According to logs and reports, the county has permitted 1,650 wells since 1997 in basins closed to withdrawal. Testament to a diminished resource, the quality of these new wells is uniformly terrible, with nearly three quarters of sampled wells exceeding health standards for nitrate concentrations. In roughly the same period—a decade after the passage of the state’s Growth Management Act, which attempts to direct growth into developed areas with water service—County Council created nearly 1,800 new development rights in underserved rural areas, allowed dozens of non-farm uses in the county’s agricultural lands, and approved a comprehensive plan that would allow all of the county’s projected growth for the next 20 years into those rural areas.

The Gristle had noted last week an emerging meme among candidates for county office where they’ve sworn they’ll defend these decisions against “special interests” who’ve challenged this folly.

Large among “special interests” these candidates will ignore must surely rank farmers, who produce the county’s crop yield, a business that generated $330 million in 2012 in the most agriculturally productive county in western Washington.

At a recent water supply forum, farmers testified that among the many pressures that face them, access to water is perhaps their greatest concern. They’re caught in a vice between the holders of senior water rights—the cities and tribes, and the Public Utility District that serves heavy industry—and the many thousands of exempt wells that draw county groundwater without a right to that water. These wells, which drain water from agriculture, serve the individual rural homeowners and property owners these council candidates vow they will protect from other interests.

Are rural homeowners and property owners squatters and thieves? No, of course not; but perhaps this serves as a thought exercise to help illustrate the disordered priorities of some who seek county office. What are they vowing to protect? The disintegration of county farms!

Many farmers have a water right impaired by the oversubscription of subordinate water claims by rural homeowners. Other farmers do not hold a clear water right, and they are even more imperiled by the oversubscription of wells.

One potential solution to the problem might be a specialized transfer of development rights (TDR) program. A useful tool in directing development where you’d prefer it, TDR implementation in Whatcom County has stalled, first, because no pressure has been applied through county planning policy to direct development from here to there; second, because anti-government anti-planners have failed to create the higher-density receiving areas for those transfers. What farmers like Marty Maberry—owner of the county’s largest berry farm and vice chair of Whatcom Farm Friends, a “special interest” advocacy group—proposed, though, is a transfer of development rights to acquire a water right.

“Call it an extinction of a development right,” Maberry explained, to acquire certainty in a uncertain, oversubscribed resource desperately needed by agriculture.

Whatcom Farm Friends broadens the concept into a Natural Resources Marketplace, where certain development rights and wetland and carbon mitigation credits might be put into a “bank” to purchase other offsets like water contracts or leases for legal water use. The overarching problem with the concept is the county cannot trade what it does not own; and water rights are adjudicated by the state, with severe controls on transfers. To say the path is unclear on how one might go about extinguishing a development right to gain a water right is a vast understatement.

Farm Friends and other “special interest” groups have been struggling for some time with an enormous number of lots sprinkled throughout the county ag and rural lands that hold development rights. Each one of these holds potential to erode county agriculture through encroachment (neighbors find working farms noisy and smelly) and conversion (through land speculation) to residences.

These latent development rights, conferred by corrosive council land-use decisions, lurk like unexploded bombs across the landscape. To defuse them under Washington law you’d need to purchase or transfer these development rights. Groups like Farm Friends have struggled for years on ideas that might defuse them. Now council may encumber this problem much worse by granting—at the encouragement of land speculators and property flippers—hundreds of new development rights for industrial slaughterhouses as an accessory use in the county’s ag zone. Depending on how the final slaughterhouse upzone is framed, these new accessory uses could confer a monetary value on 88,000 acres that must then be extinguished to solve issues like water access.

Will hundreds of slaughterhouse wet works be built? No, of course not; but it is a land use right with a created monetary value, even as the county struggles to close the conditions of hundreds of other monetized land values they’ve created.

In the nexus between land and water, you’ll find County Council’s muddied thinking.

With the Hangover series outliving its welcome, Judd Apatow moving on to quasi-serious stuff and Johnny-come-latelies like 21 & Over and Movie 43 falling short, outrageous comedies aren’t what they used to be a few years back. Early on in This Is the End, James Franco and Seth Rogen explore story ideas for a possible Pineapple Express sequel, but it’s hard to know, five years on, what the public appetite would be even for that.

Instead, Rogen and co-writer/co-director Evan Goldberg reached back to 2007 for inspiration, to a nine-minute short they and Jason Stone made called Seth and Jay Versus the Apocalypse. It is said to have cost $3,000 and starred five of the six main actors from the present feature—Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Franco, Jonah Hill, and Danny McBride. The full short was never shown publicly, only the 85-second trailer, which looks very low-rent indeed.

The central conceit is that this is film about showbiz’s young and privileged that’s supposedly being honest about their sense of entitlement, their access to constant sex, drugs and money, neuroses and special bonds both professional and personal. This isn’t Franco and Rogen and Michael Cera and everyone else playing characters getting completed trashed on coke and weed, this is movie in which audiences can get off seeing actual movie stars behaving like stupid rich frat boys. At least that’s the sense of special access This Is the End is purporting to afford the eager viewer.

The occasion is a housewarming party at Franco’s dazzling new house (“Designed it myself” the famously multitasking actor-writer-director-grad student modestly points out). In the film’s geographically eccentric scheme of things (it was shot on a set in Louisiana), the modernist mansion is just down the way from the Hollywood sign and yet within easy walking distance of convenience stores. The first 15 minutes are crammed with pretty funny party banter, star sightings—Emma Watson, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Cera getting serviced by two babes at the same time—and the overweening discomfort of Baruchel, who’s come down from Canada to visit his best bud Rogen and outdoes Woody Allen in his expressions of distaste for Los Angeles and the people who live there, especially the hated Hill, with whom he’s now obliged to hang.

