THE SEATTLE TIMES
BY DEAN RUTZ
1/4/2005
The tribe has grown by 25 people since 1999 and has about 600 members, said Katherine Barker, a lifetime member in charge of enrollment.
Hopefuls must prove that they are at least one-eighth Snoqualmie through
birth certificates and genealogy records. A committee checks the
authenticity of the applicant's family tree, and the Tribal Council decides.
Even as the tribe attracts renewed interest, it remains a shadow of its
former self. At one time it was 4,000 strong and one of the largest tribes
in the Puget Sound area. In 1855, Snoqualmie Chief Patkanim ceded all tribal
lands, from Snoqualmie Pass to Everett, to the U.S. government. The tribe
never was paid for the land, and the people eventually scattered throughout
the Puget Sound region.
Tribal leaders had sought territory for a reservation since shortly after
the Civil War, but it wasn't until the Snoqualmies were listed in the
Congressional Record as an unrecognized tribe in 1952 that they began a
47-year fight to regain their status.
Their dream is to create a centralized location. A home.
A helping hand for health
The Tolt Community Clinic one block from tribal headquarters is quiet on a
cold winter afternoon. Tribal member Catherine Jones emerges from the
patient room to schedule her next appointment.
Jones, 55, has had a rough year. After her husband died from prostate cancer
in October, she went to the emergency room with chest pains. Tests showed
she had a heart fibrillation that required her to stop working temporarily.
"I had no idea," she said. "I thought I was just exhausted from taking care
of my husband."
There was another problem: She had no medical insurance. Jones had lost her
previous job two years ago when her Arlington-based employer, a caviar
company, moved to Alaska. And she hadn't yet qualified for coverage at her
new job at a grocery store in Marysville. She panicked.
A tribal elder advised her to seek help at the Tolt center. As part of the
federal Indian Health Service, the clinic pays for treatment for recognized
members of native tribes. Jones travels more than an hour to get to
Carnation.
Much of what the doctors see are the same ills that plague Native Americans
nationwide: diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, and heart and kidney
disease.
The tribe runs two clinics; the other is in North Bend. The clinics serve 75
to 80 patients a week, and most are on welfare, said Dr. Gerald Yorioka,
medical director of the Tolt clinic.
With no job and no income, Jones is counting on the tribal food bank to keep
her pantry full for two weeks at a time. The tribe also helps pay her
electricity bill.
It gets her by.
"The golden goose"
A ranch-style home with carpeting and wood paneling on Entwistle Drive in
Carnation doubles as the tribe's social-service agency. Pamphlets on
nicotine addiction and alcohol abuse greet visitors at the entrance.
Patients speak with counselors in two rooms near the back.
This is where Marie Ramirez spends her days as the tribe's social-services
and interim health director.
She has a vision that someday a Snoqualmie Tribe high-school student will
walk up to her and say, '"I want your job."
She says this as someone who has seen too many native children succumb to
troubling high-school dropout rates, drug abuse and alcoholism.
In 2002, the tribe set up a program called the Family Canoe project that
matches at-risk students with adult mentors and prepares them for a
three-week paddling journey during the summer. The trip stresses living off
the land and connecting with tribal history.
As a teen, Staci Moses got caught up in drinking and drugs, and never
finished high school. A lifetime member of the Snoqualmie Tribe, Moses
sobered up seven years ago and got a job working for the tribe as a youth
coordinator. Now she hopes her three daughters make it to college.
"I tell them, 'Be the first one to walk down that [graduation] aisle,' " she
said. "I didn't get a chance to." Ramirez says she is eager for the casino
to get started. She sees those funds helping Snoqualmie children invest in
their future.
"It's the golden goose," she said. "Only with the tribe becoming
educationally sound can it move forward."
Back at tribal headquarters, Chief Jerry Enick sits alone at the empty
council table. It's noon and most of the office has cleared out for lunch.
Enick isn't in a hurry to go anywhere. At 71, he has become a patient man.
He saw the tribe through its bleakest days and watches now as it stands on
the cusp of a new era.
Before recognition, "it was a lot of wishes and wants," he said.
"Now it's up to us to get it done. I just hope it happens before I pass
away."