Tag Archives: Pacific Northwest

From Haida Gwaii to the Chicago World’s Fair and Beyond: Excerpt from ‘Skidegate House Models’

Based on over twenty years of collaborative research with the Skidegate Haida community, Skidegate House Models by Robin K. Wright features vital cultural context on the Skidegate model village carved by Haida artists for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. While promoters of the Chicago World’s Fair used the village to celebrate the perceived “progress” of the dominant society, for Skidegate residents it provided a means to preserve their history and culture.

After the exposition, the models went to the Field Museum of Natural History and many were dispersed from there to other collections, but fourteen of the model houses have not yet been located. The book provides extensive archival information and photographs that contextualize the model village and might help locate the missing houses while offering valuable insights into Northwest Coast art history. The following is an excerpt.

From the Foreword by Jisgang, Nika Collison

My name is Jisgang, I belong to the Ḵaay’ahl Laanas clan. Gaahlaay is my chief. My mother is Gid Ḵuuyas, my father was Skilay. I grew up in HlG̱aagilda Llnagaay Skidegate Village. I am one of the last generations to receive the smallpox vaccine. I was five or six when I got it. My mom explained the shot would really hurt, and probably scar a lot, showing me hers. She explained why I needed it. That is how I learned my village should have been much bigger than it was.

In 1862 colonizers purposefully introduced smallpox to the Northwest Coast, killing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people and almost annihilating some Nations, including the Haida.1 Survivors in northern Haida Gwaii migrated to G̱aw Tlagée Old Massett in order to survive. Chief Skidegate welcomed southern survivors into the village of HlG̱aagilda. Haawa Kilslaay, sah uu dang G̱iida. Before the smallpox epidemic we had successfully kept colonists from our territories. In 1867 the colonial state of Canada was formed, with assigned authority over “Indians and Lands reserved for Indians.”2 In 1876, Canada legislated the Indian Act, which was so effective it informed parts of Apartheid. The year 1876 is also the year missionaries arrived on Haida Gwaii. They shamed and prohibited our ways, often forcing the destruction, sale, or handing-over of our belongings. Desecration of our Ancestors’ graves would soon follow “in the name of science.” Around 1883, Canada and the Church joined forces to create the horrific Indian Residential School System, which operated for more than one hundred years. In 1884, Canada legislated the Potlatch Ban, which criminalized the legal system of the Northwest Coast from 1885 to 1951. Offenders faced seizure of belongings and up to six months in jail. A final mass exodus of our Ancestors’ belongings and funerary remains would follow.

HlG̱aagilda Llnagaay, 1878. Photograph by George M. Dawson. Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History, neg. no. PA-37756.

In other words, we were thirty years into the genocide of the Northwest Coast when James Deans traveled to Skidegate to commission a model village for the Chicago World’s Fair. [Robin K.] Wright notes that when Deans arrived, there were only about eleven poles and three longhouses still standing in Skidegate (families were largely living in colonial-style homes). Fourteen years prior, almost eighty poles of varying purpose stood in Skidegate. Deans directed artists to use an early photo of Skidegate to create their replicas. The end result was a massive model village that, while commissioned during times of duress, was built on our peoples’ own terms. It was sent to the World’s Fair along with a large collection of our peoples’ belongings, including a real-life pole, house, and canoe. When the fair ended, the village and greater collection were split up and dispersed willy-nilly around the world, far away from Haida Gwaii.

Our Ancestors did everything they could to preserve our Haida-ness. Each subsequent generation has been dedicated to the same. For decades we have been piecing ourselves, our clans, and our villages back together the same way Dr. Wright pieced the Skidegate House models back together.

Jisgang, Nika Collison

About 120 years later, Dr. Robin Wright started to piece the village model back together. For more than twenty years she searched the globe tracking down the model houses and poles; scoured archives to sort out the work of early anthropologists, photographers, missionaries, government agents, and museums; and worked with our people to sort these findings out further, along with working on Haida language, genealogies, privileges, and histories. The findings were woven together into this precious book. In piecing back together as much of our model village as she could, Dr. Robin Wright has not only created a fascinating body of critical research, she has assisted our Nation in our greater plight: piecing ourselves back together.

Model of HlG̱aagilda Llnagaay, Skidegate village, installed in the Anthropology Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893. Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 93-1-10/100266.1.39.

Several years ago, I was listening to a radio program on strategies of war and the annihilation of a people. In addition to destroying lives, destroying heritage was a critical tactic. Shatter identity so that the survivors don’t know who they are, where they come from, or their place in the world. I was born in 1971. The population of Skidegate numbered fewer than three hundred people. Growing up, we were called “Indians” and our home, the “Queen Charlotte Islands.” I lived with my grandparents behind the only pole left standing in our village.3 Part of my family lived “off reserve” and part off island, disenfranchised from their community through colonial regimes. Haida was rarely spoken, if at all. The were no masks, dance blankets, songs, or dancing. I didn’t have a proper name. Many didn’t. It was all silenced—hidden away in minds, archives, museums, and behind closed doors.

That was for the first few years of my life. I also grew up during a time of great cultural and political revitalization. Despite massive population loss and colonial regimes, our Ancestors preserved as much Haida knowledge as possible by employing subversive tactics and by working with anthropologists and other foreigners to record our knowledge. We started coming back out through the art, through the poles. I was seven when I witnessed the first pole to be raised in Skidegate Village in almost one hundred years, the Skidegate Dogfish Pole. Carved by my chinaay grandfather Iljuwas Bill Reid, the pole was raised in 1978, in front of the first longhouse to be built in Skidegate since the late 1800s, with a great community potlatch.4 A similar event had happened nine years earlier in the village of Old Massett, when Robert Davidson gifted his community a pole to raise. These events awakened much more than I think either artist anticipated.

My children are Haida, not Indians. They live on an archipelago called Haida Gwaii. The population of Skidegate is nine hundred strong, and more than five thousand as a Nation. My children have proper names, given in potlatch. They have attended many pole raisings in their lifetime, wearing their regalia. They are learning and growing up in the art, the language, the culture, the land and water. They are learning their family ties and their clan and nation histories. They were Haida singing and dancing in the womb.

House Model No. 5, Sgyam Sgwaan Naas, “Sparrow Hawk House,” made by Adam Brown, 1892. Courtesy of the Field Museum, cat. no. 17816. Photograph by Gail Specht.
House Model No. “2” really No. 21, Naa
Gudgiikyagangs, “People call to each other
in it,” 1892, made by Niislant, John Cross,
110 cm × 11 cm × 13 cm. Courtesy of the
Field Museum, cat. no. 17802. Photograph
by Gail Specht.

Today there are sixteen poles of varying purpose standing throughout Skidegate.5 My clan is readied for a memorial pole-raising in September 2022, and by the end of 2023, four new carved house posts will be standing at Xaaynang.nga Naay, the Skidegate Health Centre. There are nineteen poles in G̱aw Tlagée Old Massett, the most recent being raised in August 2022, marked by a two-day potlatch hosted by Christian and Candace White (Yahgu Jaanas/Laanas clan) in Old Massett. And more recently, in October 2022, a memorial pole was raised for Tlajang nang kingaas, Benjamin Ray Davidson.

