Proclamation for Black History Month
Suquamish Tribal Council
February 2022

The Suquamish Tribal Council is seeking applications from Tribal members for appointment to Executive Boards and Commissions positions that expire on December 31, 2021.

Appointments are for three-year terms. Board members are paid stipends as allowed by charter or ordinance.

Normally, Tribal members would have had an opportunity to sign up to serve on boards and commissions during the General Council meeting in March. As a result of the drive-thru General Council meeting, and the ongoing pandemic, the applications process has shifted online.

To apply for an appointment or re-appointment to any of the following boards and commissions, please complete the form below.

In addition to the form, you may submit letters of interest to Rebecca Purser, Tribal Council Executive Assistant, by mail at PO Box 498, Suquamish WA 98392, or by email to [email protected]. The online form plus any supporting material must be submitted by the end of business on December 6, 2021.

If you currently hold one of these positions and would like to apply for another term, please complete the same process.

All Tribal members who submit an application will automatically be submitted for consideration. Decisions will be made by the end of December 2021 and announced at the last scheduled Tribal Council meeting of 2021.

There are some exciting events going on at the ʔiišədalʔtxʷ ʔə ti suq̓ʷabš (Suquamish Family and Friends Center) over the next few weeks.

Here’s a quick round-up: 

• Father’s Day Keychain Class – This online class continues on Tuesday, June 8 AND 15 at 6:30pm.  Kits are still available for distribution. Call or email to request a kit. (Details for the online class are in the kits.)
• Tween Self Care Kit Distribution —  This is for youth ages 10-12, on Wednesday, June 9, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.  Call or email to sign up for a kit.
• Port Madison Eats: PMEats Facebook Live BIG FOOT’S HOMEMADE PIE cooking demonstration on Thursday, June 10, at 4pm.  Kit distribution is Wednesday, June 9, from 11am to 1pm. Call or email to sign up for a kit. Post a picture of your HOMEMADE PIE on our Facebook page with the hashtag #PMEats by Thursday, June 17, to be entered into a prize drawing.
• Family and Friends Center Survey–The ʔiišədalʔtxʷ ʔə ti suq̓ʷabš (Suquamish Family and Friends Center) Needs and Facility Assessment Survey is still open for your input. This survey is intended for Tribal Members and Tribal Member Households to provide their valuable feedback. Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey to help us gain a better understanding of what activities and programs are of interest to you. This helps us plan seasonal activities that YOU want to do. By completing this survey you will also help to identify ways in which we might improve and expand our facility to better meet the needs of the youth in the community. Your opinion is valued by our department, so please be honest and share with us what you think.  CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY Thank you!

Please call (360) 394-8576 or email [email protected] to request a kit or to get clarification on Family and Friend Center activities.

The following op-ed by Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman appeared in the Seattle Times and Kitsap Sun as part of Earth Day 2021.

We are approaching an Earth Day like no other, as dangers posed by environmental emergencies have never been clearer.  Opportunities to address these multiple crises have never been more available than they are today.

I am from Suquamish, dxwsəq’wəb, the Place of the Clear Salt Water – a place where, too often, sewage and oil spills from other parts of Puget Sound have washed up on our shores.

We have lived here for thousands of years, relying on salmon, shellfish and other traditional foods to support our way of life. Now our foods are scarce as climate change heats the water, spawning habitat is destroyed or made inaccessible to returning salmon, and toxins make shellfish unharvestable.

The 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, signed by our ancestral leader Chief Seattle, established the Port Madison Indian Reservation (where we continue to reside today) and guaranteed our right to fish and hunt in our “usual and accustomed” areas.  Despite the promises made in the treaties, federal land policies resulted in the loss of most of our lands.  Our grandparents were forcibly taken as children to residential schools, where they were punished for practicing our culture and speaking our language. And pollution, habitat destruction, and overfishing diminished our traditional foods and assaulted our ways of life.

Chief Seattle, showed in his famous speech that he understood we faced the possibility of an end to our peoples and ways of life — and that non-Natives could suffer a similar fate:

“A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain. … Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come. …  We may be brothers after all. We will see.”

The threats are real.  Global warming is causing more frequent droughts, wildfires, and storms that endanger the web of life.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, the waters are becoming warmer and more acidic, threatening the ecological web that supports salmon, orca, and our ways of life as Native peoples. Rising sea level and coastal erosion force coastal tribes to relocate. As conditions in other regions worsen, we can expect more people to move here, creating more impacts from desperate climate refugees.

We, the seventh generation since Chief Seattle, survived great transitions thanks to the foresight and sacrifices of our ancestral leaders. Our resilience has lessons that others could learn from. Among them, is the principle of making decisions based on caring for the earth and its residents including the marine creatures, animals, plants, and ourselves.

This principle is a direct challenge to the short-term thinking of today’s world.

Acting on behalf of seven generations means we invest now in cleaning up Puget Sound and restoring salmon habitat, while protecting the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. It means rebuilding obsolete sewer infrastructure so spills don’t contaminate our waters and marine life, and it requires that we replace or remove culverts that block fertile salmon spawning streams. It means breaching the Snake River dams that will otherwise condemn to extinction salmon species that have, since time immemorial, fought their way through thousands of miles of ocean and river systems to faithfully return to spawn.

And protecting seven generations means confronting the climate crisis, which threatens us all. This means a commitment to act in the fierce urgency of now, as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr said.

As the people living seven generations after Chief Seattle, let our generation make good use of the gifts we have inherited from our ancestors to assure future generations will also have the gift of life to pass along to their children.

Leonard Forsman is chair of the Suquamish Tribe and president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians.