CHIMACUM — When a crowd of some 250 people gathered for the opening of “Still Here: Portraits of the Chemakum,” Rosalee Walz was overcome.
“I had tears of joy and tears of grief that our ancestors weren’t there to see this,” she said of the exhibit of large-scale photographs of her people.
The Chemakum, the tribe for whom this place is named, once lived together with the Quileute, the tribe based on the other side of the Olympic Peninsula in La Push.
A great Pacific Ocean flood came, Walz writes in the exhibit’s companion book.
The water sent some Quileute across the Peninsula to what became known as Chemakum Territory, new homelands stretching from Hood Canal to Discovery Bay and inland into the Beaver and Center valleys.
But then came a disruption in the story. Many Chemakum died, including the victims of an 1847 massacre led by Sealth, Walz writes.
After that, historical texts labeled the Chemakum “terminated” and “absorbed.”
This exhibit, the fruit of a portrait-making session at the Chemakum’s reunion last summer at H.J. Carroll Park, shows the truth: Walz’ people are here, at home.
Opening day on April 14 “was beyond joy and healing,” she said.
The exhibit, in the Chimacum School Commons at 91 West Valley Road, will reopen to the public this Saturday and on May 28, for viewing both days from noon to 2 p.m.
The 25 photographs — portraits of individuals, families and couples — will stay up through the end of the school year, said Chimacum School District Superintendent Scott Mauk.
The last day of school is June 17.
In the meantime, the “Still Here: Portraits of the Chemakum” book is available at Northwind Art’s Grover Gallery and Jeanette Best Gallery, both in downtown Port Townsend.
The Chimacum School District hasn’t yet put any official curriculum in place around the Chemakum exhibit, Mauk said.
But “I think this is seeding some other possibilities in teachers’ minds for the future,” he said, adding there may be more space in May after advanced-placement testing is finished.
“We have also discussed doing a speaker series and having Chemakum people,” Mauk said.
At this school whose mascot is the Cowboys, the “Still Here” exhibit “sparked a lot, and the teachers want more.”
During the opening celebration, the Chemakum people in the portraits mingled with other people from across and beyond Jefferson County — farmers, staffers from the historical society, Chimacum School District officials and the photographers behind the exhibit and book, including Kerry Tremain and Brian Goodman.
Naiome Krienke, who shares her portrait with her daughters Tigerlily, Lea and Eve, stepped up to the podium to address the crowd.
She’s been nurturing a dream of a place where the Chemakum can gather one day: a longhouse, very traditional, on tribal land.
Krienke kept her speech short, but her vision for this project is detailed at savechimacumsprings.org, where Krienke and Chimacum resident Chasity Sade-Griffin are raising money to purchase land for the longhouse.
Also joining the opening celebration: members of the Quileute tribe. Vince Penn and James Jaime brought a message of welcome, Walz said — and she felt it to her core.
“They said they were very moved, as we were, at this historic moment. They said we’re home. We’re together again.”
Walz added that Penn dropped his ceremonial rattle — and then he picked it up, gave it to her and said, “it wants to stay.”
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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz @peninsuladailynews.com.
Watching over the crowd at the opening of the “Still Here” exhibit at the Chimacum School Commons are Brian Goodman’s portraits of, from left, Carol Plaster, Renita Meyer Gromley and Mary Anne Gentry. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News)
Above the crowd at the opening of the “Still Here” exhibit at the Chimacum School Commons are Brian Goodman’s portraits of, from left, Garold Pomeroy, Ronald Meyer and Ralph Meyer. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News)
