Salish Sea Curriculum Repository

Items

• We Have Stories: Five generations of Indigenous women in water

  This paper traces the changing relationship between family, water, and fish through the lives of five generations of Indigenous women.
  

• The Highest Tide

  Young adult novel follows a teenage boy from a fictional bay in western Washington state near Olympia who is passionate about the Puget Sound and becomes a local celebrity when he discovers a giant squid on the shore.

• 'No One Asked for an Ethnography.' Reflections on Community-based Anthropology in Coast Salish Country

  Anthropology journal article about community-based work for Edmonds Community College students’ place-based learning, Coast Salish partners’ and native students’ requests for involvement and “passing the mic,” and the role and uses of ethnography for tribal and non-tribal governments.

• The Bellingham Bay & British Colombia Railroad Company

  Article from The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin on railroad history in Bellingham Bay and British Columbia from 1852 to 1951. The article also contains relevant maps, photographs, and data.

• Otter’s Journey through Indigenous Language and Law

  Book by Lindsay Keegitah Burrows (Anishinaabe) uses storytelling of a journey through Anishinaabe, Inuit, Maori, Coast Salish, and Abenaki territories to explore Indigenous language and law revitalization.

• Kwakwaka'wakw "Clam Gardens": Motive and Agency in Traditional Northwest Coast Mariculture

  Human ecology journal article explores clam garden management techniques as a form of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Based on accounts from Kwakwaka'wakw Clan Chief Kwaxistalla Adam Dick, trained in these techniques by elders, the article discusses activities, motivations, and outcomes of clam gardens.

• Tulalip, From My Heart: An Autobiographical Account of a Reservation Community

  Autobiographical account of Harriette Shelton Dover’s (Snohomish) life in the Tulalip Reservation Community and her stories of the hardships of resettlement and traumatic experiences in an Indian boarding school. Dover describes her tribe’s strong community and connection to land.

• Fishing down the coast: Historical expansion and collapse of oyster fisheries along continental margins

  Environmental science journal article evaluates the patterns of exploitation of oysters and oyster reef degradation due to destructive fishing practices. The article focuses on estuaries in western North America (Ostreola conchaphila), eastern North America (Crassostrea virginica), and eastern Australia (Saccostrea glomerata).

• The Living

  Historical fiction novel set in late 19th century Bellingham Bay, Washington follows three men navigating pioneer life among European settlers and a group of Lummi natives.

• Top 10 Principles for Designing Healthy Coastal Ecosystems Like the Salish Sea

  Like other coastal zones around the world, the inland sea ecosystem of Washington (USA) and British Columbia (Canada), an area known as the Salish Sea, is changing under pressure from a growing human population, conversion of native forest and shoreline habitat to urban development, toxic contamination of sediments and species, and overharvest of resources. While billions of dollars have been spent trying to restore other coastal ecosystems around the world, there still is no successful model for restoring estuarine or marine ecosystems like the Salish Sea. Despite the lack of a guiding model, major ecological principles do exist that should be applied as people work to design the Salish Sea and other large marine ecosystems for the future. We suggest that the following 10 ecological principles serve as a foundation for educating the public and for designing a healthy Salish Sea and other coastal ecosystems for future generations.
  

• Border Songs

  Fiction novel follows Brandon Vanderkool, who works as a Border Patrol agent on the border between Washington State and British Columbia.

• City of the Changers

  Journal article from Pacific Historical Review depicts the experiences of the Duwamish and other Indigenous peoples during urban change of Seattle, Washington between the 1880s and 1930s. It talks about transformation like the creation of a canal between Puget Sound and Lake Washington and the straightening of the Duwamish River.

• Nervous Hybridity: Bodies, Spaces, and the Displacements of Empire

  Book section from Urbanizing frontiers: Indigenous peoples and settlers in 19th-century Pacific Rim cities. This section focuses on Indigenous peoples and settlers in Victoria, British Columbia from 1858 to 1871. Gold rushes and narratives of European progress transformed spaces and bodies.

• Planning Since Time Immemorial: Musqueam Perspectives

  Book section from Planning on the Edge: Vancouver and the Challenges of Reconciliation, Social Justice, and Sustainable Development. The book proposes planning and policies for the Indigenous population to reduce social inequality and housing insecurity in Vancouver, British Columbia.

• Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene

  English Language Notes research article about Indigenous and allied scholars, knowledge keepers, scientists, learners, change-makers, and leaders building a field and plans to address human-caused climate change.

