Quileute Days... And a disaster on Highway 101

By Tim Wheeler

​It is “Quileute Days” and a bunch of us Clallam County Democrats drove out to LaPush to march in the parade holding signs that proclaimed “VOTE! IT IS YOUR RIGHT & DUTY,” and “NO CUTS to TRIBAL SCHOOLS, HEALTHCARE” and “STRONGER THAN FEAR.” Another read, "HUMAN NEED not BILLIONAIRE GREED." 

​My sister Honeybee and I hitched a ride with Sam Woods in his handsome pickup. Quileute Days is one of dozens of non-stop protest events we join sometimes more than one each day in this era of “NO KINGS!”

When we arrived at the staging area in La Push, we were assigned a place early in the procession with a line of dugout canoes pulled by pickup trucks bearing the “Royalty” of the Quileute, Quinault, and Makah tribes following behind. 
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My elder brother, Steve, who served about six years as a teacher and superintendent of the Quileute Tribal School marched with a small banner that proclaimed “QUILEUTE TRIBAL SCHOOL: 30 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE.” “Actually,” Steve told me, “The school is 46 years old now.”

People in the crowd that lined the main street recognized and called out greetings to their former teacher. And they clapped, nodded, called out, “Thank you!” as our contingent of more than 20 Democrats led by Clallam County Democratic Party Chair, Ellen Menshew, marched by.
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We all know that President Trump and his MAGA minions in the House and Senate have targeted the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), tribal schools, and healthcare for vicious cuts – even though these benefits are guaranteed by treaties solemnly signed by the Federal government and the tribes. So the crowd greeted our “NO CUTS” message. And I had inserted a line in the billboards attached to Sam’s pickup: “NO BROKEN TREATY!”

La Push has been a favorite destination for my family and for me personally since I was a child. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, First Beach, long and curvaceous, James Island looming just offshore, the Quileute River flowing into the Pacific Ocean that lies in serene splendor west to the horizon. 

Elijah, a young Quileute man greeted me, reaching out to shake my hand. He was wearing a T-shirt with the message, “Honor our Fishermen.” Elijah told me he is a fulltime fisherman in his 42-foot trawler, toiling long days in the Pacific to fill the hold with fresh Chinook, coho, and chum salmon. As we chatted, a dozen of his family members surrounded us. I took their picture standing in front of the handsome old clapboard former Tribal School, once a U.S. Coast Guard station. “Did you know Lillian Pullen?” I asked Elijah. “She taught school in that building. My brother introduced me to her. She was teaching a class in basket-weaving when I visited, leading her class in singing a song she had composed: ‘BIA Ain’t No Friend of MINE!’” Elijah laughed, “Yes, we all knew her. We called her ‘Mama Lillian.’”

Yet a disaster had occurred on Highway 101 just west of Port Angeles a few hours earlier – the driver of a huge fuel tanker truck lost control of his vehicle. The truck and its trailer ran out of control down a steep embankment, rolled over and came to rest upside down right in the middle of Indian Creek. More than 3,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel flooded out of the upended tanker into Indian Creek and flowed down into the Elwha River a hundred yards away. 

Emergency crews rushed to the scene of this disaster, thousands of gallons of fuel flooding down into the Elwha, killing the fish, filling the air with the stench of gasoline and diesel. (See the Washington State Standard article, Dead fish and disrupted water supply after fuel truck crash near Port Angeles)

It was so horrific, Highway 101 was closed immediately, all traffic bound for the west end of Clallam County forced to detour on State Highway 112. We drove northwest and at Joyce turned on a little side road over the hump and back down to Lake Crescent and west towards Forks and La Push. The sun was pouring down through the clouds onto the deep azure blue lake. It was so magnificent! Almost enough that I forgot about the disaster in Sam’s rearview.

The injured truck driver was rushed to OMC (The local hospital threatened by closure by Trump’s trillion dollar cut to Medicaid). 

We are locked in a bitter struggle to save the Elwha River from timber interests determined to clear-cut-log right up to the banks of the river. It provides 100% of the water drunk by the people of Port Angeles, by the residents of the Lower Elwha tribe who live in a village right on the banks of the river. They were told to evacuate to get away from the fumes from the wrecked tanker truck.

I hand painted a sign for a protest a few months ago right on the banks of the Elwha, demanding a halt to the logging of legacy forests. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is a sparkplug of that movement. The sign I painted proclaims, “SAVE THE ELWHA: WE DRINK IT. SALMON SWIM IT.”
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I could have carried that sign in the “Quileute Days” parade. The corporate rightwing phalanx is coming at us from every direction. And now that wrecked tanker is flooding our Elwha with gasoline!