Leonard Forsman: Suquamish Tribe has long presence in bay

Friday, February 1, 2013  

"Recent articles appearing in Crosscut, High Country News and other media outlets have ignored, or at the least discounted, the antiquity of the Suquamish Tribe’s presence in Port Gamble Bay.

It is true that the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe (PGST) has maintained a permanent settlement on the east side of the Bay dating from 1854 and that this settlement became their reservation in 1938. PGST, however, misleads the public with their unsupported claim of aboriginal inhabitation of the Port Gamble area. This new perspective incorrectly neglects the Suquamish Tribe’s ancient territorial presence in and around Port Gamble Bay dating from time immemorial.

For decades, the PGST and Suquamish have worked together to protect the bay through our respective government-to-government relationships with federal, state and local agencies. Our Tribal communities have always had a mutual respect for each other. We collaborate politically, culturally and socially through intermarriage, athletics and our respective cultural and economic resurgences."

Get the Story:
Leonard Forsman: Suquamish Tribe’s long ancestral presence in Port Gamble Bay (The North Kitsap Herald 2/1)