be. A single large trail with eleven adjacent critical areas (as contributing elements) are being recommended as eligible as a TCP site to the National Register of Historic Places. The locations of these critical areas will be shared with Seattle City Light’s designated representative/Cultural Coordinator who will also be permitted to review the Confidential Data Document created by the NNTC Archival department. Maps with this information including the character defining features and the project effects will be held at the Tribal offices. It will be shared with the designated representative/Cultural Coordinator when the need arises during consultation throughout the life of the FERC license. If additional TCPs are identified through ongoing consultation with the Tribes throughout the life of the license, they will be evaluated at that time.
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6.0 REFERENCES CITED
Hardesty, Donald L. and Barbara J. Little 2000 Assessing Site Significance: A Guide for Archaeologists and Historians. Altamira Press, New York.
Moss, Madonna L. 1986 Native American Religious Use in the Pacific Northwest: A Case Study from the Mt. Baker- Snoqualmie National Forest. Northwest Anthropological Research Notes: 191-201.
Parker, Patricia and Thomas F. King 1998 National Register Bulletin 38: Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties. United States Department of the Interior, National Parks Service.
Suttles, Wayne P. 1987 Affinal Ties, Subsistence, and Prestige among the Coast Salish in Coast Salish Essays. University of Washington Press, Seattle; Talonbooks, Vancouver, British Columbia.
ERCI Status of TCP Investigations 29 20200501-5391 FERC PDF (Unofficial) 5/1/2020 1:15:47 PM Document Content(s) Executive summary.PDF...... 1-18 The Nlaka'pamux in Washington State.PDF...... 19-86 Status of TCP Investigations Upper Skagit.PDF...... 87-115