We might be a far cry from eighty poles standing in Skidegate alone, but we are also a far cry from one pole left standing. Our Ancestors did everything they could to preserve our Haida-ness. Each subsequent generation has been dedicated to the same. For decades we have been piecing ourselves, our clans, and our villages back together the same way Dr. Wright pieced the Skidegate House models back together.

Like Dr. Wright’s restoring of our model village, the restoration of our world is not fully complete. Not everyone and everything has been located or gathered. There could even be a correction down the road. But we are still here—we are Haida—and we know our place in this world. My friend’s book is an important contribution to this journey. So many years of working with our people to bring critical stories together under one roof. So many names, clans, genealogies, houses, and poles reunited. When I hold this book, I am holding a part of myself, my family, our community, our Nation. When I hold this book, I am holding a part of our past, present, and future, all at the same time.

Haawa to my friend Robin for your respect, passion, and scholarship. Haawa to Haida Gwaii, our home. Haawa to the Ancestors, without your determination we would not be here as Haida. Haawa to our knowledge holders and scholars who scour their minds and the earth to gather the knowledge our Ancestors preserved. Haawa to the Supernatural, who help guide us in this work.

Notes

  1. Not just smallpox but also TB, measles, and other diseases. ↩︎
  2. BC joined in 1871. ↩︎
  3. It was raised ca. 1884 by David Shakespeare for his wife, Jane, of the Saang.ahl Staastas; see Skidegate House Models chapter 3, Model Pole No. 17, for more on that pole. ↩︎
  4. The Shakespeare and Dogfish poles stood side by side for almost a decade before the Shakespeare Pole fell in 1989. The Dogfish Pole was taken down for conservation in 2014. Both now live in the Haida Gwaii Museum. The Longhouse served as the Skidegate Band Council Headquarters through the mid-1990s. In 1998 it became the HlG̱aagilda Xaayda Kil Naay Skidegate Haida Language House, home to the Skidegtae Haida Immersion Program (SHIP). ↩︎
  5. Haida Heritage Centre-6, Cheexial-1, Lydia Wilson-1, Gah Yah-1, Skidegate-1, Sk’aadGa Naay-1, Niis Wes-1, Cumshewa-1, WiiGanad-1, Unity-1, Gidansda-1. ↩︎

Robin K. Wright is professor emerita of art history at the University of Washington, Seattle, and curator emerita of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Her award-winning books include A Time of Gathering and Northern Haida Master Carvers. Recent books include In the Spirit of the Ancestors (coedited with Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse) and Charles Edenshaw (coedited with Diana Augaitis).

Jisgang Nika Collison belongs to the Ḵaay’ahl Laanas of the Haida Nation. She is Executive Director and Curator of the Haida Gwaii Museum at Ḵay Llnagaay and has worked in the field of Haida language arts and culture for over two decades. Deeply committed to reconciliation, she is a senior repatriation negotiator for her Nation, pursuing reparation and relationships with mainstream museums on a global scale.

Upcoming Events

Author Robin K. Wright will share more about Skidegate House Models and her community-engaged research in conversation with Nika Collison at the following events:

  • Saturday, May 11, 2024, 7:00 pm PST at the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, B.C. Details here.
  • Tuesday, May 14, 2024, 7:00 pm PST at the Burke Museum in Seattle, WA. Register here.

Related Books

In the Spirit of the Ancestors cover

Celebrate Earth Month: Books in Environmental Studies

For Earth Month 2024, we invite you to explore environmental awareness, advocacy, and resilience through curated reading lists. Browse books in environmental studies below and don’t miss our past selection of books on the natural world with a focus on the Pacific Northwest.

Capturing Glaciers: A History of Repeat Photography and Global Warming
Photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. Historian Dani Inkpen explores the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change.

The Toxic Ship: The Voyage of the Khian Sea and the Global Waste Trade
Environmental historian Simone M. Müller uses the infamous voyage of the Khian Sea as a lens to elucidate the global trade in hazardous waste from the 1970s to the present day, exploring the story’s international nodes and detailing the downside of environmental conscientiousness among industrial nations as waste is pushed outward. Shedding light on environmental racism and justice, The Toxic Ship is “a deft philosophical and literary examination about what we throw away, where our discards go, who is harmed, and why” (Kerri Arsenault, author of Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains).

Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. Emerging from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity’s role within it.

Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California
Yurok scholar Kaitlin Reed situates the booming California cannabis industry—dubbed the “green rush”—within a broader legacy of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation in the state. Revealing the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies, Reed shares this history to inform the path toward an alternative future. Combining archival research with testimonies and interviews with tribal members, tribal employees, and settler state employees, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation that foregrounds Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories.

Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future
In this “eminently readable, elegantly precise treatise on the topic of batteries” (Science)—a finalist for the Cundill History Prize—James Morton Turner unpacks the history of batteries to explore why solving “the battery problem” is critical to a clean energy future. With new insight on the consequences for people and communities on the front lines, Turner draws on the past for crucial lessons that will help us build a just and clean energy future, from the ground up.

After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens
Eric Wagner takes readers on a fascinating journey of Mount St. Helens through the perspective of forest scientist Jerry Franklin, who helicoptered into the blast area a couple of weeks after the eruption. From fireweed to elk, the plants and animals Franklin saw in the blast area and beyond would not just change how ecologists approached the eruption and its landscape, but also prompt them to think in new ways about how life responds in the face of seemingly total devastation—a “superb look at scientists and science at work” (Publishers Weekly).

Fukushima Futures: Survival Stories in a Repeatedly Ruined Seascape
In this study of disaster, modernization, and fishing communities, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi examines the complex relationship between commercial fishing families and the Joban Sea—once known for premium-quality fish and now notorious as the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe. In response to unrelenting setbacks, fishing communities have developed survival strategies shaped by the precarity they share with their marine ecosystem. The collaborative resilience that emerges against this backdrop of vulnerability and uncertainty challenges the progress-bound logic of futurism, bringing more hopeful possibilities for the future into sharper focus.

The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish
With bountiful salmon and fertile plains, the Duwamish River has drawn people to its shores over the centuries for trading, transport, and sustenance. Unfortunately, the very utility of the river has been its undoing, as decades of dumping led to the river being declared a Superfund cleanup site. Using previously unpublished accounts by Indigenous people and settlers, BJ Cummings’s compelling narrative restores the river to its central place in Seattle and Pacific Northwest history. Writing from the perspective of environmental justice—and herself a key figure in river restoration efforts—Cummings vividly portrays the people and conflicts that shaped the region’s culture and natural environment and offers a call for action in aligning decisions about the river and its future with values of collaboration, respect, and justice.

