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History

The Olympic Peninsula

"We are transparent about the macro, and that includes some of our history — history that maybe is not so becoming, and gives us examples of where we can do things better." (George Peterson, Third Harvest)

Also in History: Olympic Hot Springs, a walk back through time →

Photo: Adbar, CC BY-SA 3.0

At the Point No Point council, January 25–26, 1855

  • Che-lan-teh-tat, "an old Skokomish": "I wish to speak my mind as to selling the land. Great Chief, what shall we eat if we do so? Our only food is berries, deer, and salmon. Where, then, shall we find these? I don't want to sign away all my land. Take half of it, and let us keep the rest. I am afraid that I shall become destitute and perish for want of food."
  • S'Haie-at-seha-uk, "a To-an-hooch": "I do not want to leave the mouth of the river. I do not want to leave my old home and my burying-ground. I am afraid I shall die if I do."
  • Dah-whil-luk, "the Skokomish head chief": "I do not want to sell my land, because it is valuable. The whites pay a great deal for a small piece, and they get money by selling the sticks [timber]."
  • Hool-hole-tan, or Jim (Skokomish sub-chief on the treaty): "I don't want to sign away my right to the land. If it was myself alone I signed for, I would do it; but we have women and children. Let us keep half of it, and take the rest. Why should we sell all? We may become destitute. Why not let us live together with you?"
  • Chits-a-mah-han, or the Duke of York, "the head chief of the Clallams": "My heart is good. … Formerly the Indians were bad towards each other, but Governor Stevens has made them agree to be friends." On the second day: "My heart is white, so are those of my people, and we will never stain it with blood."
  • Dah-kwil-luk, "the Skokomish chief" (spelled this way on day two): "My heart, too, has become white, and I give it to the chief. I put away all bad feelings."
  • Kul-kah-han, "the Chem-a-cum [Chimakum] chief": "We can say nothing but what this flag tells. We give our hearts to you with it in return for what you do for us. We were once wretched, but since you came you have made us right. Formerly other Indians did wrong us, but since the whites came we are free and have not been killed."
  • Not found as speakers:
    • Lach-ka-nam is "Lord Nelson" on the treaty, not Lord Jim.
    • "Lord Jim" is Tuls-met-tum. Both signed as S'Klallam sub-chiefs (GOIA treaty text).
    • Neither appears as a speaker in Hazard Stevens.
    • Gibbs's records: not checked page by page this round.
    • HistoryLink 5637: also quotes Hool-hol-tan.
  • Territory (the sources disagree):
    • NPS: "Chimacum [Chimakum] territory at the time of white contact was restricted to the Port Townsend area," and the Chimakum "lived on the Quimper Peninsula."
    • Curtis: they "inhabited the peninsula between Hoods canal and Port Discovery, their villages in the main being situated on Port Townsend and Port Ludlow."
    • The Chimakum Tribe says Chimakuan speakers once held "the whole north end of the Olympic Peninsula" and were pushed east "into the Port Townsend-Chimacum area."
    • The NPS assigns the Hood Canal drainage to the Twana, not the Chimakum, so a Hood Canal boundary for the Chimakum is disputed.
    • Sources: https://npshistory.com/publications/olym/prehistory_ethnography/chap5.htm ; https://www.chemakum.org/our-history ; Curtis (above)
