To many islanders, the casino at the far end of the bridge is probably little more than a nuisance – a garish sign along the highway and an annoying traffic signal that impedes a smooth drive to the fireworks stands.
If you don’t gamble, you probably don’t have much use for the colossal hall of wheels, slots and baize-covered tables at which Kitsap bettors test their luck.
Yet the undeniably popular Clearwater Casino and its associated hotel are the engines driving a cultural renaissance to match the Suquamish Tribe’s rising economic fortunes. As reported on today’s front page, the tribe is plowing a good portion of the house take back into the community in ways even islanders soon will notice.
The first yield is a highly successful early learning center. Upcoming projects will include a community hall on the Suquamish waterfront; a tribal museum and arts center; a restored public dock stretching into Port Madison Bay; and a community baseball field that should serve all of North Kitsap including the island. Renovations to the Chief Sealth gravesite will further honor the community’s heritage, with projects hoped to be completed in time for a pan-tribal canoe event the Suquamish will host in 2009. Taken together, the projects will dramatically transform the sleepy little elbow of our closest neighboring town.
We hope they will also transform and reaffirm the ties between our two communities. Those ties are historic. On Bainbridge Island, the Suquamish once lived at several sites including a longhouse at Pleasant Beach and a village at Lynwood Center where the warrior Chief Kitsap had a home. It was at Restoration Point on the south end of the island that the Suquamish met George Vancouver’s expedition in 1792 and traded with later explorers.
“Culturally, Bainbridge Island was an important part of our original tribal territory,” Suquamish Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman noted this week. “A lot of people don’t know that.”
In 1855, Chief Sealth ceded the Suquamish’s territory to the U.S. by signing the Point Elliott Treaty along with 82 Northwest chiefs. But the tribe maintains fishing, hunting and educational rights as well as the 8,000-acre Port Madison reservation across the bridge. They’re players in the review of waterfront projects on the island, and have been a clear voice for the preservation and restoration of our shorelines.
Suquamish tribal elder Marilyn Wandrey suggests that the new centers, especially the museum, will give islanders an inviting place to experience tribal culture and learn about Bainbridge before the lumber mills, shipbuilding and strawberry fields that tend to dominate discussions of island history – because that history didn’t begin with white settlement. And, she added, “I believe it’s important for everyone to know their neighbor, no matter what color.”
This July, as we venture across the bridge to cart home bushels of stentorian fireworks from the tribal stands, we can celebrate not just our nation’s independence, but the Suquamish renaissance.
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Correction
• The ceiling art at the Bainbridge Island Library was made by Steven Maslach and Gayle Bard. A Saturday article on public art only credited Bard for the work.