Anticipating Future Environments: Climate Change, Adaptive Restoration, and the Columbia River Basin
Ecological restoration is often premised on the idea of returning a region to an earlier, healthier state. Yet the effects of climate change undercut that premise and challenge the ways scientists can work, destabilizing the idea of “normalcy” and revealing the politics that shape what scientists can do. Using the restoration efforts in the Columbia River Basin as a case study, UW research scientist Shana Lee Hirsch explores how climate change affects the daily work of scientists, and how a scientific field itself can adapt to climate change.

Hatched: Dispatches from the Backyard Chicken Movement
In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Gina G. Warren digs into the history and food politics of the backyard chicken movement, chronicling her own misadventures raising chickens and attempts at sustainable eating. The result is a fresh and charming story that also raises questions about sustainable farming, industrial agriculture, and our connections with the animals we love.

Celebrate Earth Month: Books on the Natural World

In recognition of Earth Month, we’re sharing books that will inspire you to go out and explore. With information on how to forage edible and medicinal plants, dig razor clams, create a garden of native plants, and more, these books offer a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world.

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon and
Between the Tides in California
These essential guides to exploring beaches and tidepools of the Pacific Coast feature full-color photographs, site profiles, fascinating stories of animal and plant species, and an accessible introduction to how coastal ecosystems work—perfect for beachgoers who want to know why.

Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City
Bestselling author and popular science writer David B. Williams will give you a new appreciation for how Seattle has changed over time, how the past has influenced the present, and how nature is all around us—even in our urban landscape. Ranging along trails and sidewalks, these guided walks lead to panoramic views, intimate hideaways, and beautiful greenways.

Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia
We’re hard-pressed to choose just one of horticulturalist and arboriculturist Collin Varner’s indispensable guides to the natural world of the Pacific Northwest, but this compact, full-color forager’s guide is a great place to start. The region is home to a multitude of edible and medicinal plant species, edible mushrooms, and marine plants, and this book offers clear photography, descriptions, safety tips, and warnings, as well as culinary and medicinal uses from Indigenous Peoples and settlers, for more than 150 wild-growing flora species.

Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest
Challenging to dig, delicious to eat, and providing a heady experience of abundance, razor clams are entwined with Washington state’s commerce, identity, and history. Author David Berger shares his love affair of the Pacific razor clam and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean, and cook them in this lively history and celebration of the Siliqua patula.

Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual
A classic since it was first published in1973, this tome covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia is the most comprehensive reference on Pacific Northwest vascular plants for professional and amateur botanists, ecologists, rare plant biologists, plant taxonomy instructors, land managers, nursery professionals, and gardeners—“a must for your home garden library” (Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin).

Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest abounds with native plants that bring beauty to the home garden while offering food and shelter to birds, bees, butterflies, and other wildlife. Whether you’re a novice or expert gardener, renowned botanist Art Kruckeberg and horticulturist Linda Chalker-Scott show you how to imagine and realize your perfect sustainable landscape.

Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon
Michael Engelhard‘s thought-provoking and beautifully illustrated iconography of the polar bear brings this elusive and powerful animal into focus. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. Drawing on meticulous research, Engelhard traces and illuminates this intertwined history. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature—and about ourselves—hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.

Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State
In this richly illustrated guide to the amazing array of fossils found in Washington state, renowned paleontologist Elizabeth A. Nesbitt teams up with David B. Williams to offer a fascinating, richly illustrated tour through more than a half billion years of natural history. The spectacular paleontology of the state is brought to life through details of the fossils’ discovery and extraction, their place in geological time, and the insights they provide into contemporary issues like climate change and species extinction.

Fishes of the Salish Sea: Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca
This comprehensive three-volume set, featuring striking illustrations of the Salish Sea’s 260 fish species by noted illustrator Joseph Tomelleri, details the ecology and life history of each species and recounts the region’s rich heritage of marine research and exploration. Beginning with jawless hagfishes and lampreys and ending with the distinctive Ocean Sunfish, leading scientists Theodore Wells Pietsch and James Orr present the taxa in phylogenetic order, based on classifications that reflect the most current scientific knowledge.

Birds of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Guide
Spanning a vast, distinctive region rich in protected wildlands and iconic national parks, this bestselling field guide is a superlative, complete resource for enjoying the many bird species found from British Columbia to southern Oregon. Renowned bird experts Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman illuminate the key identification traits, vocalizations, seasonal statuses, habitat preferences, and feeding behaviors of bird species in the region. The compact, full-page accounts feature maps and more than 900 photographs by top bird photographers.

Read More on the Blog

Celebrate Earth Month: Books in Environmental Studies

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon: Q&A with Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie Klinger and John J. Meyer

Photo Essay: Razor Clams

UW Press Publishes ‘Treaty Justice’ by Charles Wilkinson, Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Landmark Boldt Decision

February 12 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1974 Boldt Decision, a watershed ruling that affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State and transformed Indigenous law and resource management across the United States and beyond. In recognition of this significant ruling, the University of Washington Press is honored to announce the publication of Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights by eminent legal historian and longtime tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson.

Expert and compelling, Treaty Justice weaves personalities and local detail into the definitive account of one of the twentieth century’s most important civil rights cases. Wilkinson tells the dramatic story of the Boldt Decision against the backdrop of salmon’s central place in the cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest.

In the mid-twentieth century, when Native people reasserted their fishing rights as delineated in nineteenth-century treaties, state officials worked with non-Indian commercial and sport fishing interests to forcefully—and often violently—oppose Native actions. What became known as the “fish wars” of the 1960s spurred twenty tribes and the US government to file suit in federal court. Moved by the testimony of tribal leaders and other experts, Judge George Boldt pointedly waited until Lincoln’s birthday to hand down a decision recognizing the tribes’ right to half of the state’s fish. The case’s long aftermath led from the Supreme Court’s affirmation of Boldt’s opinion to collaborative management of the harvest of salmon and other marine resources.

For Wilkinson, the Boldt Decision sits alongside Brown v. Board of Education and a select few other court cases in terms of bringing justice to dispossessed peoples and resulting in far-reaching societal changes. He writes, “Like those opinions, the Boldt Decision’s ramifications are many and still felt today . . . [it] vividly displays the brilliance and worth of the American system of justice and the moral and tangible benefits it can achieve at its heights.”

Wilkinson, who passed away in 2023, was the Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado and author of fourteen books, including Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations and Messages from Frank’s Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way.

As a young civil rights attorney in 1971, Wilkinson joined the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), where he worked alongside John Echohawk (Pawnee) and the late David Getches to fight for the rights of tribal nations, earning significant victories across the United States. After four years at NARF, he became a law professor, teaching first at the University of Oregon in Eugene and then at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Over the next half-century, he built a legacy as one of the foremost scholars of Indian law.

In a tribute for High Country News, Daniel Cordalis and Kristen Carpenter write that “Charles was more than a brilliant lawyer, dedicated professor and gifted author; he was a true friend to Indian Country. To him, the field of federal Indian law was not just an interesting intellectual or professional pursuit; rather, it was a testament to the perseverance of a people. He saw that Indigenous people achieved the revival of tribal nations through their own vision, determination and action, not because of the federal government or anyone else.”