  • Economy: almost no direct record survives. The NPS says: "We must assume that their economic orientation was similar in broad outline to that of their immediate neighbors, the Klallam and Twana." For those neighbors that means salmon fishing, shellfish, waterfowl, and some deer and elk hunting. Any specific Chimakum foods or fishing sites are unsourced. Source: NPS (above)
  • Pressure from neighbors:
    • Curtis: "by constant wars with their more powerful neighbors, particularly the Clallam, they were reduced until in 1855 they were estimated by Gibbs to number only ninety souls."
    • NPS: they "may have suffered severe disease attrition in the early nineteenth century."
    • Collins (1949), quoted by NPS: "the number of large scale attacks against the Chemakum [Chimakum] suggest that they greatly provoked the other groups."
    • The Chimakum Tribe describes Makah and S'Klallam expansion pushing Chimakuan speakers east.
    • Sources: Curtis ; NPS ; chemakum.org (above)
  • Survivors:
    • Buerge (2017, quoted on chemakum.org): "The only survivors of the attack on this village were those, including the Chemakum [Chimakum] chief, who had gone upstream in the early morning to spear fish. Subsequently survivors from the village joined the Twana on their reservation at the head of Hood Canal."
    • James Swan (1859, quoted on chemakum.org) described "a remnant of the Chemakum [Chimakum] tribe of about one hundred persons" at Port Townsend.
    • Not found: an account of survivors retreating to a fortified camp in the woods, off the beach. The documented fortification is the stockaded village itself, at the mouth of Chimakum Creek (Curtis: "A heavy stockade protected the settlement"). The woods-camp detail comes from family and oral tradition and is not confirmed by published sources.
  • Jamestown's maps today (2016 Comprehensive Plan, https://jamestowntribe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Comprehensive_Plan_Revised_in_2016_Final.pdf , pp. 13–17). The plan defines four separate areas:
    • Land Consolidation Area (approved by Interior in 1985): 363 sq. mi. in Clallam and Jefferson counties, where the tribe concentrates land acquisition and where land may become trust land. On the map it covers both sides of Discovery Bay and much of east Jefferson County down to Quilcene and Brinnon. It does not cover Port Townsend or the northern Quimper Peninsula, as shown on the map.
    • Health service area: "Clallam and East Jefferson Counties."
    • Ceded Area: the land ceded under Point No Point "by the Klallam, Chimacum [Chimakum] and Twana peoples."
    • Usual and accustomed area: the shared Point No Point treaty fishing area, which includes Hood Canal and Admiralty Inlet.
    • The tribe owned 87 acres in Jefferson County (2016).
    • None of these maps is labeled as an ancestral or aboriginal territory map. The plan itself names the Chimakum as a separate treaty people.
  • Not consulted: Eells, Gibbs's tribal notes, Elmendorf, and Jefferson County Historical Society holdings. They aren't available as free full text.
  • Land claim: the Indian Claims Commission awarded Chimakum territory to the S'Klallam, "who claimed that the Chemakum [Chimakum] had abandoned their territory before the treaty" (chemakum.org). Who holds the ancestral claim today is contested. George's view is that a present Jamestown claim to be ancestral holders of Chimakum land is incorrect. That is his opinion, not a sourced finding.

