Shoalwater Bay Indians take charge of changing past
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TOKELAND, Pacific County — Coree Harris is a third-grader, not an architect. But her first comment upon stepping into the gymnasium under construction here showed a professional's insight.
"It's a lot bigger inside than it is outside," said the 9-year-old member of the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe. Indeed, from the outside, the building's gray sides blend into another foggy, drizzly winter day; its depth is hard to assess.
Inside, the space awaiting basketball hoops, bleachers and workout equipment appears cavernous: 120 feet long, 80 feet wide and tall enough to accommodate a buzzer-beating shot from half-court.
In a way, though, the building's most important dimension can't be measured in feet, but in plans and dreams this community has nurtured longer than young Coree has been alive.
"We've never had anything like this," said Herbert "Ike" Whitish, tribal chairman since 1990. "But we've needed it for a long time."
The 205-member tribe, one of the smallest in the state, is no stranger to difficulties, including high unemployment, depression, substance abuse and an infant-mortality rate that skyrocketed in the late 1980s.
But 2002, thanks in part to an infusion of money, is shaping up as a year of positive choices and positive chances for the tribe on this soggy, 1.6-square-mile reservation on the northern shore of Willapa Bay.
Projects in the works include:
• The $500,000 Recreation Center, including a regulation high-school basketball gym, plus extra space and a loft for physical-fitness equipment and classes. Target opening: this summer.
• A $365,000 Learning Center with a computer lab, activity room and library. Target opening: this fall.
• A $2 million Wellness Center, including a clinic, classroom, health-education program and services drawn from conventional medicine and other healing arts. The center will more than double the space now available for health-related programs. Target opening: late 2002 or early 2003.
• Five single-family homes and two duplexes being built near tribal headquarters just off Highway 105 about 20 miles south of Westport.
Whitish puts the tribe's situation in historical perspective. Though the area was designated as the Shoalwater Bay Reservation by President Andrew Johnson in 1866, the nomadic, independent people were reluctant to comply with federal rules that called on tribes to replace their ruling chiefs with what Whitish calls a "European-style" government.
Federal recognition didn't come until the early 1970s and, with it, the opportunity to apply for government funds.
For years, most news reports about the tribe centered on the high infant-mortality rate, for which no single cause was ever found.
At the peak of the crisis in 1988, nearly two-thirds of pregnancies ended either in a miscarriage or the death of the baby within a year of birth. By 1998, that had dropped to 25 percent, still a concern that tribal members address through education, care and attention.
"We consider every pregnancy an at-risk pregnancy and try to help the mother as much as we can," Whitish said.
Coupled with the infant-mortality problem is the fact that Native Americans historically have had a higher-than-average incidence of many health problems, from diabetes to depression to alcoholism to digestive problems to suicide.
The new facilities and the programs they will house are geared to tribal members of all ages. Programs for breast- and cervical-cancer awareness, and classes to help diabetics care for themselves are examples of programs that will move into the Wellness Center.
Government grants have provided crucial funding for the tribe's projects, but gifts from tribes with successful gambling operations also have helped. Though the Shoalwaters' small casino created about 40 jobs, its modest revenue has barely offset expenses.
One out-of-state tribe that wishes to remain unnamed gave $90,000 to the Shoalwaters' efforts, while the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, operators of a thriving Auburn casino, donated $15,000 for sports and workout equipment.
The recreation center's dominant feature will be the basketball court, with a dramatic red floor framed in black.
The space also can be used for volleyball, pingpong, badminton and other sports, and an extra side room, plus a loft along one end of the building, is perfect for workout equipment or exercise classes.
"It will be nice, but not luxurious. Very functional," said Carolyn St. James, the tribe's projects planner. The facility also could host teen dances and multitribe events, recalling the days coastal tribes used to refer to this area as "the gathering place."
Whitish said tribal leaders don't want to dictate precisely what activities take place in the gym. Those decisions, he hopes, will come from the tribal members themselves.
"As much as we can, we'd like this to be a community-building process," he said. Already, some tribal members have volunteered to coach basketball or teach other athletic skills.
The question of whether nontribal residents will be allowed to use the facility is also one tribal leaders want the community to answer. But Whitish said the tribe has a history of sharing, noting that the library and Wellness Center will be open to the public.
In an area with twice the annual rainfall of Seattle, outdoor activities aren't much of a draw for youngsters during the often-stormy winter, and there are virtually no indoor-recreation facilities nearby. Children here are bused to school in Westport.
Progress on the current projects hasn't come without problems. The small reservation has a high percentage of wetlands with limited building sites.
Contaminated soil on the gymnasium site had to be removed. And the tribe's small population often puts it far down the line when grants are doled out.
Nonetheless, Whitish said residents are determined not to be victims of past misfortune, but rather to shape a better future. "We're trying to change the focus of things we do on the reservation," Whitish said. "We're working on creating a healthy environment, a healthy people."
Jack Broom can be reached at 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com.