The author with environmental leader and advocate for treaty rights Billy Frank Jr. Photograph by Mary Randlett, PH Coll 723. Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Mary Randlett, photographer, UW 41874.
The Puyallup Tribe participates in a salmon ceremony in 1977. The News Tribune. © 1977 McClatchy. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Charles Wilkinson has done it again. With unmatched familiarity and command, he adds another essential volume to the amazing history of Indigenous activism and legal advocacy that has made the Northwest such a vibrant region for Native rights and power. While much more remains to be done to affirm the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in American legal institutions, Wilkinson’s insights, vision, and legacy offer both guidance and inspiration.

Ned Blackhawk, author of the National Book Award-Winning The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Treaty Justice was supported by a generous grant from the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and made possible in part thanks to the support of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. The book was also supported by the Tulalip Tribes Charitable Fund, which provides the opportunity for a sustainable and healthy community for all. Additional funding was provided by a grant from the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation.

UW Press also thanks Michael Burnap and Irene Tanabe, Vasiliki Dwyer, Ellen Ferguson, Kelby Fletcher and Janet Boguch, Mary Hotchkiss and Mary Whisner, Barbara Johns in memory of David Getches, Sandeep Kaushik and Elizabeth Goodwin, Suzanne Kotz and Stephen Tarnoff, Michael Repass, and Cynthia Sears for their generous gifts in support of the book.

Read an excerpt from Treaty Justice in the Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine.

Upcoming Events

UW Press is proud to join the Northwest Treaty Tribes, the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), and the Washington State Historical Society in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision.

  • US v WA: 50th Anniversary. February 6 and 7 at the Muckleshoot Events Center in Auburn. The Northwest Treaty Tribes and the NWIFC present two full days of events and programming, including a presentation of Treaty Justice by Charles Wilkinson’s family; a screening of Fish War, a documentary produced by NWIFC and North Forty Productions; and a series of panels reflecting on the impact of the Boldt Decision.
  • Usual and Accustomed Grounds. Exhibition on view February 10–September 1 at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. This exhibition focuses on the story of the Native fishing rights movement in Washington State and marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Boldt Decision. Through artifacts, photos, and footage, learn about how tribal people and nations resisted termination policies and fought for treaty-protected fishing access, cultural survival, and sovereignty—with impacts still felt today.
  • Boldt at 50: Reflecting on Treaty Justice and Tribal Sovereignty. February 12, 7:30 pm at Town Hall in Seattle. Centered around Wilkinson’s Treaty Justice, a panel will discuss the significance of the Boldt Decision and its enduring impact on the tribal sovereignty movement in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Featuring Jeremiah “Jay” Julius, a fisherman and member of the Lummi Nation; Lynda V. Mapes, author and Seattle Times journalist specializing in the environment and Native American issues; Nancy Shippentower, a Puyallup elder and activist; and Coll Thrush, noted historian and author of Native Seattle. The event is set to open with Native drummers and will also feature remarks from Darrell Hillaire, executive director of Children of the Setting Sun Productions (CSSP), and a film clip from CSSP. Books will be available from Third Place Books.
  • Symposium: The Boldt Decision at 50. March 30, 10:00 am–5:00 pm at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. This daylong symposium will explore the history of the ruling that served as an affirmation of Tribal fishing rights and sovereignty, featuring a lecture from state historian John Hughes; a panel conversation with representatives from the Nisqually Tribe, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and the Squaxin Island Tribe; and an opportunity for program participants to connect with panelists and purchase copies of relevant historical scholarship. Guests will also have the rare opportunity to view the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek.

Related Books

Introducing the UW Press Spring 2024 Catalog

We are excited to share our Spring 2024 catalog, packed with great books to come in the new year. Inside you’ll find definitive books on Native history and culture; the first biography of one of Montana’s most celebrated writers, Norman Maclean; richly illustrated books on the natural world; essential histories; illuminating art books and exhibition catalogs from our publishing partners, including the Seattle Art Museum, National Nordic Museum, and the Autry Museum of the American West; and more.

Photograph by Mary Randlett, PH Coll 723. Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Mary Randlett, photographer, UW 41874.

The catalog cover, taken from the forthcoming book Treaty Justice, features a photograph of Billy Frank Jr. (1931–2014), a leader for treaty rights and environmental stewardship, and author and longtime tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson (1941–2023) on traditional Nisqually land at the southerly reach of Puget Sound. An expert and compelling account of the Boldt Decision, which affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State, Treaty Justice will be published in January to coincide with the 50th anniversary of this landmark civil rights event.

We invite you to view the full catalog and explore all of our forthcoming books. Now is also a great time to subscribe to our newsletter or update your preferences so that you can receive email alerts when your favorite books are released.

Ten Essential Books for Your Native American Heritage Month Reading List

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, we’ve collected some of the many books that provide testament to the enduring, resilient nature of that history. The books below feature Indigenous authors, contributors, and collaborators, reflecting our longtime commitment to sharing Native American perspectives on their cultures. These essential books will help you discover the rich contributions and history of Indigenous people—from the cultural teachings of Coast Salish elders and stories from the Northwest Coast food sovereignty movement to a celebration of the Cherokee cosmos and parka-making conversations in Southwest Alaska.

Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders
By Children of the Setting Sun Productions

“A rich visual feast that honors Pacific Northwest Indigenous life” (Library Journal), Jesintel brings the cultural teachings of nineteen Coast Salish elders to new generations through interviews and photographs. Jesintel—”to learn and grow together”—characterizes the spirit of this richly illustrated book, which illuminates the importance of ethical reciprocal relationships and the interconnectedness of places, land, water, and the spirit within all things.

A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast
By Charlotte Coté

Drawing from her academic and personal expertise, Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth) explores the politics of food sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Northwest. Coté shares contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth practices of traditional food revitalization and offers evocative stories of her Tseshaht community’s and her own work to revitalize relationships to haʔum (traditional food) as a way to nurture health and wellness. As Indigenous peoples continue to face food insecurity due to ongoing inequality, environmental degradation, and the Westernization of traditional diets, Coté foregrounds healing and cultural sustenance via everyday enactments of food sovereignty.

Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California
By Kaitlin Reed

Foregrounding Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation in California. Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) demonstrates how the “green rush” is only the most recent example of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation. Situating the cannabis industry within this broader legacy, the author traces patterns of resource rushing—first gold, then timber, then fish, and now cannabis—to reveal the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies.

Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
By Christopher B. Teuton and Hastings Shade

Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton (Cherokee Nation), Hastings Shade, Larry Shade, and other Cherokee speakers, educators, and cultural traditionalists. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, the expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity’s role within it.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers
Edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton

Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, editors Elissa Washuta (Cowlitz) and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. The result is “a veritable feast of First Nations and Native American writers that readers may otherwise never have discovered” (World Literature Today). These ambitious, creative, and visionary works demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories and continue to animate the study and practice of distinct Native literary traditions in North America.