• Review of official responsibility for the Salish Sea marine environment

  This paper introduces official responsibility for the protection and management of the Salish Sea marine environment. Focusing on governments and their legally constituted bodies, the complex management structures on the American and Canadian sides of the Salish Sea are identified. Both countries operate in cooperative federalist systems, but there exist differences in management structures arising notably from constitutional differences, Tribal and First Nation relations, and jurisdictional authority. Both state and provincial governments have the authority to create and enforce environmental regulations but are constrained by federal legislation. Collaborative and stakeholder-engaged environmental planning and stewardship have been recognized on both sides of the border. Past and present efforts support bottom-up organizational structures that give community members and scientists a greater voice in decision-making, in partnership with government. More evidence exists of community- and state-level autonomy in Washington compared to British Columbia. Political and administrative boundaries have been recognized by some as counter to needs of environmental management, with an alternative and preferred approach being the use of ecological planning units such as watersheds or estuaries. The international boundary dividing the Salish Sea remains an administrative and organizational impediment despite evidence of trans-boundary collaborative efforts.

• Land

  Book section from Native Studies Keywords examining the perspectives and history of the term and concept of “land” in Native American studies projects. Land relates to other terms like sovereignty, belonging, rights, and responsibility.

• Native Studies Keywords

  Volume analyzing the history of the words sovereignty, land, indigeneity, nation, blood, tradition, colonialism, and indigenous knowledge in Native American studies projects. Sections contain essays with perspectives on definitions, meanings, and significance of the concepts within historical, social, and political contexts.

• The Story of 13 Moons: Developing an Environmental Health and Sustainability Curriculum Founded on Indigenous First Foods and Technologies

  Journal article about the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s development of an informal environmental health and sustainability curriculum for teaching science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics with a basis in Swinomish beliefs and practices. The curriculum focuses on free-choice learning and increasing awareness.

• Curriculum, Replacement, and Settler Futurity

  Journal article by Eve Tuck and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández describes how settler colonialism and white settler supremacy shape the past and present of “curriculum” in the United States through strategies of replacement, which is described as goal of replacing Indigenous peoples with settlers as the ones rightfully on the land. The authors use the character of Natty Bumppo from James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales as an allegory for the replacement project. The authors also apply concepts like critical race theory, “browning,” rematriation, and refusal.

• Oka Apesvchi: Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and Protest

  Essay by Bethany Hughes (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) analyzing protest performances about water using the Indigenous feminist concept of radical relationality to elaborate on relations and obligations of humans and water.

• Challenging racist "British Columbia": 150 years and counting

  Booklet on the history of racist policies in British Columbia and their impacts on Indigenous, Black, and radicalized communities. It also elaborates on the anti-racist movements of the past and present.
  

• Sources of corrosive bottom water to Bellingham Bay, Washington State

  Research article in Estuaries and Coasts by Western Washington University Professor David H. Shull aimed at understanding the processes leading to Bottom water acidification in Bellingham Bay relating to Pacific Ocean upwelling and Nooksack River circulation.

• Ancient clam gardens, traditional management portfolios, and the resilience of coupled human-ocean systems

  Journal article from Ecology and Society surveying the central coast of British Columbia, Canada for evidence of intertidal clam gardens, an Indigenous mariculture technology and practice for food security and resilience.

• Historical Indigenous land-use explains plant functional trait diversity

  Journal article from Ecology and Society about a systematic study of the impact of Indigenous land-use legacies on plant functional diversity in Pacific Northwest forest garden ecosystems.

• The effect of climate change on glacier ablation and baseflow support in the Nooksack River basin and implications on Pacific salmonid species protection and recovery

  Research article about the effect of climate change on the hydrology of the Nooksack River. It focuses on how glacial melt changes river flow and water temperature and affects salmon. It discusses the collaboration between the Nooksack Indian Tribe near Deming, Washington, government agencies, and scientists to plan for habitat restoration.

• Introduction to Mount Baker and the Nooksack River Watershed

  Section in Climate Driven Retreat of Mount Baker Glaciers and Changing Water Resources about the North Fork, Middle Fork, and South Fork Nooksack River, and glacier runoff and retreat on Mount Baker.

• Multiple ontologies of water: Politics, conflict and implications for governance

  Journal article from Environment and Planning D: Society and Space on understanding human-water relations within current water governance. The article focuses on the potential of encompassing multiple water ontologies within water governance with examples from British Columbia, Canada.

• Conservation in heavily urbanized biodiverse regions requires urgent management action and attention to governance

  Journal article from Conservation Science and Practice uses a Priority Threat Management approach to calculate the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation action and co-governance in urbanized areas. Authors focus on species in the Fraser River estuary and argue for strategic planning, governance, and large-scale investment.

• Creating Order: The Liberals, the Landowners, and the Draining of Sumas Lake, British Columbia

  Essay about the draining of Sumas Lake, British Columbia, Canada by the provincial government in the 1920s and the landowner and government ideologies of progress and improvement surrounding the decision. The author argues as to the source behind the financial and environmental problems of the project.

