“I believe in the sun and the stars, the water, the tides, the floods, the owls, the hawks flying, the river running, the wind talking. They’re measurements. They tell us how healthy things are. How healthy we are, because we and they are the same.”
-Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually Tribal Leader
❤️ ***** Please note! You must RSVP for this event by emailing Protect.restore.salish.sea@gmail.com. In order to provide food for all attendees, we are requesting that each person contact us via email. Please specify the amount of days/nights as well as the number of people in your group.*****❤️
The people of our Salish Sea are rising like the tide again! To protect what we love and cherish as sacred, to stand together like the trees and lift each other up! The “each other” includes our grandchildren’s grandchildren, the orca and salmon people, the tree and bird people and all the other animal people of our Salish Sea. To stand in solidarity with Salish Sea tribes to ensure their treaty rights are honored, respected and for other nations to have their unceded territories, natural laws honored and respected. To breach the Snake river dams to keep our sacred promises to our Salmon People. For Climate Justice, as low glacial snowpacks create shallowed, warmed rivers and estuaries that devastate our wild salmon stalks which our Southern Resident Orcas depend upon.
This is why, on our 3rd Walk for our Salish Sea, we will be offering a telling of our SLAHAL creation prophecy on our sacred mountain Tahoma where our ceremonies & 50 mile walk will begin. Creator gifted SLAHAL (Sacred peace making game) to the Animal and Human People time immemorial ago when humans were very new, through great disrespects the world had fallen to bone and ash so they went upon Mount Tahoma and called upon Creator for help. After reprimands, Creator instructed them to collect their ancestral bones in the valleys. Creator informed them that SLAHAL would replace all of the war and disrespect they had brought to their world, showing them of the importance of the life bringer, the sacred feminine. The humans almost lost this first SLAHAL game but with our sacred promises given, the Creator helped our human people and we were able to keep these sacred promises to care for every creation of Creator for tens of thousands of years, all the way up until contact with Europeans. We are the keepers of the Sacred promises to care for the circle life. We must all keep this Sacred promise alive, this is why we will do ceremony on Tahoma and walk for 5 days carrying sacred water from the Nisqually glacial snowpack on Mount Tahoma along the Nisqually river to place it in our Salish Sea in ceremony. To begin our plans of restoration for our beloved Salish Sea bio-region. There is only one Salish Sea and it can become legally designated as a Whale Sanctuary once we bring Tokitae (aka Lolita) home to her mother who still swims in our Southern Salish Sea and are both L-pod orcas. We walk to be free of Justin Trudeau’s plan to bring nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day to the shores of our Salish Sea via Transmountain Pipeline. To stand in solidarity and to ensure that the Puyallup Nation and Tacoma residents do not have the threat of an 8 million gallon liquefied un-natural(fracked) gas facility, (LNG) with a 12.5 mile blast zone located a half mile from their homes. So that our Salish Sea can be a place for all life to thrive once again and be free from the threats of Climate Change.
-ITINERARY-
Our Walk to Protect & Restore Tahoma to Salish Sea will start:
Sunday August 30th, 2020 12:00pm:
Meet in the parking lot of Paradise Lodge on Mount Rainier. Participants can either meet in the Paradise Lodge parking lot or alternatively we will be announcing an 11:00am carpool meet up location in Ashford, WA. (Near entrance to Mount Tahoma). You can park your car and hop in a van and shuttle up to Paradise. At 1:00pm we will begin our 5.5 mile round trip walk from the Paradise parking lot to Skyline trail loop. The trailhead is located behind Jackson Visitor Center. Once we reach the high point of Skyline trail loop we will collect sacred water coming off of the Nisqually glacier in ceremony.
SLAHAL prophecy creation story will be shared and once again we will make our Sacred Promises to Creator to care for the circle of life.
After ceremony on the mountain, we will shuttle or drive to Wellspring Woodland Retreat (www.wellspringspa.com) to set up our tents and eat dinner and prepare for our morning prayer walk.