We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies
By Cutcha Risling Baldy

This deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe uses a framework of Native feminisms to locate this revival within a broad context of decolonization. Rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization and considers how this renaissance of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.

Painful Beauty: Tlingit Women, Beadwork, and the Art of Resilience
By Megan A. Smetzer

For this first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork, Megan A. Smetzer worked with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders to reframe this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. At a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity and gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. This thoughtful and accessible book demonstrates Tlingit women’s resilience, strength, and power and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women’s artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast.

Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023
By Lara M. Evans, Miranda Belarde-Lewis, and Anya Montiel
Copublished with the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery

Based on the exhibition of the same name, this richly illustrated catalog features the work of six artists from Indigenous Nations: Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), Erica Lord (Athabascan/Iñupiat), Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy), sisters Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson (Tlingit), and Maggie Thompson (Fond du Luc Ojibwe). Their craft speaks to the responsibility of ushering forward cultural traditions while shaping the future with innovative works of art. Through these works, the artists share the honors and burdens that they carry. The exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Musuem’s Renwick Gallery through March 31, 2024.

The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir
By Ernestine Hayes

Weaving together strands of memoir, contemplation, and fiction, Ernestine Hayes (Tlingit) articulates an Indigenous worldview in which all things are connected, in which intergenerational trauma creates many hardships but transformation is still possible. Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu’s equally timeless Art of War), Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, while also recounting her own story of attending and completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and a writer. Now a grandmother and thinking very much of the generations who will come after her, Hayes speaks for herself but also has powerful things to say about the resilience and complications of her Native community.

Tengautuli Atkuk / The Flying Parka: The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska
By Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade

Parkas are part of a living tradition in southwest Alaska. Based on nearly two decades of conversations with Yup’ik sewing groups and visits to the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History, this volume documents the social importance of parkas, the intricacies of their construction, and their exceptional beauty. Featuring over 170 historical photographs and contemporary images, full bilingual versions of six parka stories, and a glossary in Yup’ik and English, this book is a celebration of the vitality of these culturally important garments.

#UPWeek 2023: Humanities Washington Helping UW Press Authors #SpeakUP

We’re now approaching the end of University Press Week 2023 and the final day of the UP Week Blog Tour. Thanks to you and our university press colleagues for celebrating the ways that university presses give voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world with this year’s theme, #SpeakUP.

Prompted by today’s UP Week Blog Tour theme, “Where do university presses #SpeakUP?,” we are excited to feature one of the many organizations that help to amplify our authors’ work: Humanities Washington.

Humanities Washington works with authors and scholars to bring vital public programming and events to cities and towns across Washington State, in partnership with libraries, museums, and other cultural organizations.

“Humanities Washington helped me connect with communities all across the state that I would not have otherwise,” said Eric Wagner, author of After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens. “Having spent the last five years trying to tell just one part of the story of Mount St. Helens, I loved hearing all the stories other folks had from the eruption. . . . I probably learned more about the mountain from the audience than they did from me.”

“The reach of Humanities Washington throughout Washington State and their network of libraries, community organizations, senior centers, and professional associations provides a robust platform for educating Washington State residents about our region’s critical environmental and cultural history,” said BJ Cummings, author of The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish.

Read more in our Q&A with Humanities Washington program manager Sarah Faulkner.

First, for those not already familiar, please briefly describe Humanities Washington and the work that you do.

Humanities Washington is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to open minds and bridge divides by creating spaces to explore different perspectives. To this end, we provide cultural programs to tens of thousands of Washingtonians each year. We run a variety of programs, including Prime Time Family Reading, a six-week reading and discussion program for families of young children; Think & Drink, which brings experts to local taprooms to discuss vital issues in a relaxed environment; the Poet Laureate program, which promotes poetry for all; and our Speakers Bureau, which sends forty experts across the state to give free, public presentations in partnership with museums, libraries, and other community venues. All our programs are dedicated to sparking conversation and critical thinking in every corner of Washington.

What is the role that scholars play in Humanities Washington programs? 

Scholars are essential to Humanities Washington programs. They serve as panelists for our Think & Drink programs, thus bringing their expertise directly to the public; guide families through reading discussions in our Prime Time Family Reading Program; and serve as ambassadors for the humanities through our Speakers Bureau program.

As a part of the Speakers Bureau, our experts guide audiences through a one-hour interactive presentation that’s designed to teach them something new, help them consider a new perspective, and spark conversation. Scholars share new humanities research and give explanations of complicated topics in accessible yet nuanced language. They’re thought-provoking, engaging, and an immense boon to creating a better informed and engaged Washington. Our programs are especially appreciated in rural areas that may not have access to a university or college, allowing the community to interact with experts from across the state.

Every year, the Speakers Bureau program brings hundreds of free events to cities and towns across the state and many of these events feature UW Press authors. Can you share a highlight or two from the 2021–2023 season?

We’re constantly impressed by the fantastic work our speakers do across the state. UW Press author Eric Wagner did an astounding thirty-five presentations on the ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens. His presentation, entitled “After the Blast: Mount St Helens 40 Years Later,” bridged the gap between the sciences and the humanities to help audiences see the immense impact of human choices on the living world around us.

Wagner traveled to twenty-two different cities, seventeen counties, all ten Congressional Districts, and reached over thirteen hundred Washingtonians through his presentations. I had the pleasure of seeing him present to an audience of 102 people at the Harstine Island Community Club, an incredibly engaged group in rural Mason County. Eric’s warmth, humor, and immense knowledge helped every audience member—from ages ten into the nineties—learn something new and enjoy doing it.

Collectively, the 2021-2023 roster offered almost 400 presentations, over half of which were quickly and deftly adapted to be delivered via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are so grateful to our presenters, who help us deliver what one Speakers Bureau host calls “their lifeline to ideas.”

The 2024–2025 Speakers Bureau roster was recently announced and includes four UW Press authors. What excites you about these authors and their topics? Can you share more about the presentations that are planned?

We are beyond excited about these authors and their topics! We strive to provide a wide variety of topics on our roster to serve the largest possible audience. We partner with Washington nonprofits to organize these presentations, and our hosts include libraries, museums, historical societies, high schools, carceral institutions, community centers, and more! Thus, we try to provide presentations on a variety of topics, including art, literature, philosophy, society, history, and more. The work of our four UW Press scholars gives a good idea of the variety we have to offer.

In his presentation “Stomp and Shout: The Untold Story of Northwest Rock and Roll,” author and historian Peter Blecha (author of Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll) takes us on a sweeping musical journey that covers not only the Greatest Hits of the Northwest but also the lesser known yet vitally important bands that laid the foundation for what Blecha calls “the Northwest Sound.”

Author and journalist David George Gordon returns to the Speakers Bureau with a presentation called “Heaven on the Half Shell: Washington State’s Oyster Odyssey.” In conjunction with the second edition of his coauthored book by the same name, Gordon leads Washingtonians through a natural and social history of the Pacific Northwest’s most beloved bivalve with his famous good humor and passion.

