The Nisqually Tribe of Washington State have always been known as salmon people, not only through legend or fishing but through the relationship they have with the salmon. The focus for this digital piece was on the people of the Nisqually Tribe. I wanted to highlight that it is the people who are keeping the salmon alive, and to show how the salmon are a sacred part of their lives. Color and shape were important elements in this design, with the blue robe representing the river, and the yellows contrasting to give a feeling of warmth. -Vanessa Harriss, student in the Fall 2020-Winter 2021, “Conceptualizing Place: Pacific Northwest Native Art and Geographies” daytime program at The Evergreen State College   

by Zoltán Grossman and Alexander McCarty, and students of "Conceptualizing Place: Pacific Northwest Native Art and Geographies"

In Fall 2020-Winter 2021, students in the “Conceptualizing Place: Pacific Northwest Native Art and Geographies” daytime program at The Evergreen State College produced a 135-page publication about barriers to salmon runs, notably dams, dikes, and culverts, and how tribal nations have led alliances to remove some of the barriers in order to restore salmon habitat in Northwest watersheds. 

The place-based stories of habitat restoration highlight how treaty rights and tribal sovereignty have become leading drivers of reversing damage wrought by settler colonialism, and how the healing of the watersheds and their estuaries is made possible by a process of decolonization and reindigenization in corresponding Indigenous homelands.  
 
In Removing Barriers: Restoring Salmon Watersheds through Tribal Alliances, narratives of the watersheds are told through text, graphics, and students' 42 original digital artworks and maps, as students simultaneously learned Northwest Native histories, geographies, and art styles. Under the remote supervision of faculty (artist Alexander McCarty and cartographer Zoltán Grossman), individual students produced Adobe Illustrator artwork and maps in fall quarter, and student teams produced the Adobe InDesign layouts in winter quarter. Media Services staff offered their invaluable training and assistance. 

Students' twelve chapters highlighted the Nisqually, Elwha, Skokomish, Chico, White Salmon, Nooksack, White, Deschutes, Chehalis, Klamath, and Snake watersheds, as well as background on dams and climate change, and their effects on Pacific salmon, orcas, and coastal communities. The book’s theme of “removing barriers” applies to the barriers to salmon runs, barriers between human beings and the natural world, barriers between Native and non-Native communities, and barriers to Indigenous self-determination.  

Removing Barriers: Restoring Salmon Watersheds through Tribal Alliances will be available for download in May 2021, along with background and a video of a faculty-student presentation at Evergreen’s Equity Symposium, on the book Wordpress site.