Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-Whit-Zen Village, and: People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish (review)

Fish are big news these days. Lots of species we have depended on for centuries are going extinct. (Anyone without one of those little guides telling which species are adequately abundant can find a "safe-to-eat" card to download.) These two studies focus on people who go down to the ocean, rivers, and lakes to harvest fish. As both books reveal, coastal resources were once incredibly abundant and sustainable. Both studies likewise elucidate recent problems of piscatorial subsistence, and oral history is crucial to telling these stories.

Although both of these studies may seem narrowly focused and of only regional interest, each has wide-ranging implications for environmental policy and oral history. Lynda Mapes' Breaking Ground may be of greater interest for oral history research because it shows how vitally important interview methodology can be in economic life. In addition, the simple outcome of conflict described in Mapes' narrative is supported with a thorough regional history and chronology of the issue written by a master journalist who had covered this conflict for the Seattle Times. Her book is ideal for a seminar on oral history methodology and public policy.

How can failure to consult oral history derail massive construction? Because the Washington state government did not consult the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe's oral history of its existence on the Pacific coast, the state lost some $60 million it had spent on building and then ripping out a drydock being constructed in the city of Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. This issue of access to and support for archives is a poignant example of the critical importance of applied oral history, and it may make Mapes' study a classic. A simple explanation for the conflict seems to be that the state's archaeologist contacted mainly the tribal government, most of whom were a younger generation and knew little about the proposed construction site. The young leaders had not read their tribe's existing interviews and were under pressure to create local economic development. Surviving tribal elders also were not consulted. After the necessary archaeological approvals were granted and construction began, burials and bodily remains began appearing in backhoe buckets. As can be imagined, the issue quickly became emotionally heated:

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell decided to drive out to the dry dock site to see for herself what was going on. She came along, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, dressed in jeans and a sweater. She walked the beach line where tribal members were finding so many of their ancestors.

"It was incredible from my perspective," said Cantwell, who, uninvolved in the project until that point, brought a fresh eye to the situation . . . . "Who among us would go and dig up their relatives? I thought all the options had to be put on the table and explored. There is more there at that site than anyone imagined, and we have to explore all the options to deal with that. And this is just going to continue to be a more expensive proposition"

(185).

Contributing to conflict was the unresolved status of the First People in the region, the Klallam tribe of the Lower Elwha River, which flows into the Pacific at Port Angeles. Much of the tribe was wiped out shortly after contact in the nineteenth century by smallpox. The remaining members were gradually pushed aside by industrial development so that only about 750 members remained as of the year 2000. Many Klallam villages had once dotted the coast to utilize the region's salmon. One of the world's largest sawmills had been built in 1913 on...