 In the fall of 2008 work began to get the Whatcom Creek Salmon Art Trail approved in Maritime Heritage Park in downtown Bellingham as a place for sculptures related to themes of salmon and nature. This trail has been inspired by the Salmon Art Trail at the US Fish and Wildlife Service Willapa Bay Headquarters that was designed by University of Washington public art students and includes several sculptures featuring salmon, lifecycles, and habitat. Maritime Heritage Park is a special place for many reasons and has a rich history here in Whatcom County. The park is the site where the first two Euro-Americans in 1852 met with the Lummi people along Whatcom Creek at the falls. Much has changed in the last 150 years; the estuary of Whatcom Creek, once a series of small streams running through a wide mud flat, is now filled in and a city has sprung up along the banks. Within the park there now lies the Bellingham Technical College Fish Hatchery where post-secondary students learning aquaculture, an Environmental Learning Center where elementary school students learn about the salmon lifecycle, streams, habitat, and watershed health, and a large hatchery-produced recreational chum fishery which runs strong in the month of November. Several sculptors were invited to view the area, including Tony Angell, Tom Jay, Ann Morris, Scott Jensen and Felix Solomon. Felix made the first proposal, which has been approved by the Bellingham Arts Commission and the Bellingham Parks Board, and we are now in the fundraising process. The horizontal Coast Salish cedar story pole sculpture Felix will be carving is titled "It's Mine". The budget for the project is $45,565 and so far we have received nearly $7,000 in donations. The carving will related the story of the interconnections between the decline of the salmon and the decline of the Lummi culture. A fund for the Whatcom Creek Salmon Art Trail has been established at NSEA. If you are interested in supporting this effort and Felix Solomon's carving, please consider making a donation. Please make checks payable to: NSEA - Whatcom Creek Salmon Art Trail - Solomon Story Pole Fund
Donations can be sent to the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, 2445 E. Bakerview Road, ARTIST'S STATEMENT: The “It’s Mine” Coast Salish Horizontal Sculpture is a story pole carved from a ten-foot red cedar old growth log depicting two Native fishermen in a Shovelnose canoe struggling to catch a salmon, which is being pursued from the other direction by a giant serpent. The sculpture tells a story that came to me last year when I was cleaning salmon brought down from the Fraser River to be sold here since we no longer have salmon of our own. I was outside cleaning fish when an extraordinarily large snake crawled out of the bushes near me and lay watching me work. I began remembering my years as a fisherman, my father’s life as a fisherman and the lives of all the other men around me and before me who fished. I saw that serpent as a metaphor for all the outside interests which have negatively impacted our ability to sustain our traditional way of life as salmon fishermen. This project is an expression of my personal experience in life and tells a story of the relationship between the decline of salmon populations and the impacts on Lummi culture. This project will help me further develop my career as a carver. For thirty years I supported myself and family salmon fishing. This is no longer possible due to the decline in salmon populations and other obstacles to fishing. After leaving fishing I opened a restaurant that served fish and chips with salmon being a featured menu item. The last few years it’s become harder and harder to sustain my business, again due to the loss and high prices of salmon; it’s been almost eight years since I could afford to put salmon on my menu. I began learning to carve and have started building a career and reputation as a professional artist/carver and totem pole conservationist. For eleven years I’ve been carving and have created bentwood boxes and chests, masks, bowls and dishes, spoons, combs, rattles and clappers and most recently a small Shovelnose canoe which was commissioned by Northwest Indian College to be installed at the Northwest Indian College Early Learning Center children’s playground. I’ve also been the lead carver in the restoration and conservation of the Whatcom Centennial Story Pole as well as two poles owned by the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, one of which was carved by Lummi carver Morrie Alexander, the other carved by Morrie Alexander and another Lummi carver, Dale James. Through traditional form, “It’s Mine” expresses the social, political and spiritually relevant issues that impact not only Natives today, but all humans and the environment. It depicts and symbolizes how the Lummi people have been fishermen for thousands of years and how in modern times we have lost the salmon that were a central part of our sustenance. It speaks to the struggles we face feeding our families without our primary protein source of salmon, how we are unable to meet our financial obligations without fish to sell or trade, and how we’ve lost our ability to support ourselves. This project goes beyond my own Lummi community into the public arena where people who may not understand or be aware of the problems surrounding the state of the salmon populations can be educated about how the loss of salmon affects everyone, not just Natives. As part of our Maritime Heritage Park and the Whatcom Creek Salmon Art Trail all people can learn how salmon are a key species in the health of our waterways and forests and how the loss of salmon critically and negatively affects the balance of ecosystems, both human and in nature. ARTIST:
Felix Solomon CHULH TSE X’EPY’ (Tradition of Cedar) |
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Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association is a community-based nonprofit organization
dedicated to restoring sustainable wild salmon runs in Whatcom County.
Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association 360-715-0283 info@n-sea.orgdedicated to restoring sustainable wild salmon runs in Whatcom County.
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