Funders tour Tribal campus

By Nicole Montesano

Smoke Signals staff writer

Representatives from major foundations and funding organizations spent the morning of Thursday, Aug. 28, touring the Tribal campus, learning more about Grand Ronde’s programs and about the history of the place, the people and the names. That included learning why the reservation they were visiting is named the Grand Ronde Reservation, rather than the Chachalu or Yamhill Reservation.

“Some French-Canadian trappers called this the Grand Ronde Valley,” Cultural Resources Department Manager David Harrelson explained. “But in honor of the language, we named our museum Chachalu,” memorializing the “place of the burnt timbers.”

The group has been participating in a new program to provide annual “listening tours” of different Oregon Tribes each summer, with the goal of developing closer relationships and understanding more about the history and culture of each of the Tribal nations in Oregon, as well as to see the projects the Tribes have undertaken, in some cases funded by their organizations.

The Grand Ronde tour included representatives from the Ford Family Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, Willamette Health Council, The Roundhouse Foundation, Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation, Gray Family Foundation and Business Oregon, Spirit Mountain Community Fund and the Oregon Community Foundation, which was represented by Tribal member and former general manager Angie Blackwell.

For a number of the representatives, it was a chance to reconnect with friends in the Tribe, met through previous grant processes.

The group stayed overnight at Spirit Mountain Casino Hotel before arriving at the campus for the tour the following morning, followed by a pizza and salad lunch at the Health & Wellness Center.

Tribal Council members Kathleen George and Lisa Leno also joined the group for lunch. George joined the tour as well, offering commentary for the visitors along the way.

On Friday, group members were scheduled to travel to the Chinook Winds Resort, to visit the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. 

During the tour, the visitors nibbled on yampah roots, seeds and brodiaea corns at the Tribe’s Native Plant Nursery while listening to Nursery Supervisor Jay Ojua talk about the Tribe’s mission to repopulate as much of Oregon as possible with first foods. Then, they viewed the traditional baskets and fish trap brought in by Nursery Assistant Joeseph Ham, drove past Tribal housing to view the neat rows of homes, each provided with solar panels, and, at Chachalu Tribal Museum, viewed a map showing what the Willamette Valley would have looked like as a massive 400-foot-deep lake during the Missoula Floods. The Eola Hills, Red Hills in Dundee and West Hills in Portland were submerged, their tops becoming islands of refuge.

“We have stories about the great floods,” which occurred some 13,000 to 18,000 years ago, Harrelson told the group, as well as about the last massive subduction zone earthquake that struck off the Oregon coast in 1700, and the eruption of Mount Mazama, 7,700 years ago, that formed Crater Lake.

“We’ve literally been here since a time no one can remember,” Harrelson said. 

Tribal Grants Program Manager Wendy Sparks and Tribal Community Development Manager Kristen Svicarovich provided visitors with an overview that included brief updates of the Tribe’s intended new recreation center, phase 3 of the Wind River Apartments, scheduled to break ground this month, and other upcoming projects. Engineering & Community Development Department Manager Ryan Webb spoke briefly about the plans for the Tribe’s tumwata village project in Oregon City.

In addition, they briefly discussed the current plight of wild populations of Chinook salmon and winter steelhead, which are both on the brink of extinction. The Tribe has been struggling to get the Army Corps of Engineers to allow salmon past the dams that block their access to urgently needed habitat and spawning grounds, Kathleen George told the group, saying the situation is a tragedy that many Oregonians remain unaware of.

The group also toured the new Early Care and Education Center, exploring the classrooms and playgrounds, kitchen and other amenities.

“This building is a dream come true for me and so many Tribal members,” George told them. “Lack of childcare is a barrier to work.”

Brian Plinski, of Business Oregon, said the funders’ listening tour is an important program, “to try to better understand. Rather than making Tribes come to the funders, it’s getting the funders out to the Tribes, to better understand what they’re doing.”

Marina Bhargava, of the Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation, said it was a second visit for her, as she had also attended the grand opening of the center, which her foundation had helped to fund.

She said she had especially enjoyed touring Chachalu, listening to Harrelson talk about the Tribe’s history and the ways in which people traditionally prepared first foods.

“I enjoy history, so that was really fascinating,” Bhargava said.