A Northwest by Norway Connection

A real vacation! And I did not have to plan it. Our friend, Mary, a travel agent extraordinaire, was handling it all during my two and half month tour of duty for Exxon Shipping Company. My Norwegian raised mother-in-law had already contacted her second and third cousins in Bergen, Norway, to alert them to our visitation.

 I was quite excited and expectant, thanks to a job that allowed extended times off. My tours of duty for Exxon Shipping lasted two and a half months, approximately 15 days for each round trip from San Francisco to Valdez, Alaska to San Francisco Bay. After that, happy day! I would enjoy a two month respite with my husband. This day was special. Following the next few hours of transit upriver, discharging cargo and a return to San Francisco Bay, my relief would show up, and I would be on my way home to leave on an exciting family trip to Norway with my husband and his parents. The day looked increasingly brighter. San Fransisco glistened in the sunshine, the sun warmed my back, the ocean breeze refreshed and enlivened my imagination.

En route to Norway, the flight aboard Scandinavian Airways was long, but the leg room on the jumbo craft alleviated any muscle cramps. Following a restless sleep, we neared Bergen, Norway and the flight attendants brought warm, moist face cloths to freshen our sleepy eyes. Descending into Norway we passed from brightness into cloud cover; it was overcast and gray. I could see forests and fiords, and after we disembarked the airplane the dampness and drizzle wet my face. The landscape and climate were similar to home.

It is no wonder the Norwegians migrated to Kitsap Peninsula after passage of the Homestead Act, took up residence, and established the Norwegian community of Poulsbo on Liberty Bay; the Sons of Norway Hall is a major presence in the two blocks of downtown Poulsbo. The names of streets and housing developments bear the Scandinavian touch: Johnson Creek, Viking Way, Thompson Road, the nick name "Little Norway."

The Suquamish People first inhabited the area, but their main longhouses were located along Agate Passage. Most residents chose to live along the beaches of the small inlets of Puget Sound, venturing into the woodland forest to forage for berries. Their staple food was and still is salmon some of which is raised and released from a fish hatchery. The salmon released in Miller Bay return to their place of release from a life in the Pacific Ocean in 3-4 years. The Suquamish people also harvested the bark of the red cedar trees for making clothing, hats, clam baskets, and housing mats. They harvested trees for their hand carved canoes. There appeared to be plenty of room for everyone in the late 1800s, especially since many migrants of that time fished, dug clams and oysters for a living, and the vast ocean was not too far away, and fishing was really good.

David Spurr asserts that in order to develop an informed and broader view of post colonial culture, we must read the signs and evidence of colonial impact closer to the margins and borderlands of culture. Kitsap County teams with examples and signs of the acceptance, accommodation, and effective application of the ideas of establishing a cultural identity, more than an individual, personal one. Although the villages of the indigenous native tribes have taken on the look of modernity with high rise parking garages for casino visitors, the income from tribal run businesses have allowed the Suquamish tribe in particular, to rebuild a longhouse, a new museum, and establish a strong presence in the area. The tribal members meet at the longhouse for many different celebrations, like the Canoe Journey which includes the gathering and support of other Northwest Native Tribes. The counter-narrative voice that Bhahba envisions coming from the margins of Western culture becomes stronger and more voluminous year after year right at home as the people gather and recreate the traditions of native cultures.                                                                                                                                          

                                     Suquamish Tribe's House of Awakened Culture
                          

                           

I am married to a Norwegian, but I am Swedish and Welsh. I have the coloring of the Norwegians, reddish hair and freckles, not the coloring of blond, deep blue-eyed Swedes. We don't live in Poulsbo, the Norwegian community, but we live in Suquamish. I am neither Native American nor Native Norwegian. Now, I call that living on the margins.