OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Garments with Jamestown S’Klallam tribal designs by artist Dale Faulstich are now being sold at the gift shop inside the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center in Olympic National Park.
Aramark, which operates the shop and also manages Kalaloch Lodge, Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and Lake Crescent Lodge in Olympic National Park, will donate 5 percent of the garments’ sales to the tribe.
The money will go to the tribe’s youth and children’s programs, said Jessica Payne, Jamestown’s social and community services director.
Ed Delgado, director of retail for Aramark’s ONP properties, said the company is seeking more tribal representation in its gift shops and hopes to include other tribes.
“Our goal is to expose the history, the preservation of the language, as well as the traditional art of the eight federally recognized tribes of the Olympic Peninsula to a larger audience,” Delgado said.
“We want our locations to reflect the history of the eight tribes, while at the same time respecting the artist and Native American way of life.”
He said Aramark wants to educate visitors on Native American traditions, “the ‘invisible landscape’” of tribal songs and stories.
Wendy Humphries, a member of the Jamestown tribe and a buyer for Northwest Native Expressions Art Gallery and Gift Shop, located at the Jamestown Tribal Center in Blyn, met Delgado at a gift show in Seattle.
They began discussing the idea of a partnership.
Humphries selected two designs by Faulstich — the salmon for women and the wolf for men — for an initial line of T-shirts and sweatshirts.
“This is a clothing line exclusive to the Jamestown tribe, and we are pleased that Dale has generously allowed us to use two of his beautiful animal designs,” Humphries said.
The tribe’s name is on the sleeve of each garment.
“We split the clothing order with Aramark, so that we can sell them in our Northwest Native Expressions Gallery and they can sell them in their gift shops,” Humphries said.
“The T-shirts are made of recycled cotton.”
The company that makes the recycled cotton shirts donates 3 percent of each sale to the National Park Foundation, a fundraising group for the National Park Service.