University of Washington professor Josephine Ensign (author of the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle) asks audiences to be vulnerable and compassionate as she guides them through her presentation, “Homelessness and the Meaning of Home.” Drawing on both her scholarly research and her personal experience of homelessness, Ensign teaches the history of homelessness and explores the contemporary crisis throughout our state and country through a deeply personal lens.

Ingrid Walker, professor emerita of University of Washington Tacoma (and author of High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users) asks a bold question: “What If We’re Wrong about Drugs?” Tackling contemporary issues like the opioid crisis, drug (de)criminalization and stigmatization, medical drug use, and addiction, Walker asks if changing our cultural stories about drugs and their users can help us take a new approach to drugs.

And these are just four of the forty presentations we offer (you can find all forty here). We’re incredibly proud of the upcoming roster and the work they’ll do to spark meaningful connections and conversations among neighbors in our state. Whether folks attend to have fun, to debate, to challenge themselves, or to learn about a new culture or topic, we hope that all Speakers Bureau attendees will leave with a new perspective on the world around them.

If you’re interested in any of these presentations, please reach out to Humanities Washington at speakers@humanities.org to see how you can bring them to your city!

Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to answer our questions!

Thank you, UW Press, for the amazing work that you do to open minds across the state! Happy UP Week!

Visit the UP Week Blog Tour page to learn more about how community organizations, booksellers, libraries, and scholarly societies work with university presses to amplify authors’ work in various communities around the world and join in the celebration of university presses on social media with the #UPWeek and #SpeakUP hashtags!

Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales by Elizabeth A. Nesbitt and David B. Williams

In the newly released Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State, published in partnership with the Burke Museum, renowned paleontologist Elizabeth A. Nesbitt teams up with award-winning author David B. Williams to offer a fascinating, richly illustrated tour through more than a half billion years of natural history. Ahead of their book launch at the Burke Museum on November 8, the authors share what inspired them to write the book, as well as a few fossil stories.

Washington State regularly makes the news for its geology. The eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Oso landslide, the Nisqually earthquake. We are also well-known for our mountains—the Olympics and Cascades—as well as the Missoula floods, arguably some of the greatest, most dynamic events in the planet’s 4.8 billion years of history.

We are far less famous for our fossils, and yet no matter where you wander in Washington, you are never very far from the past and the evidence of the plants and animals that came before us. You can find trilobites near the Idaho border, primitive horses on the Columbia Plateau, exquisite flowers in Republic, giant bird tracks near Bellingham, and curious bear-like beasts on the Olympic Peninsula. With abundant and well-exposed rock layers, Washington has fossils dating from ice age mammals only 12,000 years old back to marine invertebrates more than 500 million years old.

Despite the wealth of fossils, no one has ever written a guide to the state’s past life; the only exception is a small pamphlet produced in the 1960s. Certainly there were and are many paleontologists finding fossils and describing them but nearly all of the information appeared in scientific papers or, rarely, in a newspaper. In Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales, we bring years of knowledge and a deep passion for fossils to share the stories of life in Washington’s past.

At the heart of the book are twenty-four profiles. Organized chronologically with the youngest profile first, they allow the reader to dig deeper, unearthing stories, strata by strata. Each profile focuses on a specific plant, animal, or environment, often weaving in human history and geology, and always with a goal of fleshing out details necessary for a better understanding that will help make the fossils come to life. Ultimately, our goal is for you to come away with a more thorough appreciation of the state’s spectacular paleontology and geology.

We also highlight the stories of those who found the fossils. Many were discovered by paleontologists, but numerous fossils have been found by nonprofessionals, people who were simply observant and paying attention to the natural world around them. For example, Bette Willison, a schoolteacher in Clallam County, unearthed a partial skull with the roots of several teeth, that researchers determined was a carnivore new to science; in the Seattle area, many Ice Age mammal fossils have been found in the excavation for construction projects.

One of the exciting aspects of writing about paleontology is that the field is in a golden age. In particular, a diverse array of scientists are taking advantage of new technologies, such as DNA analysis, geochemistry, data modeling, X-ray computerized tomography (CT scans), and 3-D scanning and printing. This has allowed paleontologists to focus on understanding the plant’s or animal’s place in an ecosystem and how they related to other species they lived with and with other species past and present. In essence, their work helps visualize the extinct plants or animals as they were during their lives.

But paleontology is not simply about the study of the past. Researchers also have their eyes on the present and how they can help inform the issues of the future, including extinction and climate change. It is truly an exciting time to be a paleontologist and to share with the public the stories that fossils tell, particularly the stories of our state.

With more than a half billion years of history, Washington State has an enviable diversity of fossils. Each is unique. Each is interesting. Each tells a story of natural and human history. You don’t have to travel to exotic locations to find exciting fossils and do exciting science. It’s all right here.

A Million-Year-Old Migration – Oncorhynchus nerka

In August 2000, while fishing along the banks of the Skokomish River in Mason County, Jeff Heinis and Summer Burdick found a dead salmon. It had died about a million years earlier. Based on chemical analyses of the bones, pollen studies, and the abundance of other nearby fossilized salmon—full bodies and skulls, now housed at the Burke Museum—the salmon appears to have been trapped by an ice dam during its spawning migration. Based on the sedimentary evidence, salmon spawned in this river for about seventy years, leaving behind a legacy of a life history that continues to this day.

Cast of a complete sockeye salmon, Oncorhynchu nerka, made as a composite 28 inches (70 cm) long of four specimens of the salmon skeletons collected from the Ice Age lake beds near Shelton. The hooked jaw of the salmon and the abraded tail indicate that the fish were spawning in the lake. Individual bones and scales can be seen. Photo by Michael Rich.

Stonerose – Florissantia quilchenesis

Venture up to the Okanagan Highlands, in north-central Washington and adjacent British Columbia, and you can find leaves, fruit, and insects from plants and animals that lived 50 million years ago. They are some of the state’s most beautiful and exquisite fossils. At the time, this area was a high-elevation region dotted with active volcanoes, lakes, and forests of conifer and deciduous trees and shrubs. The stunning preservation occurs because volcanic rocks and ash accumulated in the lakes trapping layer upon layer of plants, fish, and insects, some so detailed that they look as if the animal or plant had only recently died.

This fossil flower, Florissantia quilchenensis, the size of a nickel, is an extinct member of the extensive Malvaceae family of plants that also includes hollyhocks, hibiscus, okra, and cotton. Paleobotanists propose that the flowers hung down from the stalk and were pollinated by insects or birds. Photo by Michael Rich.

Spirit Whales – Sitsqwayk cornishorum

Washington State is famous for its whales, fourteen species of which spend part of the year along the coast, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, or in Puget Sound. All are members of one of two groups of living whales: the odontocetes, or toothed whales, and the mysticetes, or baleen whales. Paleontologists have long sought to understand the evolutionary relationship between the groups. Only in recent years have they found the fossils to help them tell the story, in part because of fossils found in Washington including Sitsqwayk cornishorum, a named derived from the Klallam word that means “a powerful spirit from across the water said to bring wealth.”

