bring to life by firelight tales of the trickster Raven, of great floods
and Sasquatch, the cedar tree and the terrible, supernatural creature
known as Thunderbird. “This is an introduction to our visiting
guests, to kind of help open their eyes,” Mathers tells me. “This is
only the beginning.”
After finishing a salmon dinner, expertly cooked on cedar planks,
and watching the rousing performances—some narrated by a
floating hologram of the famous storyteller Roger Fernandes—the
guests depart, and I with them. The return trip aboard the Life Proof
31 is just as fast as our arrival, and we get back to Seattle’s docks with
time to spare: a nice commute for a weary dancer, but barely enough
time at all to ruminate on the ever-changing ways these cultures
have managed to survive.
I arrive in time for the afternoon bustle: honking cars, professionals
hunting for happy hour, the shudder of jackhammers. The spell of the
island is broken. On my walk, I pass the source of the construction
noise: crews are removing a concrete viaduct that, once demolished,
will give the waterfront a much-needed facelift. Out with the old; it
seems the way of things nowadays. In our headlong, madcap dash
toward the future, it would be easy to forget the things that make the
past so important—like honoring tradition, and keeping the spirits
alive, in whatever form they may take. For the rest of my time in the
Pacific Northwest, cruising throughout these waters, I think of Blake
Island and Mathers, who is willing to share so much with groups
of people he could justifiably call his oppressors. It punctuates this
land, and lifts my spirits. U59