Estuary has new name, honoring tribe; you’ll need to watch a video to pronounce it.
A change long in the works is coming to an historic park in Gig Harbor to recognize the indigenous peoples of the Puyallup Tribe.
At the Gig Harbor City Council meeting on Feb. 22, the city announced the Parks Commission would rename the estuary at Austin Park as part of the city’s “Revitalization Period” honoring tribal culture, language and Puyallup history.
The city renamed the body of water “txʷaalqəł Estuary” in honor of the main village of the sxʷəbabš, which means Swift Water people. The estuary is located at Austin Estuary Park, 4009 Harborview Dr., which will now be called simply Austin Park.
The name means “place where game exists. The tribe declined to offer a phonetic spelling, as it considers that inauthentic and disrespectful.
The Gateway has previously referred to the village as Twa-wal-kut, a rough approximation the tribe says is not authentic. The tribe has videos on its YouTube channel about how to pronounce the word. Links are below.
Collaboration grows
At the meeting, Puyallup Tribal Councilwoman Anna Bean expressed her thanks to the mayor and the city for giving the Tribe the time to come to the meeting to honor their history.
“The collaborations and partnerships that have gone on between the Puyallup Tribe and the Gig Harbor City Council have really grown over the last few years,” Bean said. “In honoring that history, you honor our ancestors, you honor our members, and you honor our future generations.”
Bean talked about that history has been fraught with violence and suffering with the Tribe now attempting to rebuild much of their culture.
“We are a people that, not long ago, were set to terminate for our existence completely. We were subjected to assimilation where the belief was ‘save the child and kill the Indian.’ Our children were removed from our families and placed throughout camps,” Bean said. “Over time our culture, our language, and even our way of prayer was removed from our people. You are now part of a time that is called revitalization of that within the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. We are doing that within our culture, our language, and we’re bringing our people home.”
Bean said the steps taken by the city will honor the Tribe and their history.
“Our history is tragic, yet it is beautiful,” Bean said. “In that beauty, you bring that here into the home and the ancestral land of Gig Harbor of the Puyallup People.”
Outpouring of support
Also speaking at the meeting was Jennifer Keating, a land-use planner at Puyallup Tribe and member of the ad-hoc committee that worked with the city on the project. Keating told The Gateway that the meeting was a positive one for the Tribe.
“I was completely overwhelmed,” Keating said. “From the Gig Harbor community, there was such an outpouring of support and love for their tribal history. Just that acknowledgment that has never really been there in the past. It just goes to show you that it’s not that Gig Harbor doesn’t want to honor and acknowledge their tribal history. They just haven’t had an opportunity to.”
There were difficulties due to the pandemic, but Keating said it was worth the time put in.
“This has been a longer than normal progress, but I would say that it was all for good reason,” Keating said. “The public outreach component is really what ended up taking the most time because as we all know during COVID that’s really difficult to do. But everyone agreed it was very, very necessary especially for this project.”
Eleven acres for conservation
Councilmember Robyn Denson, who was on the committee with Keating, also praised the project.
“This was an amazing effort on behalf of the city, tribe, Parks Commission and many individual citizens. I’m thrilled that we were successful in working with so many interested parties to come up with a final product that everyone is happy with and that provides due recognition and respect to all involved,” Denson said in an email to The Gateway. “Truly, this is a historic moment for the City of Gig Harbor and this project will certainly be one of the initiatives I will be most proud of as a Council member.”
There also were plans to begin the process of preserving another piece of land with close ties to the tribe. The council voted to authorize application for a state Conservation Futures grant that will allow the city to purchase and conserve in natural state, for perpetuity, 11.5 acres of forested land through which North Creek flows.
The property is on Harborview Drive near where it turns into Burnham, just north of the city waste water treatment plant.
“We are hoping just to prevent development on that property to keep it in conservation forever,” Keating said. “I grew up in Gig Harbor and what makes it beautiful is quickly slipping away with all the development. I’m not at all anti-development, I understand with growth management it has to happen. But it is equally important that we aggressively go after properties that have natural resource consideration. This property with a creek running through it, it is prime salmon habitat. It’s just really, really important that we identify these properties, that we protect them from development and conserve them.”
Moving forward, Keating hoped there could be greater relationships between the Tribe and the communities to which they are closely tied.
“I would love for people to understand that the decisions we make, both on and off the reservation, impact us all,” Keating said. “Especially when those decisions are around natural resource protection and tribal history. All those things, we’re so much stronger when we work together. The tribe does not exist in a little bubble, isolated. We very much so depend on our successful relationships in the community and we want to continue to build those partnerships.”
In other business, the Gig Harbor City Council:
▪ Heard a report from the mayor about the passenger ferry. The mayor discussed how the Puget Sound Regional Council had taken Gig Harbor off the list of a potential route for a ferry.
▪ Held a second reading of ordinances regarding mobility devices on sidewalks. The council voted unanimously to prohibit motorized scooters on sidewalks. Other motorized mobility devices are allowed, but there are limitations on speed as well as safety rules requiring them to yield to pedestrians.
▪ Heard a vaccination update about upcoming plans for a second-dose clinic set to occur in early March with more details to be released closer to the date.
For more information on the pronunciation of “txʷaalqəł, sxʷəbabš and other words in the Twulshootseed language, visit the Puyallup Tribe’s YouTube channel. For sxʷəbabš, “Swift Water people,” watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwof31-4YxA, For txʷaalqəł, “the place where game exists,” watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHdxwTj2nzU
