Sharing the Lake

Another glorious fall day…H and I went for a row (in a boat , with oars! :-) and decided to go into Lake Union today, not realizing that the Indians had put out their gill nets yesterday for the week. Surprise. We almost, not quite, ran into this one! There is a light on the end as well as a red buoy...

So - a lead in to a little history:
For more than 5,000 years before the coming of the white settlers, native americans (Coast Salish, here )of the Duwamish tribe lived lightly on the shores of Lake Union In their native language, Lushootseed, it was called “littlest Lake.” (the “big” Lake Washington was to the east.) They lived in longhouses next to streams that flowed into the lake from the surrounding hills or out into Puget sound and caught Salmon and other fish, using traps and nets. In 1854 and 55, the United States entered into a series of treaties with the Western Washington Indians to “insure peace and prosperity “ for the growing population of settlers. In each treaty the tribes expressly reserved the right to fish at “all usual and accustomed grounds and stations ….in common with citizens of the territory." Ever since, there has been confusion and controversy over these fishing rights of treaty and non treaty fishermen. The tribes were known as fish eaters and the common cultural link between all signatory tribes was their dependence on fish. In 1911 and completed in 1934, a canal was built that connected Lake Washington to the East with Puget Sound to the west. There is a fish ladder at the locks and the salmon still return to the lake and then to the streams where they spawned. So every fall around this time, the Indians are here with their nets. There have been several legal decisions affording the natives a percentage of all the fish on their original fishing grounds....see HERE if you want details...

There were several nets,, you can barely see one in back of this one, also, many boats and wakes and a bit of wind came up so we turned around at some point—but it was still pleasant out on the water with perfect temperatures.

Hard to picture from this city view how it looked 200 years ago with vegetation and a few longhouses.....