Gifts for NPS on it’s 100th Birthday

Click to enlarge – Tim Dustrude photo

Honored guests on Thursday at the English Camp celebration of 100 years of the National Park Service were members of the Lummi and Saanich Nations from Washington and British Columbia. Their families had lived on San Juan Island or visited here for centuries before the Pig War of 1859-72.

At least 200 persons, including many children, sat on folding chairs under a white tent in the extreme August heat and listened as many speakers talked of their heritage of reefnet fishing and the importance of honoring their elders and reviving their ancestral language.

Among those honored were master carver Jewell Praying Wolf James, carver of the salmon storyboards, and master carver Temosen Charles Elliott and his brother John Elliott, carvers of the Reef Net Captain pole, which will remain on the parade ground at English Camp.

Park Superintendent Elexis Fredy was close to tears as they honored her, but she joked about the warmth of the wool blanket given to her over her wool uniform. She emphasized that the National Park celebration was less about the last 100 years than about “the next seven generations.”

She also revealed that President Obama and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada had been invited to the day’s celebration, “and I keep watching for Air Force One to land on the parade ground.”

State Senator Kevin Ranker spoke briefly and lightly suggested that the Union Jack, flying for the occasion from the parade ground flagpole, might be joined by a Lummi flag. All the speakers who followed him enthusiastically supported that suggestion, saying it would show a welcome “to all the different tribes in this shared territory.”

By Louise Dustrude

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