LA PUSH — The Quileute Tribe has received a $49,272 grant for artifact curation, the tribe announced.
The Quileute was one of 13 tribes and Alaskan Native communities that received a combined $602,923 in National Park Service historic preservation funds, federal officials said.
“This grant will assist us with the protection and preservation of our culture and heritage as we are preparing plans for the creation of a cultural and language center,” Quileute Tribal Chairman Doug Woodruff said in a press release.
“We are committed to ensuring that future generations are aware of their culture and heritage, and we are grateful for this funding to provide the foundation for that to happen.”
The grant will be used to help plan the curation and preservation of artifacts and to help plan the implementation of a cultural center in La Push, Quileute officials said.
“The project location is to be determined, as this funding provides for phases of planning and inventory and some feasibility study,” Quileute acting General Manager Larry Burtness said Thursday.
The tribe has long-term plans to move tribal facilities out of the tsunami hazard zone in a multi-year project called Move to Higher Ground.
“The Move to Higher Ground master plan includes a cultural center in the plan, but immediate needs may use a different existing facility until the MTHG sites are fully developed,” Burtness said.
The 13 historic preservation grants were announced in late August. The Quileute grant is the only one issued to a tribe in Washington state.
The grants will finance projects to locate and identify cultural resources, preserve historic properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places, support preservation planning, train tribal youth to serve as living history guides, preserve oral history and cultural traditions, provide training to build a historic preservation program, and support cultural and historic preservation interpretation and education, federal officials said.
A list of the grant recipients is available at tinyurl.com/PDN-2020grants.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