• Whose Land Is It? Rethinking Sovereignty in British Columbia

  Essay by authors Nicholas XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton (W̱SÁNEĆ) and John Price discusses the resistance of two First Nations, the W̱SÁNEĆ and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht, to settler colonialism dispossession and destruction. It discusses Aboriginal languages and rights, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people, and UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).

• Whose Water is it Anyway?: The Adjudication of Water Rights in the Nooksack Watershed

  Western Washington University Honors College Senior Project by Emma Ledsham about water management of the Nooksack Watershed, agricultural and tribal water rights in Washington State, and adjudication proposed by Washington State Department of Ecology.

• The Mountains and Rocks are Forever: Lithics and Landscapes of Skwxwú7mesh Uxwumixw Territory

  An archaeological dissertation about stone tools and other lithic materials found in the Squamish Nation territory, and how they are connected to culture, place names, and oral histories, particularly the oral history themes of Transformation and Mythical Beings.

• Ocean Cultures: Northwest Coast Ecosystems and Indigenous Management Systems

  Increasingly, ethnoecologists, anthropologists, and conservation biologists are recognizing that Indigenous People of the Northwest Coast and neighboring regions have been astute stewards and managers—not just harvesters and consumers—of the resources and ecosystems on which they have relied. Over thousands of years, these people have developed diverse practices and protocols that have not only sustained, but enhanced the resource species both in quantity and in quality. These practices are based on long-term observation and experience, and are embedded in belief systems, ceremonies, dances, art, and narratives. Here we provide an overview of marine and coastal resource management systems that have been documented to date, and then cite three examples in more detail: clam gardens, salmon production, and estuarine root gardens. These different production systems do not function alone but are components of an entire complex of land and resource management extending across the marine and terrestrial landscapes, “from ocean bottom to mountaintop.” These traditional management systems have been seriously disrupted since the arrival of European newcomers and the resulting impacts on key habitats from colonial settlement, land encroachment, changes in land tenure, land-use conversion, and industrial scale exploitation. Today, collaborative efforts between Indigenous communities, ethnoecologists, and others are underway to recognize and restore some of these critically important Indigenous production systems and associated practices as a means of ethnoecological restoration, habitat enhancement, and food system revitalization.

• Saltwater People

  Book composed of over 20 hours of oral history by Dave Elliot, PENÁĆ, a Saanich elder, who shared knowledge about the Saanich people, territory, place names, seasonal cycle, European contact, the Douglas Treaties, and reef-net fishing.

• Islands in the Salish Sea: A Community Atlas

  Book mapping the most beloved places in the Salish Sea, created by a diverse group of collaborators across the Salish Sea. Maps range from fishing spots and ancient First Nations sites to bird migration and heritage orchids.
  

• Vancouver Island Coal Strike

  Vancouver coal miners went on strike in the 1910s for safety issues and union recognition. This encyclopedia article discusses how companies retaliated by hiring strikebreakers and sending in militiamen. Efforts were unsuccessful and union recognition did not come until 1938.

• When the Mountain Dwarfs Danced: Aboriginal Traditions of Paleoseismic Events along the Cascadia Subduction Zone of Western North America

  Scholarly article examining Indigenous oral traditions, beliefs, and ceremonies for evidence of what earthquakes and tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest’s history were like and how they impacted local communities.

• To fish as formerly: A resurgent journey back to the Saanich Reef Net Fishery

  According to W̱SÁNEĆ oral history, the W̱SÁNEĆ people have lived on their territorial homelands back to the time of creation. The W̱SÁNEĆ way of life has been passed on to each succeeding generation through an educational way, centered in large part on the W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net Fishery. This fishing practice formed the backbone of W̱SÁNEĆ culture and society. Despite being protected by the Douglas Treaty of 1852, over the next 163 years of colonization, the knowledge, ceremony, practice, and educational way of the SX̱OLE (Reef Net) was nearly lost. Using a framework for Indigenous Resurgence, this dissertātiō or path focuses on the revitalization and restoration of the SX̱OLE. This resurgent path described herein tells the story of how the “researcher” pulled together the disappearing knowledge of the SX̱OLE, reinvigorated cross border cooperation between the W̱SÁNEĆ and their Xwelemi relatives, and how after being named ȻWENÁLYEN, or the Reef Net Captain through ceremony was able to coordinate the community based creation and fishing of the first SX̱OLE on Canadian waters in 100 years. This resurgent path is just the beginning of a long and endless journey forward by looking backward, where the W̱SÁNEĆ people can be a proud people of the SX̱OLE once again.