The Chimakum before 1847: expanded

Each source below is tagged by type:

  • [Tribal]: published by the Chimakum or another tribe.
  • [Oral, recorded]: an Indigenous account written down by someone else.
  • [Colonial-only]: settler, agent, or ethnographer observation, with no Indigenous voice identified.
  • (a) Earlier attacks that drove them off their bay
    • [Colonial-only] Gibbs (1854), quoted by the Skagit River Journal: "formerly one of the most powerful tribes of the Sound, but which, a few years since, is said to have been nearly destroyed at a blow by an attack of the Snoqualmoos." He adds that "the Clallams… have occupied the latter place [Port Townsend], properly belonging to the Chimakum."
    • [Colonial-only; settler recollection] William "Blanket Bill" Jarman, interviewed in 1897: "about 1842 or 3, Chimikums had fortifications or palisades of timbers driven in ground all around village. Skagits and Snohomish combined came and set fire to palisades, destroying nearly all the Chimikums… Only about 200 Chimikums left of big tribe."
    • [Colonial-only; local legend] McCurdy (1937), via Camfield: "it was about 1823 that Northern Indians massacred the Chimacum [Chimakum] tribe… A large band of warriors from Queen Charlotte Island… camped near the head of present Port Townsend Bay… only four Chimacum [Chimakum] warriors escaped."
    • [Colonial-only; Coast Salish traditions recorded by Gibbs] HistoryLink: the Chimakum village "was razed by a coalition of Salish-speaking villages in the 1820s, perhaps as retribution for Chimacum [Chimakum] piracy along the critical sailing canoe trade route."
    • [Colonial-only] Gibbs (1877), quoted in a Western Washington University thesis: the Chimakum were "successively engaged in wars with the Makah, Klallam, Toan-huch (Twana), Snohomish, and Dwamish."
    • [Tribal] chemakum.org: in deep time, "the Makah moved down from the Nitinat area of Vancouver Island and pushed the Chimakuan speakers down the coast." That describes a long migration, not a single raid.
    • On the Makah raid account: Makah wars with the Chimakum are recorded (Gibbs 1877), and so is Makah-driven displacement in deep time (the tribe's own history). Sources don't confirm that the Makah led a raid that wiped out half the tribe; this account comes from family and oral tradition. The recorded attackers in the large early raids are Snoqualmoo, Skagit and Snohomish, and "Northern Indians" from Haida Gwaii. One later account (1857, below) names "the Barclay Sound tribe," which is Nuu-chah-nulth, close linguistic relatives of the Makah but not the Makah. This account is not confirmed by published sources.
    • Sources: http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/wa/olypen/indians1-sklallamchemakumjarman.html ; https://historylink.org/File/20249 ; https://doi.org/10.25710/4v3k-wh92 (thesis) ; https://www.chemakum.org/our-history
  • (b) Disease
    • [Colonial-only; historian Boyd via HistoryLink] In the 1770s, smallpox "eradicates at least 30 percent of the native population on the Northwest coast," and Boyd estimates it killed "more than 11,000 Western Washington Indians." Later outbreaks: "smallpox epidemic perhaps in 1800-1801; influenza in 1836-1837; measles in 1847-1848; smallpox again in 1862." HistoryLink also notes vaccination "first used in Puget Sound during the 1836-1837 outbreak." Source: https://historylink.org/File/5100
    • [Oral, recorded] The Chimakum people Eells spoke with "said that their numbers had been reduced by small-pox." Eells himself believed warfare also contributed (Eells 1887, via the WWU thesis). This is the only Chimakum-specific disease evidence in the published sources.
    • [Colonial-only] The NPS says they "may have suffered severe disease attrition in the early nineteenth century."
    • [Colonial-only] For neighbors: Gibbs recorded the Makah "numbered 550 until small pox hit in 1853" (via an Oklahoma law review article, https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1222&context=ailr ; returns 403 on direct fetch, so read via the search index).
    • "Chickenpox" or "blackpox": no source found. "Black pox" is a common name for a severe hemorrhagic form of smallpox, but no Chimakum record using it has been found. This account comes from family and oral tradition and is not confirmed by published sources.
