Around the Northwest
Page 10 Spilyay Tymoo March 4, 2004
MIPS?
Dam proposal includes no fish passage Museum exhibit features
early neaitn care remedies
KLAMATH FALLS (AP) -PacifiCorp
announced it has submit
ted its application to relicense a series
of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath
River.
The application, which now goes
through a year-long review process,
does not include any modifications to
allow salmon to return to the upper
Klamath Basin, blocked since the first
dam was built in 1917.
A wide range of interests, including
Indian tribes, commercial and sport
City joins
land use
board appeal
LA GRANDE (AP) - The city of
Joseph is joining a state Land Use
Board appeal of a recent decision by
Wallowa County commissioners to ap
prove a subdivision near the grave site
of Old Chief Joseph.
The land slated for development is
considered culturally significant by the
Nez Perce and other Northwest Indian
tribes, which have already appealed the
decision to the state board.
Five Joseph city counselors voted
to appeal, with one, Jennifer Ballard,
casting a dissenting vote.
Ballard, who is also a county plan
ning commissioner, said that an appeal
would be a waste of taxpayer's money
because the tribes and other groups are
already appealing.
The Nez Perce are also asking Con
gress for the funding to purchase the
site, an effort the city endorsed Tues
day night.
Developers had the property ap
praised at $1.6 million in 2002. The
National Park Service had it appraised
at $850,000 in 2003.
The Trust for Public Land offered
to buy the land for $1.2 million in De
cember. That was, refused, and no
counter offer was made,, said Geoff. ,
Whiting, one of the attorneys for the
tribe.
fishermen, environmentalists, and state
agencies would like to see the scries of
dams and powerhouses removed or
altered, to restore salmon to 300 miles
of river upstream.
PacifiCorp licensing project manager
Todd Olson said it would cost about
$100 million to install new fish ladders
and fish screens.
So far, computer modeling suggests
Chinook salmon could not establish a
sustainable population within the
project area if those changes are made.
The model has not yet been equipped
to look at restoring salmon upstream
of the dams. Glen Spain, of the Pa
cific Coast Federation of Fishermen's
Associations, said they hoped the Fed
eral Energy Regulatory Commission
will require PacifiCorp to restore fish
passage, so that what was once the third
largest salmon producing basin on the
West Coast can once again flourish.
The six dams stretch along 45 miles
of river, from Klamath Falls to below
the California border.
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Gene Sampson was among the traditional dancers at the Madras
High School school assembly last week.
BEND (AP) - The newest exhibit
at The High Desert Museum hits you
like a double dose of ether.
"Strong Medicine: A Century of
High Desert Remedies" is a fascinat
ing glimpse into the way the region's
residents - from Native peoples to trail
blazing newcomers - handled health
care in a vast country where physicians
were rare if not completely unheard
of.
Methods were ingenious and inven
tive. But the one thing that's likely to
strike even the most callous observer
is how far modern medicine has come.
"There's a good number of things
that will make people glad they've
availed themselves of 20th century
medicine," said Bob Boyd, the
museum's curator of western history.
"Strong Medicine" is scheduled to
remain on display in the Brooks Gal
lery through September.
According to Boyd, the people of
the High Desert have long been chal
lenged by impossible distance, harsh
climate and limited resources in deal
ing with injury and illness.
"Whatever their culture or occupa
tion, all spent anxious hours at the birth
of a child or felt terror and helpless
ness ii the face of diseases they did
not understand," Boyd wrote in the
exhibit catalog. "They fought off panic
when fighting to save the life of a friend
or loved one trauma tically injured in
their hazardous world of animals, wag
ons and farm equipment, firearms and
industrial machinery."
As usual, The High Desert Museum
has assembled a fascinating cast of
characters as well as an array of illus
trations and vintage paraphernalia to
tell the story.
There are the Native shamans, the
frontier physicians and the Chinese folk
medicine practitioners.
And there are crude scalpels and pill
boxes and hypodermic kits. There's
even a hideous-looking tooth extractor
in the collection. A skull-boring instru
ment. A hand-cranked electroshock
device. A Lewis and Clark era medi
cine chest.
The exhibit begins at the beginning,
with the indigenous people of the I ligh
Desert who used the region's hot
springs, arid climate and native plants
to their benefit.
It moves to the explorers who bor
rowed from Indian wisdom and
brought along some of their own.
The emigrant families faced much
hardship.
"You had to be able to take care of
yourself for the better part of a year,"
said Boyd.
The exhibit also shines a light on
miners and woodsmen, soldiers and
settlers.
According to Boyd, there were sol
diers in the High Desert who lost their
teeth and bled profusely from scurvy.
Early on, people found out how tough
it was to raise vegetables in this climate.
Later, traveling doctors such as Dr.
George Kellogg of Nampa, Idaho,
ranged across the vast desert treating
the homesteaders.
In his travels around the dawn of
the 20th century, Kellogg would notify
the phone company when he came
across downed lines. In appreciation,
the phone company provided him with
a repair kit, climbers and a field phone.
That allowed him to scramble up the
pole, tap in to the line and keep up with
medical emergencies.
According to Boyd, "Strong Medi
cine" tells the story of how the distances
and landscapes of the High Desert cre
ated a distinctive form of medicine
which still remains. It is characterized
by both self-reliance and the willingness
to borrow from one's neighbor whom
ever that may be.
One of the last speakers of tribal language dies
Students celebrate
coastal canoe culture
SEATTLE (AP) - A Haida war ca
noe, built over the past three years by
youngsters at Alternative School No.