Reconstruction of the oldest mysticete whale, Sitsqwayk cornishorum. Illustration by Gabriel Ugueto commissioned for the Burke Museum, used with permission.

Plotopterids of the Past – Tonsala hildegardae

Penguins in Washington? Doesn’t seem possible but it was 25 million years ago. Technically, they were penguin look-alikes but the state’s large, flightless fossil birds did have a common ancestry with penguins. First discovered in 1977 on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula, Tonsala hildegardae (the specific epithet honors pioneer avian paleontologist Hildegarde Howard) was a strong, two-meter-tall diving bird related to gannets and booby birds. They are just one of at least five species of extinct plotopterids (swimming wing) fossilized in Washington rocks.

Reconstruction of numerous plotopterid birds on the beach. These large flightless birds had an upright gait and swimming style similar to that of penguins, but they are more closely related to cormorants and darters. The fossils have been found only in the North Pacific. Artwork by Mark Witton.

Elizabeth A. Nesbitt is curator emerita of invertebrate and micropaleontology at the Burke Museum and associate professor of earth science at the University of Washington. Her distinguished scientific contributions to the paleontology of the Pacific Northwest have earned many awards and honors, including having a whale named for her, the Maiabalaena nesbittae.

David B. Williams is a naturalist, author, and educator. His many books include the award-winning Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound and Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography.

Elizabeth A. Nesbitt. Photo by Tim Kenney
David B. Williams. Photo by Andrew Croneberger

Upcoming Events

  • Book Launch. Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 7:00 PM at the Burke Museum, Seattle. At the kick-off event, coauthors Nesbitt and Williams will give a lively presentation complete with a slideshow and fossil specimens, followed by audience questions and a book signing. Books will be available from the Burke Store. Space is limited so registration is required.
  • Author Talk with Quimper Geological Society. Saturday, November 11, 2023, 4:00 PM at First Baptist Church, Port Townsend and via Zoom. Nesbitt and Williams will provide background on the process of writing the book and share some of the new science that has allowed paleontologists to tease out the 500-million-year-long story of life in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Author Talk with Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Sunday, November 12, 2023, 3:00 PM at Fort Warden Chapel, Port Townsend. As part of The Future of Oceans lecture series, the coauthors will discuss the book and highlight some of the marine organisms featured, including several unusual whales, a six-foot-tall bird that resembled a penguin, and the state’s oldest fossils, trilobites and archaeocyaths.
  • Holiday Bookfest with Phinney Books. Saturday, November 18, 2023, 2:00–4:00 PM at Phinney Center, Seattle. The annual Holiday Bookfest is an opportunity to meet and mingle with twenty-six celebrated local authors—including Nesbitt and Williams—and get their latest books signed. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Bureau of Fearless Ideas and the Phinney Neighborhood Association.

Visit our events calendar regularly for details on more upcoming events.

Related Books

Black and white photograph of John Okada, sitting at a desk covered in books and holding a pen.

Celebrating the Life and Legacy of John Okada

The University of Washington Press is proud to co-present events at the Seattle Public Library this fall to celebrate the centennial of the birth of John Okada, author of the seminal Japanese American novel, No-No Boy.

Okada biographer and Seattle Public Library guest curator Frank Abe has arranged a three-part series that will explore Okada’s life, place, and work. Abe is the co-editor with Greg Robinson and Floyd Cheung of John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy, a 2019 American Book Award winner.

“No-No Boy is the great Japanese American novel, one that captures the dislocation of a people returning to Seattle from four years of wartime incarceration,” notes Abe in the Seattle Public Library press release. “In its raw emotion and anger, it was far ahead of its time.”

“It’s also a great novel of Seattle, with passages evoking the buildings and alleyways of Chinatown that still exist today,” says Abe. “Okada once worked at the old Central Library, so it’s fitting the Library as an institution that promotes reading and community should recognize the 100th anniversary of his birth with a reconsideration of his life and legacy.”

Okada was born at the Merchants Hotel in Pioneer Square on September 22, 1923. He attended Broadway High School and the University of Washington before his wartime incarceration in concentration camps in Puyallup and Minidoka, Idaho. He volunteered for the Military Intelligence Service and served as a translator in Guam, after which he earned a degree in library sciences and worked for a time in the Business Department of The Seattle Public Library. No-No Boy, his only novel, was published in 1957 and has been embraced by generations of students and readers. Okada died of a heart attack at the age of 47.

John Okada Centennial Programs

Co-presented by the North American Post, The Seattle Public Library Foundation, the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation, and The Seattle Times.

All events are free and open to the public. Find more details and information about each program at spl.org/calendar.

  • The John Okada Centennial: A celebration of his life and work. Tuesday, September 26, 7:00 pm at the Central Library. To kick off the series, Frank Abe will present still-unseen images and stories of Okada’s life, and novelist Shawn Wong will share how he and his friends rediscovered and republished No-No Boy along with the story of Okada’s unfinished second novel. Karen Maeda Allman, literary agent and former Elliott Bay Book Company bookseller, will moderate.
  • From Page to Stage: Adapting John Okada’s No-No Boy for today’s theater. Tuesday, October 24, 7:00 pm at the Central Library. Co-presented by Seattle Rep. Frank Abe shares scenes from a new stage adaptation of No-No Boy that he’s currently developing and engages in a conversation with Seattle Rep Literary Manager and Dramaturg Paul Adolphsen on the challenges of bringing a novel published in 1957 to life for today’s theater audience. They will be joined by actors who will read scenes from the new adaptation and discuss them with the panelists.
  • The Postwar Seattle Chinatown of John Okada. Sunday, November 19, 2:00 pm at the Central Library. The sense of place in postwar Seattle Chinatown is strong in No-No Boy, and this final panel will examine the legacy of Japanese-owned hotels with family historian Shox Tokita, whose mother owned three; stories of Filipino residents and workers in Chinatown from former Seattle City Councilmember Dolores Sibonga, whose mother owned the Estigoy Café; and Dr. Marie Rose Wong, author of Building Tradition: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels, who will discuss the history of single-room occupancy residential hotels in Chinatown and the threats they now face. The panel will be moderated by Emily Porcincula Lawsin, 4Culture Historic Preservation Program Manager.

About Frank Abe

Abe is co-editor of a new anthology, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, coming May 2024 from Penguin Classics, and lead author of the graphic novel, We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration (Chin Music Press), a finalist in Creative Nonfiction for the Washington State Book Award. He wrote and directed the award-winning PBS documentary “Conscience and the Constitution,” and won an American Book Award as co-editor with Greg Robinson and Floyd Cheung of John Okada: The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of ‘No-No Boy’ (University of Washington Press), authoring the first-ever biography of Okada. He studied in the Advanced Training Program of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and has worked for KIRO Newsradio, the King County Executive, and the King County Council.

