This winter, as it has since before anyone can remember, the sweet smell of alder smoke filtered through the air above our village as the community came together to preserve salmon with the ancient “hard smoke” process.
We fileted, salted and hung the salmon on split cedar sticks in the smokehouse where we kept the low fire smoldering for more than a week to transform the fish into hard leathery slabs that can keep for months.
It’s a tradition that we hold onto to teach our children and make our ancestors proud.
I wanted to thank Dave Heredia, Corey Jerry, Stanford Hoskins, Lawrence Jerry, Michael Jerry Jr., Robert Sam, and Robbie Weed. These guys helped make the sticks for the fish and helped keep the fire going 24/7.
Also, a big thank you to Melvin Daniels, Brysen Jansen, Jamie Baker, and the AWTP work crew, they came over and helped with the process of traditionally smoking hard smoked salmon. The salmon we smoked was used for a gathering we have in our smokehouse (Elk House) winter religion, we hung every fish up on the supporting poles and through the evening we then allowed the visitors to take the fish down and take home.
I am thankful for the young folks who came out to help out and hopefully they continue to exercise this process for years to come. The weather was very cold this year in February so it took 10-11 days to fully hard smoke. Normally it's around 6-7 days.
I'm looking forward to next winter to do it all over again!
In preparation of the 2026 Tribal Council Election, Muckleshoot Tribal members should familiarize themselves with the following important dates
On September 16th, Mayor Harrell joined Tribal leaders, City officials, and community partners at the second Biennial City of Seattle and Tribal Nations summit.
Secretary Jessica Garcia-Jones traveled this summer to meet with several important political figures including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (KY).
As we enter the season of harvest and preparation for the colder months that follow, we know that many in the community are busy exercising our Treaty-protected rights to fill their freezers with fish and game to carry us through the year.
The Muckleshoot Messenger is a Tribal publication created by the Muckleshoot Office of Media Services. Tribal community members and Tribal employees are welcome to submit items to the newspaper such as news, calendar items, photos, poems, and artwork.