*****Please DO NOT arrive at Wellspring Woodland Retreat before 5PM!*****
❤️ We will be asking people to keep others safe by wearing a mask. Meals will be outdoors while socially distancing. Sleeping areas will be in tents.❤️
Monday August 31st, 2020 8:00am:
Gather at Ashford Mount Rainier Entrance. We will walk in prayer carrying sacred water along the Nisqually river toward our Salish Sea.
Tuesday September 1, 2020 8:00am:
Continue prayer walk.
Wednesday September 2, 2020 8:00am:
Continue prayer walk.
Thursday September 3, 2020 @ 8:00am:
Continue prayer walk.
Friday September 4, 2020 @ 8:00am:
Continue prayer walk and arrive at Billy Frank Jr. Nature Preserve for a Water blessing ceremony and celebration.
Saturday September 5, 2020:
We continue to celebrate & tour sacred sites along the Salish Sea.
Sign up to volunteer to support the walk here: https://forms.gle/tsYLktScSPFqm7nD6
Sign up to Carpool to the walk here:
https://www.groupcarpool.com/t/jukn4h
-Overnight itinerary-
FIRST NIGHT: August 30, 2020 Wellspring Woodland Retreat (54922 Kernahan Rd E Ashford Wa. 98304)
SECOND NIGHT: August 31, 2020 Wellspring Woodland Retreat (54922 Kernahan Rd E Ashford Wa. 98304)
THIRD NIGHT: TBD
FOURTH NIGHT:TBD
FIFTH NIGHT: TBD
SIXTH NIGHT: TBD
We will aim for 8:00am departure times daily, however we will be doing updates and live feeds to our Protectors page for exact departure times as things could vary each morning.
WHAT TO BRING:
-Face masks.
-Reusable plate/bowl & fork/spoon (for breakfasts & dinners, provided at host locations) Label them yours!
-Water bottle/Coffee cup.
-Cloth napkin/Towel for drying your dishes.
-Sunscreen/Sun hat.
-Medications & Personal 1st aid items (for potential blisters and hot spots along the walk.)
-Small backpack/bag to carry your personal items as you walk.
WHAT TO BRING – OVERNIGHT GUESTS:
All sleep locations will be outdoors to assure social distancing protocols. PLEASE BRING A TENT. In addition to the list of items above, walkers who will be staying overnight, please bring:
-Sleeping bag
-Sleep pad
-Pillow
-Oral & other hygiene supplies
-Wash cloth & bio-degradable soap, towel.
If you do not have any particular camp gear item we can help with a loaner. Please email us your request at: Protect.Restore.Salish.Sea@gmail.com
YOUR HEAVY BACKPACKS & BEDDING WILL BE TRANSPORTED FOR YOU!
FOOD: The following meals will be provided (Breakfasts & Dinners ONLY. Basic healthy snacks will be provided during lunch). If the menu does not meet your dietary needs, please bring food items with you. We will NOT have refrigeration or use of a kitchen along the way. Please bring all your own snacks for during the walk.
RESTROOMS: There will be bathroom stops along the way at various locations, we will also have a curtained truck with a restroom facility in the bed.
WATER: Pure Artesian Spring water will be offered from large 5 gallon containers to fill walker’s water bottles at various rest stops along the way.
MEDICINE: Anti-viral polypore tea will be offered during meals.
BREAKS: Support van will be offering a break from walking for Elders, Jr. Elders and tired children.
MEDICATIONS: If you take any prescription medication, or believe you will need any other medication along the way (aspirin, Tylenol, etc.), please bring it with you in your personal belongings.
First AID: We will have basic first aid supplies on hand at the Longhouse and Church locations (Band-Aids, etc.) if you require more than basic aid, you will be referred to your doctor or local hospital.
PETS: Dogs are welcome on our Walk, *BUT* Wellspring Retreat Center *DOES NOT* allow dogs. We will update this for other sleep locations.
OTHER:
We will require all attendees to social distance and wear face masks at all times.
We will also provide an ample amount of hand sanitizer.
Though this is primarily a walk we are welcoming to all forms of human driven transportation including but not limited to: bikes, skate boards, scooters, inline skates, canoes and kayaks.