Don’t Miss These Exhibitions on View and Accompanying Catalogs Available through UW Press

The University of Washington Press is proud to co-publish and distribute a number of catalogs in conjunction with key exhibitions currently on view or forthcoming at art museums in the Pacific Northwest, United States, and around the world. These books bring extraordinary exhibitions to the page through high-quality reproductions and illuminating essays by curators, academics, and artists. We hope you’ll have a chance to see some of these exhibitions in person, and we invite you to explore the accompanying catalogs below.

Renegade Edo and Paris: Japanese Prints and Toulouse-Lautrec

Both the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan and the late nineteenth century in France witnessed a multitude of challenges to the status quo from the rising middle class. In Edo (present-day Tokyo), townspeople pursued hedonistic lifestyles as a way of defying the state-sanctioned social hierarchy that positioned them at the bottom. Their new pastimes supplied subject matter for ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world). Many such pictures arrived in France in the 1860s, a time when French art and society were undergoing substantial changes. Fin-de-siècle Paris, like Edo before it, saw the rise of antiestablishment attitudes and a Bohemian subculture. As artists searched for fresh and more expressive forms, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) and his contemporaries were drawn to novel Japanese prints.

While ukiyo-e’s formal influences on Toulouse-Lautrec and his peers have been well studied, the shared subversive hedonism that underlies these artworks has been less examined. Drawing from the Seattle Art Museum’s Japanese prints collection and from one of the most extensive private holdings of Toulouse-Lautrec prints, the catalog offers a critical look at the renegade spirit inhabiting the graphic arts in both Edo and Paris, highlighting the social impulses behind a burgeoning art production.

The exhibition is on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum through December 3, 2023.

Barbara Earl Thomas: The Illuminated Body

A talented visual storyteller, Barbara Earl Thomas has drawn from history, literature, folklore, mythology, and biblical stories over her forty-year career to reflect the social fabric of our times. Thomas’s figural and narrative imagery has a deeply philosophical and emotional force, and light and dark have been especially potent concepts in her work.

This book of new works meditates on the visual experience of the body within a physical and metaphorical world of light and shadow. Based on real people, the portraits “elevate to the magnificent” her family, friends, and neighbors, as well as cultural icons of the African American literary landscape. Thomas’s illumination of the human figure through her light-filled artworks and portraiture encourages the viewer to reflect on how we communicate ourselves to the world and how we perceive those among us.

The catalog also examines the conceptual, visual, and processual links Thomas makes between various media, contextualizing the artist’s newest body of work in light of her personal artistic path, and also in terms of her larger creative influences and art historical connections. Significantly, this is the first time the artist’s glass artworks will be brought into dialog with her works on paper and sculptural media.

The exhibition is on view at the Chrysler Museum of Art through August 20, 2023; the Wichita Art Museum, October 7, 2023–January 14, 2024; and the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, February 17–May 21, 2024.

Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023

Featuring all Native American and Alaska Native artists for the first time in the invitational’s history, Sharing Honors and Burdens focuses on fresh and nuanced visions by six artists from Indigenous Nations. Their craft speaks to the responsibility of ushering forward cultural traditions while shaping the future with innovative works of art. Through these works, the artists share the honors and burdens that they carry.

The exhibition and accompanying catalog feature the work of Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), Erica Lord (Athabascan/Iñupiat), Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy), sisters Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson (Tlingit), and Maggie Thompson.

While the artists’ contemporary craft is rooted in tradition, their art exemplifies responsibilities and relationships shared by everyone today. Contributions from Lara Evans (Cherokee), Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit), and Anya Montiel (Mexican/Tohono O’odham descent) contextualize how Indigenous worldviews are shaping the art world.

The exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery through March 31, 2024.

Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance

A retrospective of the groundbreaking 30-year-long career of Myrlande Constant, an artist renowned for her monumental, hand-beaded textiles, The Work of Radiance is the first solo show of a Haitian woman in a major U.S. museum. Similarly, the accompanying catalog is the first monograph devoted solely to a Haitian woman artist. In an interview with NPR, co-curator Jerry Philogene noted how it will continue to advance the study of Caribbean art.

Constant’s intricately beaded pieces build on the drapo Vodou tradition, depicting the lwa (spirits) as well as scenes of everyday life conducted in their company, unabashedly visualizing the permeable boundaries between spirits and humans. Few drapo artists have been as influential or ambitious as Constant. Her introduction of the tambour stitch to the drapo genre added narrative and history to the art form and enabled her to create densely detailed imagery.

Essays in the book written by curators, academics, artists, and literary specialists examine Constant’s oeuvre through interdisciplinary lenses; situate her hand-made, beaded textiles within Haitian Vodou practices and contemporary art of the African diaspora; spotlight the evolution of her artistic vision and innovative techniques; and reflect on her impact on art making in Haiti and beyond.

The exhibition is on view at the Fowler Museum at UCLA through August 27, 2023.

China’s Hidden Century

In a global first, the resilience and innovation of 19th-century China is revealed in a major new exhibition at the British Museum, lauded as “atmospherically designed” (The Guardian) and a “revelation” (The Observer).

Cultural creativity in China between 1796 and 1912 demonstrated extraordinary resilience in a time of warfare, land shortages, famine, and uprisings. Innovation can be seen in material culture (including print, painting, calligraphy, textiles, jewelry, ceramics, lacquer, arms and armor, and photography) during a century in which China’s art, literature, crafts, and technology faced unprecedented exposure to global influences.

Until recently the nineteenth century in China has been defined as an era of cultural stagnation. Built on new research, this “superlative” book (The Observer) sets out a fresh understanding of this important period and creates a detailed visual account of responses to war, technology, urbanization, political transformations, and external influences.

The narratives are brought to life and individualized through illustrated biographical accounts that highlight the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to this fascinating, turbulent period in Chinese history.

The exhibition is on view at the British Museum through October 8, 2023.

Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined

Contemporary Korean artist Park Dae Sung works in the traditional medium of ink painting while transforming familiar Korean landscapes with his modern and imaginative interpretations of the natural world. Park, who lost his left arm and both parents at the age of five and is entirely self-taught, has said, “Nature is my teacher.” He devoted sixty years to mastering traditional brush and ink techniques and established his own innovative landscape style, broadening his knowledge through extensive global travel and endless practice. His visually striking paintings are gigantic in size yet contain an aesthetic sensibility.

Ink Reimagined illuminates the artist’s paintings through 150 full-color images, an interview with Park, and six scholarly essays exploring his diverse subjects, such as calligraphy, landscape, animals, and still life. In addition to telling the artist’s remarkable life story, the contributors trace the rich history of Korean ink painting from the 1950s to today. This book will enlighten Western readers, deepen the understanding of Park’s modernized style of Korean ink painting, and inspire interest in the long tradition of East Asian ink painting, as well as contemporary Korean art and culture.

The exhibition will be on view at the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University, September 14–December 10, 2023; and the Ridderhof Martin Gallery and duPont Gallery at the University of Mary Washington, October 26–December 10, 2023.