SEATTLE — When more than a hundred canoes from tribes all over the Pacific Northwest and Canada converged on Alki Beach last summer, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, host of the 2023 Canoe Journey, welcomed the guests to their ancestral land.
The Tribe's reservation may be 37 miles to the south of Alki - in Auburn.
But the waterways of the Central Puget Sound are still home.
"We are standing very near the location of sbaqʷabqs in our language. Sbaqʷabqs' - Alki Point," said Warren KingGeorge. He's an oral historian for the Muckleshoot tribe, sharing stories of the past so it can't be erased. He went on to say that the word translates into meadow, or prairie, which is what the land around Alki Point once was.
"So, Muckleshoot is actually made up of all of these villages that were once on the Black River. Duwamish River. Lake Washington. Elliott Bay. Green River. White River. Black River." KingGeorge said.
The tribe was forced from those villages in the mid 1800s. But not without a fight, which would become the Puget Sound War and the Medicine Creek Treaty War.
"Our ancestors, actually, in order to get recognized, in order for their concerns to be heard, they went to war," said KingGeorge. "This group didn't want to relocate, we wanted to maintain close to the river systems, the water systems that we call home. So, that's how Muckleshoot Reservation was created."
You can visit the remains of one of those river systems in Fort Dent Park in Tukwila.
"I'm looking at what's left of one of one of our ancestral river systems, what's now called the Black River. It's a fraction of what it once was," said KingGeorge from a pedestrian bridge that spans the confluence of the historic White River and the Black River. The Black River was once Lake Washington's main drainage, connecting the south end of the lake to the Duwamish.
"There were at least a dozen villages located along the Black River," he said.
Now it's nearly gone - most of it ran dry when the Ballard Locks were built in 1917, dropping Lake Washington's waters 9 feet, and now it's an approximately two mile long drainage that starts and ends in Tukwila. KingGeorge points out signs of persistent life nonetheless - a kingfisher skims the water's surface, and hawks cry out from branches above the river.
"Take a look at this river system and admire how it has survived these tragic and really powerful changes," KingGeorge said.
Whether it's a long lost river - or a favorite beach, knowing a places story helps us see it more clearly.
"The way my teachers explained it, don't forget who you are and where you came from," said KingGeorge. "The roots of our ancestry go really deep into this Puget Sound area. So, you know, just picking us up and relocating us to a reservation is not going to erase our ties to this to these special places."
Sponsored by The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.
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