Walk to Protect & Restore Tahoma to Salish Sea T-shirts will be handed out potlatch style at Billy Frank Jr. Nature Preserve to walkers who finished the journey!
We look forward to walking, drumming, singing, laughing, eating and bringing our Salish Sea back to life with you! And protecting all life within our Salish Sea bio-region from the threats of fossil fuel industries. To build a bridge to that good future for everyone’s grandchildren.
As we are walking we will undoubtedly come across banks that are funding Tar Sands oil projects and Liquefied Natural Gas projects in our Salish Sea, we will be stopping at a number of these banks to allow patrons of these banks to divest by closing their accounts as we sing a prayer song for the work of Divestment.
This is a peaceful prayer walk and we take the safety of all attendees very seriously.
*********Please consider a donation to raise funds for meals and silkscreen shirts for our Walk to Protect & Restore Tahoma to Salish Sea, please share: https://www.gofundme.com/f/walk-to-protect-restore-salish-sea-food-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1
Partner organizations and individuals are welcome to join us at rally points or at any point along our walk. We plan on posting updates to this page as to our locations along the walk so people can find us and join in at different times. Walk to Protect & Restore the Salish Sea has supporting “recognition” from: Mazaska Talks, Puyallup Water Warriors NoLNG253, Sunrise Movement Tacoma, Salish Sea Bioregional Marine Sanctuary, Protectors of the Salish Sea and more to announce soon.
ABOUT OUR WALK:
Walk to Protect & Restore Tahoma to Salish Sea is an indigenous lead volunteer driven organization that believes in the ability of all people to come together to create positive change in our world. We were given instructions by our elders to stand together like the trees and lift each other up and take care of all life around us. So our human family is coming together today to lift this world up and in so doing we will lift up our own human families as well as the Tree, Plant and Animal families.
OUR VISION:
Terminate all fossil fuel expansion projects and deescalate usage in our bioregion. To bring our Salish Sea back to a place of vibrancy and life by turning it into a whale sanctuary. Tokitae (aka Lolita) will be the catalyst for the turning of tides for our home, once she is returned to her and our home of the Salish Sea, the whole world will be watching and all the people of our bio-region can become aware of the conditions and threats to our waters and this will give the people power and a voice, then through the initiative ballot system of Washington State and what is known as British Columbia we will have the solidarity to write the laws that will care for all life here once again, reminiscent to the original sanctuary that our First Peoples protected since time immemorial. Numerous Indigenous Nations within the Salish Sea Bioregion coming together in solidarity, signing a First Peoples Tokitae resolution creating sanctuary for all life here. We will also have the people’s Tokitae resolution that gives all residents of our Salish Sea a voice at the table where everyone can vow to stand in solidarity with the Coast Salish Nations and other Indigenous Nations that are demanding the return of their ancestral being Tokitae. Resolution signing will occur Sept. 5th after Water Ceremony at Bill Frank Jr. Nature Preserve.
TOKITAE’S STORY:
Tokitae is L-pod from right here in our Southern Salish Sea, she is considered the loneliest orca on the planet since her pen mate died in the 1980s she has not seen another orca for 32 years. She is the last of 45 orcas kidnapped from their mothers and their families and sold into entertainment slavery around the world. All of the other 44 orcas died very young from depression, atrophied muscles and loneliness because in nature they never leave their complex family structures of 3 to 4 generations. Tokitae has been a slave to entertainment for 49 years, she has been doing tricks for food twice a day 365 days a year for 50 years without even one day off. Left to their own devises these people would work this whale until she is dead. But we will bring her home to her mother who still swims in our Salish Sea! She is still in very good health and she is holding on for one reason we believe…. To turn our Salish Sea back into a Sanctuary for all life once again. Inside of a Salish Sea whale sanctuary there can be no 1 million barrels of Justin Trudeau’s Tar Sands oil entering our sacred waters and there can be no mega LNG facilities in our Salish Sea. But there can be a future for our grandchildren’s grandchildren and all life around us.
Hiswke siem ne schaylecha (Thank you honorable friends) for working together for a livable future.