PORT ANGELES — In a voice authoritative and gentle, Jamie Valadez gave the Peninsula Young Professionals Network the long view of the Elwha River dam removal.
Valadez, a teacher of Klallam language and culture at Port Angeles High School, spoke for her Lower Elwha Klallam tribe Thursday night at a PYPN program at the new Elwha Klallam Heritage Training Center. The center, which opened Sept. 27 at the corner of First and Peabody streets, is now available for other such community programs and classes.
Valadez began by saying there’s a “void” in the teaching of local history to young people here.
Then, mixing in Klallam names for places in Clallam County — such as Tse-whit-zen, the ancient village unearthed earlier this decade — she explained Klallam people lived in numerous communities all across the Peninsula, from the West End to Sequim to what’s now called Port Gamble.
At the heart of this homeland lay the Elwha River where, until two huge dams were built, some 70 miles of river and tributary streams nourished hundreds of thousands of salmon.
Cherished fish
“Our Creator gave us this fish to live on, and we cherished it, and we respected it,” Valadez said, quoting the late Elwha tribal elder Beatrice Charles.
Charles hoped for a day when her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would see the salmon return to the upper reaches of the Elwha.
“When that dam starts to come out next September, Bea Charles is going to be close to our hearts,” Valadez said.
The 105-foot-high Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam, built in 1910 and 1927 respectively, were constructed with no provision for fish passage, said Dean Butterworth, outreach and education specialist for Olympic National Park.
Effects of blockage
Blocking the salmon population has far-reaching effects: The region’s keystone species supports 137 other species in this ecosystem.
The three-year dam removal process starts next year; the $350 million National Park Service project is the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
Many other dams are being removed around the country and natural lands restored, Butterworth told the PYPN members.
Typically, a “competing interest,” such as a city or agriculture, exists above the dams.
The Elwha is different, he noted, in that Olympic National Park’s vast wilderness is above its dams.
Removal, then, stands to benefit the triple bottom line — people, planet, profit — by restoring the river, its heritage, its fish and the related tourism industry.
Valadez, for her part, said the shared history of the Elwha tribe and the settlers who came from elsewhere spans just 150 years, while the Klallam tribes — known as the Strong People — have lived on the river for thousands of years.
Creation Site
When the dams come out and the waters of Lake Aldwell and Lake Mills recede, tribal members hope a place called the Creation Site — the origin of the Klallams — will be revealed.
Valadez showed photographs, some of which are stored in the Port Angeles Library’s Kellogg collection, of Klallam women working and living in what is now Port Angeles, and of tribal members such as Hunter John and Boston Charlie.
Young men of their era — the late 19th and early 20th centuries — went on vision quests, walking up the Elwha into the Olympic Mountains, where they spent time reflecting on their role in the world.
They bathed in the river and encountered bears, wolves, elk and other wild creatures, and came to understand their interdependence on other living beings.
The banks of the Elwha were also places for celebrations such as weddings, Valadez said, adding that other tribes, including the Quileute, gathered at the river.
When Europeans arrived, they brought the seeds of deadly diseases such as smallpox.
Valadez noted that Capt. George Vancouver, sailing into places such as Discovery Bay, was among those who saw how many tribes had been nearly wiped out.
Yet the Klallam people, and their culture, survived. Today, the self-governed Lower Elwha tribe has expanded its reservation west of Port Angeles and built a casino alongside its tribal center.
At the same time, the tribe continues to hold close its connections to the river and mountains.
“We live in a beautiful valley,” Valadez said. “And if you look up at the mountains, you see the shape of a woman,” sleeping. The story is that when she grew tired, she asked the Creator for a time of rest; if the world becomes out of balance, she’ll awaken.
“We have to take care of our land,” Valadez said.
For information about the Elwha tribe and the Klallam Heritage Training Center, visit www.Elwha.org.
To learn more about the PYPN, visit Facebook.com and search for Peninsula Young Professionals Network.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