  • (c) Already weakened by 1847: the raid in context
    • Accounts of the major attacks, in order:
    • about 1823 (McCurdy legend)
    • the 1820s (Coast Salish coalition, per Gibbs via HistoryLink)
    • about 1842–43 (Jarman)
    • 1847 (Buerge: Suquamish under Chief Seattle, with S'Klallam joining)
    • about 1850 (Curtis, from the Suquamish elder Wahélchu)
    • 1856–57 (NPS, citing Powell 1981)
    • spring 1857 (William Bishop Jr.'s family account: Snohomish with "the Barclay Sound tribe")
    • Counts: about 90 in 1855 (Gibbs, via Curtis). Swan's 1860 diary records Gen. Gaines giving "the census of his tribe, which is now only 73 persons."
    • The dates may describe several separate attacks, not one event told different ways. [Oral, recorded] Curtis's informant describes a "war of extermination." The Bishop Jr. account is a Snohomish-descended family memory recorded in the 1920s.
  • (d) Fortified settlements
    • [Oral, recorded: Suquamish informant via Curtis] "The Chimakum were then confined to one principal village at the mouth of Tsqai (Chimakum creek). A heavy stockade protected the settlement."
    • [Oral, drawing on tribal sources: Buerge, quoted by chemakum.org] "The raiders arrived under cover of darkness and hid themselves in the forest… Alerted, the Chimakum swarmed out of the barricade… All that was left was the smoking remains of the last Chemakum [Chimakum] village."
    • [Colonial-only] Jarman (c. 1842–43): "palisades of timbers driven in ground all around village."
    • *[Family oral history, via the Jefferson County Historical Society's 1966 book With Pride in Heritage]* The Chimakum "maintained lookouts in the trees on the hills at Irondale."
    • Retreating off the beach into the woods: not found. The sources place the stockade at the creek mouth, the lookouts on the Irondale hills, and the raiders (not the Chimakum) hiding in the forest. This account is not confirmed by published sources.
  • (e) Economy: the bay, marine resources, trade
    • [Oral, recorded via Curtis] A Chimakum medicine man accused the Suquamish "of interfering with the food supply of the Chimakum by keeping the salmon from running and the camas from growing plentifully." That shows salmon and camas were staple foods.
    • [Tribal / Buerge] Survivors "had gone upstream in the early morning to spear fish."
    • [Colonial-only; HistoryLink via Gibbs] The village sat along "the critical sailing canoe trade route linking Puget Sound and Vancouver Island."
    • [Family oral history, Bishop Jr.] Chimakum lookouts would "intercept the canoes of both the Barclays and Snohomish and rob them."
    • [Family oral history, Mary Ann Lambert Vincent, 1966] "Clallams who married Chemakum [Chimakum] lived in another village at Woodmans… This was the Indian trail with Chimacum [Chimakum] to the Bay." That points to marriage and travel ties with the S'Klallam.
    • Shellfish, waterfowl and hunting for the Chimakum specifically remain unsourced, and are inferred from neighbors (NPS, above).
  • (g) Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe
    • [Tribal] The tribe's history page: "The S'Kallams were deep rooted throughout the Hood Canal area, sharing sites in Port Townsend and Port Gamble with the Chemakum [Chimakum]." And: "Treaty of Point No Point is signed. S'Klallam, Chemakum [Chimakum], and Twana cede aboriginal territory." Source: https://pgst.nsn.us/history-culture/ . Its cultural-history PDF names "the S'Klallam, Skokomish, and Chemakum [Chimakum] tribes" as treaty signers: https://pgst.nsn.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Cultural-history.pdf
    • Not found: any Port Gamble statement on Chimakum recognition, for or against.
    • Related: a 1997 federal repatriation notice (Burke Museum) said "Marrowstone Island has been identified as the traditional territory of the Chemakum [Chimakum]. By the 1850s, the Chemakum [Chimakum] were living with the S'Klallam." It found shared group identity with the three S'Klallam tribes and repatriated to Jamestown. Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-03-27/html/97-7797.htm
  • (h) Framing: "Last of the Chimakums" is George's framing. It doesn't come from a cited source. The Chimakum Tribe's own words are "But. We are still here."

