'Boomtown' sparkles with insight into fireworks trade, life on the rez

As a boy growing up on Bainbridge Island, Bryan Gunnar Cole celebrated July Fourth on the Port Madison Indian Reservation.

Now as an adult, he's returned to the Suquamish tribe's "checkerboard reservation" — where half the land now belongs to non-Indians — to film "Boomtown," a documentary about pyrotechnics, Indian economics, politics and community.

"Boomtown," which airs nationally on PBS tonight, is like "Indian Country 101," said Cole. That's because the right to sell fireworks — like the right to operate casinos — is the result of treaties with the federal government.

"What I hope is that people, non-Indians, will take a second the next time they go through a reservation and realize this place may have a different idea about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Cole said from his home in New York City. "Then maybe we can have a dialogue, a discussion, of those differences."

People from all over Puget Sound make the annual journey to Port Madison to buy fireworks that aren't legal off the rez. In the film's opening sequence, ferries arrive from Seattle and spit out cars that make their way across the Agate Passage Bridge to Suquamish. There, you can get "just about any pyrotechnic you desire," according to narrator Chebon Tiger, a Seminole and Creek Indian.

"In this corner of Indian Country," Tiger continues, "it's not called 'the Fourth of July.' It's called Fireworks Season."

Every Independence Day, the waterfront village of Suquamish explodes. It's like a block party in a war zone. But the irony of celebrating this country's independence isn't lost on tribal members who can't help but read history as a litany of displacement, broken treaties and cultural destruction.

Still, Bennie Armstrong — Suquamish tribal chairman and a longtime fireworks-stand operator — points out that Indians have fought in every armed conflict since World War I. As a whole, Indians have a greater percentage of veterans than any other ethnic group, he said.

"We've given our people in World War II, Vietnam and every other war theater," Armstrong said in an interview. "We come home to the highest rates of suicide, infant mortality, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence. All those social ills are magnified in Indian Country."

Through "Boomtown," Cole gives a suprisingly intimate view of contemporary life on the reservation, where fireworks sales play an important role in the local economy. The film features a first-time stand owner who mortgages her house to buy a stock of fireworks, and a veteran seller for whom fireworks make up for an income gap between salmon runs. Another couple use income from their stand to start a Baptist church on the reservation. Most of the community's youth land their first summer jobs working the stands and dream of running their own booths someday.

But selling fireworks — for the Suquamish and 25 other federally recognized tribes in Washington state — is more than a way to make money.

"The sale of fireworks in Indian Country tells everyone we're a federal jurisdiction," said Armstrong. "We, as tribal governments, set our own rules and regulations that sometimes don't mirror the non-Indian jurisdictions."

While most fireworks are banned elsewhere, you can legally ignite such items as Great Grizzly Crackling Bombs, Dixie Whistlers and Whistling Color Cuckos on Indian territory.

"We sell fireworks and provide a place to shoot 'em off. I tell all my customers, c'mon people, use common sense," said Armstrong. "If you're going to take 'em someplace illegal, well, that's your business."

Armstrong, who viewed "Boomtown" at a special screening on the Suquamish reservation last month, said the film paints a realistic picture of fireworks season in the Northwest.

"I like the way 'Boomtown' came out," he said. "It was a documentary in the sense we trusted the filmmaker to portray our stories in an honest and true way without being exploitive."

Cole, whose film won a best-documentary award at the Land In Sights First Peoples Film and Video Festival in Montreal two weeks ago, said "Boomtown" is already being embraced by Indians and non-Indians alike.

"The film is about two sides of the same coin," he said. "I think Indian Country is bursting with incredible stories that are new and untold."

And he hopes the film can help smooth the way to a greater understanding of Indian rights.

"There's a lot of racism in Western Washington that people just don't talk about," Cole said. "Growing up there, I know — it's there and it's thick."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com.