Tillicum Vilage and Blake Island

For thousands of years Blake Island was an ancestral summer camping ground to Coast Salish tribes who lived on the coastal waterways of Puget Sound. The native tribes as a group are also referred to as the Lushootseed peoples.  (Lushootseed refers to the common language that was spoken throughout the region.) The heart of the island is Tillicum Village. Tillicum Village was built on 5 acres of the 475-acre state park and opened in 1962. Today, the Island has thousands of visitors who come to Tillicum for the world famous salmon bake and show or to camp, hike and explore the vast wildlife and beautiful beaches of this fascinating island.

The only way to reach the island is by boat, so we took the Argosy Tours boat that includes a traditional salmon bake and native entertainment. It's about a four hour trip and there is plenty of time after the dinner and entertainment for a little island exploring.

Land Ho!

It took about 45 minutes by boat, but there was a bar on-board, so no worries! Great Bloody Mary. When we arrived at the village, we were greeted by natives in traditional dress and bowls of fresh steamed clams, yummy.  We then had a few minutes to explore the long house. There were great exhibits of Salish artwork and ceremonial masks.

There was also a large area of open fires where the salmon was cooked in the traditional way. Over an alderwood fire. I have to say it was delicious. It was now time to enter the dining room for dinner and the show. There was great Salish story telling and dancers. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside. After dinner and the show, we had time to explore the island before returning to Seattle.  Quite a beautiful place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

A great park and camping area as well as a tourist attraction.

After we arrived back at the Seattle waterfront, we decided that it was still early enough to make a trip a few blocks up the hill and take in Pike Place Market. No trip to Seattle is complete without the market on your itinerary, and we had not yet taken Alex.

Sunshine

We have had a couple of days of that glorius and rare phenomenon known as sunshine.


 Happy sunshine on my face,


I love those warming golden rays.

Happy sunshine fills my eye,

When gazing up at the blue sky

Along the silvery water


Wooden boats sailed slowly

Accompanied by choir of bees

Which sounds melodious and sweet

The sunlight of the late afternoon shimmering on the water.

All of my thoughts are warmer and brighter in the sun. We had a fantastic weekend which included a trip to Charlies favorite place, Seahurst park.  There are always lots of friends for him to sniff at the park.

Lots of other folks had the same idea, and headed for the beach. The kids were swimming, even though the water temperature is about 65 degrees, Brrr. Seahurst Park is just north of our house along the beach. They have great trails, bar b ques and picnic pavillions and beach access. This makes it the favorite summer family spot on the weekends.

After the park and some errands around town it was time to go home and enjoy the beautiful day! Languishing in the warmth of the sunshine.

There were a multitude of boats racing around on the water and you could hear the sounds of summer drifting up the hillside from the beach below us.  The engine of the jet skis, the laughter of children as they played along the shore. The wind whipping at sailboats gliding by.  The waves lapping up on the beach.  

Finished off by a wonderful dinner of rib-eyes from B and E Meats, our local butcher shop and a nice bottle of wine. All in all a most wonderful day to spend with my love as the sun sank over the Olympic Mountains and into the clouds.

Goodbye dear sun, I hope to see you again soon!

78 Minutes of Summer

I know that most of the country is in the grip of an enormous heatwave, but in Seattle we are having quite the opposite. The weather is having a worse season than the Mariners. It has been remarkably cool and wet this year compared to past summers, even for the Pacific Northwest. We are still wearing our fall sweaters and jackets. There seems to be more rain. This is the dry season after all. That brief warm season that we look so forward to in order to make it through the cold wet winter.  So one of our local T.V. weather guys decided to look at our summer warmth minute by minute and see if it was just our imagination, or does this summer suck.
Turns out, this summer does really suck. Using a warmth of summer threshold of 80 degrees, which seems entirely reasonable, we have had exactly 78 minutes of summer!  On July 2 we had 12 minutes of summer and it was glorious. Then again on July 6, a magnificent 66 minutes. Thats right folks, one hour and 6 minutes of glorious summer. Thats it. If you had gone to a movie that day, you would have missed it entirely. There has not even been an officially sunny day since that summer day of July 6th. We have had cold, drizzly, foggy and marine layered weather since. I suppose that we should be thankful that we are not sweltering under the "heat dome" that is all the news in the rest of the country.


You know, someone once said that living in Seattle is like being married to a beautiful woman who is sick most of the time.

>>Being smitten by (even enthralled with) the beauty of one's spouse, whatever the periodic state of his or her health, is completely understandable.  There are undoubtedly places in the Lower 48 that offer, at least seasonally, just as good a balance of beauty and health as Seattle (to extend the metaphor) - perhaps even better.  But they just don't tend to be places with ample opportunities for good jobs, schools, houses, or coffee. 

The vast majority of people in the U.S. should understand that when someone visiting from Seattle says something nice about the beauty you have available locally, that Seattleite is merely trying his or her best to be polite.<<

So if it hits 80 degrees again, run for the beach. Just make sure you take a sweater if you will be out after six!

Tribal Canoe Journey

If you know me very well, then you know that I have a great love of history and culture. I garner a great deal of pleasure from learning about different cultures and expanding my knowledge of the world we live in, both the past and the present. Whether it is learning about the Mayans in Belize at the Marco Gonzales dig or exploring the Pacific Northwest native culture, I find history to be fascinating. In this region there is a rich history and culture of the Coast Salish peoples that have been here for thousands of years. I am employed by the Muckleshoot Tribe of Salish peoples whose reservation is located southeast of Seattle on the Muckleshoot plateau, at the base of Mt Ranier. Over the past year and a half that I have been out there, I have learned alot about the lives and traditions of the people. The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is comprised of the descendants of the area's original Coast Salish peoples. The Tribe has lived in this area for thousands of years, possibly since the last glaciers receded. 

 One of my favorite things to follow is the annual Canoe Journey.  A re-creation of the ancient trade routes undertaken by the Salish people in canoes. There are over 100 tribes from the northwest, Canada and Alaska that take part in this annual journey. Some canoes are on the Salish Sea (Puget Sound) for up to three weeks to reach the hosting tribe. The Muckleshoot hosted a few years ago, this year  the hosts are the Swinomish Tribe north of Seattle. As you can see on the map, there are people paddling from all over the region.  This is a fantastic way to teach the young people about the old ways and to keep the history alive. The youth start training months before the journey, and can paddle hundreds of miles.

The reason that I picked this week to write about the canoe journey, is that I saw them paddling past my house on the sound yesterday morning.  It really was a sight. Canoes and helper boats alongside them, making their way north to Swinomish. I applaud the dedication that it takes to make such a journey. I wish the youth of the Muckleshoot  a safe and enriching experience with a comfortable place to rest along the way!

"daY ved ;urudubicid. " which means "I'll be seeing you" in the Salish language!