1, was water-tested last week in choppy
waters off Golden Gardens Park in
Puget Sound.
"Not only did it float beautifully but
it paddled so well, even with the wind
and the waves," said Ron Snyder, prin
cipal of the school for students from
kindergarten to eighth grade.
About 150 current AS1 students
turned out for the launching on the
blustery beach, Snyder said, along with
former AS1 students who've gone on
to middle school and members of tribes
including the Haida and Tlingit of
Alaska and the Duwamish and
Snohomish of Washington state.
The 40-foot red-cedar canoe
"Ocean Spirit" was carved with assis
tance from Haida carver Robert
"Saaduuts" Peele.
"He's our master carver," Snyder
said. "He led the journey."
It is decorated with four 10-foot
black-and-copper-leaf eagles, two at the
bow and two at the stern.
"They're magnificent," Snyder said
proudly.
The inside is painted red and cov
ered with golden-paint handprints from
the children who helped build it and .
carved its 15 paddles.
This month, the canoe will be flown
to Hydaburg, on Alaska's Prince of
Wales Island, and given to the Haida
people.
More than two dozen AS1 students
will fly up April 3 to participate, bring
ing hundreds of beaded bracelets and
other handmade gifts, Snyder said.
The project celebrates "the canoe
culture all up and down the coast, from
here to Alaska," Snyder said.
"Children have always been able to
make changes adults can't figure out,"
he said, so the decision was made "to
use the canoe as a transition vehicle to
bond the Haida people to the AS1 fami
lies here in Seattle."
DESMET, Idaho (AP) - It was that
rare morning of full winter sun. Its rays
beamed upon the cemetery here, light
ing up the frost crystals that sheathed
every needle bristling off the clustered
pines.
This place, the priest said during the
funeral Mass, "is an ancient place of
prayer where Felicity and her people
gathered at sacred times."
He may not have meant this exact
spot where the family and friends of
Felicity Joan Adams, known as "Ply,"
gathered on a soft carpet of snow and
pine needles to lay her body to rest
among the people of the Coeur d'Alene
Indians.
But this place and this time were
indeed sacred, in a strictly personal way,
as Ply Adams came home at age 65
accompanied by Roman Catholic
prayers, an honor song in Salish and a
smudging with smoke from grasses,
herbs and roots spread with an eagle
feather.
Ply Adams was not famous, or some
sort of VIP in the official workings of
the tribe. But her passing is an impor
tant marker in a timeline.
She was among the last of her
people who grew up speaking Coeur
d'Alene and Spokane, two dialects of
interior Salish, as her native language.
Language, of course, carries more
than words. It is weighted with a sense
of place, history, identity.
And this "ancient place of prayer"
became, on a sun-warmed morning, an
intersection of the sometimes compli
cated bundle of identity threads that
tell what it means to be Schitsu'umsh,
Catholic and American all at the same
time.
Right here, where the edge of the
Palouse crashes against a steeper, more
forested landscape like waves upon a
shore. Right here, where mourners
tossed handfuls of earth upon her
wooden casket as the honor song
pierced the stillness.
Right here, not far from U.S. High
way 95, and "smokeshop" tribal to
bacco stores and the shuttered ghost
of the old brick boarding school where
Indian kids like Ply Adams had their
hair cut and their native language sup
pressed. Sometimes words cannot express
the losses, the layering of realities, the
determination to keep living.
"She was one of the few in her gen
eration to keep speaking the language.'
The church wouldn't allow it," said
Marlene Justice, one of Ply Adams'
daughters. Being forced to speak only
English "was part of the assimilation
into the culture."
But right away, there are layers upon
layers.
Justice found comfort in the rituals
of the Catholic funeral service. And
she found comfort in more indigenous
rituals - a recorded wooden flute
melody by musician and tribal, mem
ber Loren Swan, the smudging by tribal
elder Noel Campbell, the honor song
and drum by tribal member David
Stanger.
"She was one of the few in
her generation to keep speak
ing the language. The church
wouldn't allow it."
Marlene Justice
"I remembered all the funerals I
attended for people in the tribe, and
how rich our culture is and how im
portant it is to teach that to our chil
dren," Justice said. "And going through
the Mass gave me a sense of security.
The words were so familiar."
As a child. Ply Adams would have
known the older place names for the
forested ridges and buttes that pitch up
out of the open Palouse around
Desmet.
She was raised by her grandparents,
Stanislaw and Mary Aripa. From her
grandfather, she learned Coeur d'Alene.
From her grandmother, she learned
Spokane.
Stanislaw Aripa was one of the first
Coeur d'Alenes to learn English. He
accompanied tribal leaders such as
Andrew Seltice and Peter Moctelme to
Washington, D.C., to interpret during
negotiations with the United States Con
gress.
But at the meal following the funeral,
a number of people said they felt a
powerful sense of a circle closing when
Stanislaw Aripa's voice was heard dur
ing a rosary for Ply,
A precious tape-recording was
played, the recorder placed at Ply
Adams' open casket.
But Stanislaw Aripa was not talking
in English. He was praying. He was
praying in Coeur d'Alene,
, "To me, when I heard my father say
those prayers ..." tribal elder Felix Aripa,
Ply's uncle, said, "it seemed like it was
coming from the heart. She grew up
with the language, and to hear that mi
crophone by her casket last night it was
like her grandfather was there and pray
ing for her.
"If she were alive, she would have
understood the words," Aripa said. "It
was kind of like a pep talk to all of
us."
A reminder to remember where you
are, who you are, in your own words.
Despite everything.
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