Cross-check of the sources

  • Fortified site before 1847: confirmed (stockaded village, not a separate woods camp).
    • [Oral, recorded: Suquamish elder Wahélchu via Curtis, vol. 9, 1913] "The Chimakum were then confined to one principal village at the mouth of Tsqai (Chimakum creek). A heavy stockade protected the settlement." Curtis dates the attack "about the year 1850." Source: https://worldwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/L390-The_Chimakum_and_Quilliute.pdf
    • [Oral, drawing on tribal sources: Buerge 2017, quoted by the Chimakum Tribe] "Alerted, the Chimakum swarmed out of the barricade, allowing the warriors to enter… This was in 1847." Source: https://www.chemakum.org/our-history
    • The site is on Chimakum Creek at Port Townsend Bay, an inlet shoreline rather than the open ocean coast.
  • Makah attack that dispersed them: unsourced. No source found names a Makah attack. Gibbs (1877) lists wars with the Makah among others: the Chimakum were "successively engaged in wars with the Makah, Klallam, Toan-huch (Twana), Snohomish, and Dwamish" (Gibbs, Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon, 1877, p. 177, as quoted in https://doi.org/10.25710/4v3k-wh92). The tribe's own history describes a long migration: "the Makah moved down from the Nitinat area of Vancouver Island and pushed the Chimakuan speakers down the coast" (https://www.chemakum.org/our-history). Neither describes a single Makah raid.
  • Suquamish-led attack: confirmed by Curtis (Wahélchu), Buerge, and chemakum.org. Curtis: "Síahl had become the undisputed leader of the Suquamish and commanded the expedition."
  • Treaty signers: confirmed. The Point No Point signature block lists "Kul-kah-han, or General Pierce, Chief of the Chem-a-kum," and sub-chiefs "Kai-a-han, or Daniel Webster," "Ets-sah-quat," and "Kleh-a-kunst." George Gibbs signed as secretary. Source: https://treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-sklallam-1855-0674
  • Population: confirmed (secondhand). Eells (1887), quoted in the WWU thesis: "Dr. Gibbs in 1852 states their number to have been ninety, but they are now virtually extinct, there being only seven left." Eells's informants "said that their numbers had been reduced by small-pox." Source: https://doi.org/10.25710/4v3k-wh92
  • Language: confirmed (citation only). Franz Boas, "Notes on the Chemakum Language," American Anthropologist 5 (1892): 37–44, doi:10.1525/aa.1892.5.1.02a00050.
  • Gibbs's vocabulary: confirmed (archive record). The Smithsonian's Gibbs collection holds a "Vocabulary of Chemakum, of Port Townsend," obtained "from a woman named Jule." Source: https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NAA.MS9.pdf
  • Not checked (no free full text found): Elmendorf; the Swindell 1942 affidavits (the report exists, but its Chimakum content wasn't read); Eells's originals; Boas's full article.
  • [Tribal] The Chimakum's goals, in their words: "In the summer of 2022, we formed a Council to realize our purpose in the just and equal recognition of Chemakum [Chimakum] people and reclaim, restore, and promote our history and culture, to preserve our sacred link to the land." Also: "we are committed to reclaiming our territory and acquiring a land base. We are learning our language and reuniting with and listening to our Quileute relatives." Source: https://www.chemakum.org/our-history
  • Petition status: the Chimakum don't appear on BIA's 2013 list of petitioners by state. The Washington entries are Steilacoom, Snohomish, Samish, Cowlitz, Jamestown, Snoqualmie, Duwamish, Chinook and Snoqualmoo. Source: https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/assets/as-ia/ofa/admindocs/ListPetByState_2013-11-12.pdf . No newer letter of intent appears in published sources.
  • The federal path (25 CFR 83.11) requires, among other things:
    • (a) identification "as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900";
    • (b) a distinct community "from 1900 until the present";
    • (c) "political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous entity from 1900 until the present";
    • (e) descent "from a historical Indian tribe";
    • (f) membership "composed principally of persons who are not members of any federally recognized Indian tribe."
    • Source: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-25/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-83
  • The 2025 rule (90 FR 3627) adds a re-petition route only for groups already denied. It doesn't apply to a first-time petitioner like the Chimakum. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/15/2025-00709/federal-acknowledgment-of-american-indian-tribes
  • Likely obstacles (my analysis, not a legal opinion):
    • The record of absorption: Swan wrote they were "reckoned by the Indian Department as Clallams," and the Claims Commission awarded Chimakum territory to the S'Klallam, who claimed the Chimakum had "abandoned their territory before the treaty" (chemakum.org).
    • Thin records for 1900 to today under criteria (b) and (c).
    • Possible dual enrollment of members in the S'Klallam tribes or others, under criterion (f).
    • The Claims Commission finding isn't itself an acknowledgment ruling, but it would be part of the historical record.
  • Land recognition, short of federal acknowledgment, could mean land acknowledgments, co-stewardship, or a land base acquired in fee. That's the Chimakum's stated minimum ("acquiring a land base"). How it would work is unsourced.
  • 1853, Port Gamble: Andrew Pope, William Talbot, and partners founded the Puget Mill Company at Teekalet (Port Gamble). The steam mill cut its first log in September 1853 and ran until 1995. Sources: https://www.historylink.org/File/5486 ; https://historylink.org/File/5505
  • 1890s, Port Angeles: during the Panic of 1893, a sawmill run by the Filion brothers was "one of the few sources of income in town." Source: https://historylink.org/File/8210
  • 1914, the "Big Mill": Michael Earles completed it at the base of Ediz Hook, fed by C. J. Erickson's new rail line. It was the city's largest plant until it closed in the 1930s. Source: https://historylink.org/File/8210
  • 1918–1941, pulp, paper, and plywood: Crescent Boxboard (later Fibreboard) began in 1918, Washington Pulp & Paper (later Crown Zellerbach) in 1921, Olympic Forest Products (later Rayonier) in 1930, and Peninsula Plywood in 1941. These "remained the backbone of the city's economy in the post-war years." Source: https://historylink.org/File/8210

