Hundreds honor 14-foot guardian on Gig Harbor’s shore. ‘This is medicine for our people’
A new redwood guardian faces the water in Gig Harbor to welcome those arriving by sea.
In collaboration with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, the Gig Harbor Arts Commission, the Kiwanis Club and the Honoring Committee unveiled and blessed the art installation of the “Our Fisherman, Our Guardian” statue Thursday, Sept. 15 with the city of Gig Harbor.
The long-awaited installation and honoring ceremony took place downtown Gig Harbor along the shoreline at 4009 Harborview Dr.
“Acknowledgment of this land to our first peoples or the Puyallup Tribe is long overdue,” Mayor Tracie Markley said at the ceremony. “We are so pleased to not only partner with the tribe on the symbolic honoring cedar carving, but also expand on the many ways we can work together in the areas of land conservation, habitat restoration, and protection of our natural resources and preservation of historically significant infusions.”
“In 1792 it was documented that there were six permanent villages located on the Gig Harbor Peninsula,” according to the Harbor History Museum website. “The Puyallup village ... was located at the mouth of today’s Donkey Creek in Gig Harbor. The village was established centuries earlier by a band of Puyallup tribe members from Commencement Bay.”
Tribal members are still living in the Gig Harbor area, Puyallup Tribal Council member Anna Bean told the audience Sept. 15.
“Here on the waters and on this land, our ancestors have lived here for thousands of years. We remember them today and acknowledge them,” Puyallup Tribe Culture Director Connie McCloud said.
Bean, along with Mayor Markley unveiled the honoring symbol, while the community cheered. Hundreds of people stayed for a celebration with dancers, drummers, a tribal blessing and a traditional cedar canoe appearance.
“Our Fisherman, Our Guardian,” the 14-foot-tall sculpture, is of a fisherman in a traditional conical hat, tightly clasping to his breast a newly-caught salmon. The fisherman wears a cedar-woven hat typical of those worn by the Puyallups, framed by traditional southern Salish design canoes, all carved from cedar. The salmon is fabricated from copper with glass inlays, Guy Capoeman, the artist of the statue and the Quinault Nation president, told The Gateway.
Capoeman is a well-known Northwest artist who specializes in large carvings, especially the 32-foot long ocean-going canoes that are emblematic of the coastal Salish peoples. His design was chosen from among seven finalists for the Gig Harbor commission.
The sculpture sits right at the tide line on the estuary, facing the water to be visible throughout the harbor.
It was shaped over almost two years with traditional tools from a redwood snag.
“Our ancestors pulled their canoes and fished in this water right here,” Capoeman said at the ceremony. “I believe it’s important for tribes to tell their own stories.”
Capoeman spent days experiencing the sounds, sights and smells of the area before sculpting, he said.
“A lot of those things that I heard and I experienced for those few days, were the same things our ancestors experienced.” Capeoman said.
The statue is a visual representation of the city honoring the first people who lived in the area, the Swift Water band of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, who lived on the Gig Harbor waterfront for centuries.
“This is medicine for our people,” Bean said.
Although the statue was completed before the pandemic, it sat in Gig Harbor storage awaiting installation and a proper honoring ceremony once COVID-19 protocols allowed for it.
“There’s no street named after a Native American; there’s no major landmarks,” Lita-Dawn Stanton, Gig Harbor’s former historic preservationist told The Gateway previously. “So, the sculpture is a wonderful way to honor the indigenous people.”
Gary Williamson, a former elementary school educator and principal, agreed.
Williamson formed a committee in 2016 to find a way to recognize the people who first lived in the Gig Harbor area.
He brought the project idea to former mayor, Kit Kuhn, who supported the idea. By 2019, Williamson and his team collected the $150,000 needed to carry out the project.
The city contributed $55,000, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians contributed $75,000, and the Gig Harbor Kiwanis Foundation contributed $25,000.
“To see it all come together, today I am overwhelmed with joy,” Williamson told The Gateway Thursday.
The Gateway does not yet have the proper fonts to reproduce Twulshootseed words in print. That’s why they don’t appear in this story. However, they do work online. Check out this same story on www.gateline.com.
To find a video of a tribal linguist David Turnipseed teaching the pronunciation of the name of the Gig Harbor people, go to YouTube and search for “Lushootseed Name - Swift Water People.”
There’s also a video of the same linguist teaching the name of the village. Go to YouTube and search for “Lushootseed Place Name - Gig Harbor.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