#### The allotment chain, and the repair (added Oct 15, evening)

  1. Dawes (General Allotment) Act, Feb 8, 1887 (24 Stat. 388).
    • Statutory text, checked against the National Archives transcript: the President was "authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon."
    • Source: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dawes-act
    • Note: the Act's codified sections (e.g. 25 U.S.C. 331) were repealed in 2000 (Pub. L. 106–462). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/25/331
  2. Burke Act, May 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 182; codified at 25 U.S.C. 349).
    • Statutory text: the Secretary of the Interior "may, in his discretion, and he is authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Indian allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee a patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, incumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed."
    • Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/25/349
    • Description: this is how many allotments left trust and were later lost to sale or tax foreclosure (see the Burke bullet below).
  3. Indian Reorganization Act, June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. 984).
    • Statutory text, §1: "On and after June 18, 1934, no land of any Indian reservation, created or set apart by treaty or agreement with the Indians, Act of Congress, Executive order, purchase, or otherwise, shall be allotted in severalty to any Indian." (25 U.S.C. 5101)
    • §2: "The existing periods of trust placed upon any Indian lands and any restriction on alienation thereof are extended and continued until otherwise directed by Congress." (25 U.S.C. 5102)
    • Sources: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/25/5101 ; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/25/5102
  4. Repair, still partial: Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Interior, 2012–2022).
  • 1981–1983, the Hood Canal Agreement: in 1981 the Skokomish asked the court in U.S. v. Washington to confirm their "primary right" in Hood Canal, meaning the power to regulate or prohibit fishing there by other treaty tribes. Instead of litigating, the Skokomish settled with the Port Gamble, Lower Elwha, and Jamestown S'Klallam tribes. The tribes signed the agreement in 1982, and the court approved it on March 8, 1983.
    • What it says: the S'Klallam tribes recognize the Skokomish primary right in the "Hood Canal fishery" ("all waters of the Hood Canal south of a line drawn between Foulweather Bluff and Olele Point, and all rivers and streams draining into Hood Canal").
    • What the Skokomish gave: they agreed they "will not, under any condition or for any reason whatsoever, exercise or seek to exercise its primary right on Hood Canal north of Ayock Point" against the other parties without their consent. North of Ayock Point, all parties fish "without any limitation or control whatsoever by any of the stipulating parties, except as the stipulating parties may mutually agree by compact or otherwise."
    • What it's called: the courts call it a settlement agreement or stipulation, the "Hood Canal Agreement." It was not called a treaty. The tribes later managed the shared fishery through the Point No Point Treaty Council, which is a fisheries body named for the 1855 treaty.
    • Sources: U.S. v. Washington, 573 F.3d 701 (9th Cir. 2009), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1194204.html ; Ninth Circuit No. 17-35760 (2019), https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/06/26/17-35760.pdf ; S'Klallam amicus brief quoting the agreement's text, https://turtletalk.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/skallam-tribes-amicus-brief.pdf
  • 1984–1985, the court ruling: the district court found that the Twana/Skokomish held the primary right in Hood Canal and its drainage, and it kept the Hood Canal Agreement in force for the S'Klallam bands. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in U.S. v. Skokomish Indian Tribe, 764 F.2d 670 (1985). That appeal was brought by the Suquamish, not the S'Klallam. Sources: 2019 opinion (above) ; https://hallapproved.com/us/cases/ca9/1985/8941614/
  • 2003–2009, the joint fishery breaks down:
    • The Skokomish left the Point No Point Treaty Council in 2003, and Lower Elwha left in 2004. The last compact was signed in 1999.
    • After the Skokomish issued their own 2004–05 harvest plan, Port Gamble and Jamestown asked the court to find that it violated the agreement. The Skokomish countered with a request to divide the shared fishery north of Ayock Point.
    • The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the Skokomish request on July 13, 2009. It said inter-tribal allocation is "a matter for the tribes to resolve amongst themselves, as sovereigns," and added that "The Hood Canal Agreement was just such an act."
    • Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1194204.html
  • 2018–2019, later cases:
    • Skokomish v. Forsman (9th Cir. 2018): the Skokomish sued Suquamish officials over hunting. The case was dismissed because the Jamestown and Port Gamble S'Klallam were required parties who couldn't be joined. Sources: the Ninth Circuit memorandum, read via the search index (ecases.us copy unreachable) ; district court decision, https://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/federal/documents/tribe_v_forsman.html
    • Skokomish v. Jamestown S'Klallam et al. (9th Cir. 2019, No. 17-35760): the court rejected a Skokomish request to confirm a primary right on the Satsop River, holding that the 1984 ruling covered only Hood Canal and its drainage. Affirmed. Source: 2019 opinion (above)
  • Open cases: no pending Skokomish v. S'Klallam fisheries case appears in public records as of October 2026.
  • Towns: Port Angeles grew around the 1914 mill, rail, and power developments, and later the waterfront mills. Tourism grew as logging declined. (HistoryLink 8210)
  • First Nations: the industry was built partly on village and burial sites. Klallam families were relocated twice. Treaty fishing rights went largely unenforced until 1974. (HistoryLink 8210; Boldt)

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