But in a startling manner as if co-devised by Nathaniel West and Irwin Allen, a Biblical-scaled disaster strikes in the form of explosions, rumblings, the ground opening up, fires raging, cars crashing and shafts of light beaming down from the heavens. Los Angeles is burning and many guests are swallowed up by a lava-filled sinkhole while others flee into the acrid night. In the end, those left in the seeming sanctuary of Franco’s crib are Rogen, Baruchel, Hill, Craig Robinson, and Franco, who arms himself with a World War I-vintage pistol left over from Flyboys.

The cuddly sleeping arrangements assumed by the terrified man-boys cues plenty of predictable innuendo, and the morning brings a set of surprises, beginning with the presence of McBride, who wasn’t even invited to the party. Soon Watson barges in from the outside world, which she reports has been invaded by zombies, but she quickly decides to take her chances there rather than remain in the house once she overhears the guys discussing “the rapey vibe” the six men/one woman situation has introduced.

Hunkering down into survivalist mode, the guys keep joking around but also get serious: McBride’s the abrasive misfit, inviting expulsion from the house by selfishly flouting rations restrictions, while Baruchel goes seriously scriptural, devotedly reading the Book of Revelation and announcing that, “I think it’s the apocalypse.”

Taking this one step further, Hill becomes a red-eyed demon requiring exorcism, an interlude that becomes its own little movie prior to a monster-and-effects-dominated climax in which a bunch of nice Jewish boys dwell, in an iconographically heavily Christian way, on whether or not they are worthy of redemption after the conspicuously secular, hedonistic but still guilt-ridden way they’ve lived their lives.

So This Is the End goes places you don’t expect it to, exploring the guys’ rifts and doubts and misgivings just as it wallows in an extravagant lifestyle that inevitably attracts public fascination. It also expresses the anxiety and insecurity of comics conscious of the big issues in life they are expected either to avoid or make fun of in their work. Rogen and Goldberg take the latter approach here, in an immature but sometimes surprisingly upfront way one can interpret seriously. Or not.

And in the weeks and days leading up to the annual Lummi Stommish Water Festival, there’s always a good chance that, at some point during the course of the afternoon, those perched on the deck in order to view the lovely landscape will also be gifted with the vision of a variety of long canoes making their way quickly through the waves.

That’s when it’s time to get out the binoculars and focus your eyes on the scores of paddles hitting the water at precisely the same time, propelling the boats forward with the speed of warriors rushing to battle or athletes competing in exhilarating displays of athleticism to see who is the strongest—and the fastest.

As the war canoe races are an important part of the festival, it’s only natural the men, women and children who participate in them for three days every June want to put in as much practice time as possible. When the big day comes—when they join with their teammates or compete solo in their own canoes to continue the tradition of honoring those who came before them—they want to be ready.

“Week of the Warrior,” this year’s Stommish theme, hearkens back to the event’s beginning 67 years ago, when World War I veterans and Lummi Nation members Herbert John and Alphonso “Bunny” Washington got the idea to throw a celebration welcoming those who were returning home after surviving World War II. (Presumably, they were also honoring the memories of those who didn’t make it back to their earthly stomping grounds.)

After issuing an invitation to other regional tribes to get to Gooseberry Point for the festivities—which, much as they do today, also included barbecued salmon, singing, dancing, pageantry, music, games for the younger set and a carnival—the Lummi Stommish Water Festival was born.

By all accounts, the inaugural event was a popular one, with tribes coming from points both north and south to join in the celebration. Many of them even brought their own canoes so they could take part in the war canoe races.

These days, whether you’re admiring the view from afar or hanging out closer to the action, it’s clear that the idea Herbert John and Bunny Washington had to honor those who had sacrificed their time, energy and lives to defend their land was a successful one. Please remember them.

Back when my mother was a teenager, American Bandstand ruled the television airwaves and heartthrob singer Fabian ruled her heart. She still gets a certain gleam in her eye when she speaks of the crooner—and her brother, my uncle, has equally fond memories of flinging her Fabian albums like Frisbees from the roof of their Seattle house when she would subject him to one too many replay.

What he was so carelessly flinging away was hit songs like “Turn Me Lose” and “Tiger,” both of which will no doubt loom large on the set list when Fabian takes the stage Sat., June 15 at the Silver Reef’s brand-new Event Center as part of the American Bandstand tour. Joining Fabian will be Brian Hyland, who will sing to you of a “Gypsy Woman” and an ”Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” David Somerville, who will take you on “The Stroll” and call you a “Little Darlin,’” Merrilee Rush, who will journey from her home just outside Seattle to reprise her megahit “Angel of the Morning,” and Chris Montez, the man responsible for “Let’s Dance” and “Call Me.”

While Bandstand—sadly—is no longer an entertainment powerhouse and television staple, its influence still looms large for everyone (including myself) who was raised on its weekly dose of Top 40 hits and questionable dance moves. With the coming of the American Bandstand tour to the Silver Reef, it’s time to dust off those dance moves and relive your youth. Do it for Dick Clark. He would want this for you.

While my mother’s memory lane hearkens back to the glory days of American Bandstand, my path is a wee bit shorter. As such, it’s the Gin Blossoms—who will play two nights, June 14 and 15, at the Skagit Valley Casino Resort—that evoke a sense of nostalgia for me. Although I did my level best to be a flannel-clad, Doc Martens-wearing disaffected youth who lived my life to a soundtrack of grunge—you know, just like every other kid growing up near Seattle during the early ’90s—I was not immune to the hooky hits cranked out by the Gin Blossoms.

Probably the most successful band to come out of the musical wasteland that is Tempe, Ariz., the Gin Blossoms first garnered attention with the song “Hey Jealousy” from their 1992 album New Miserable Experience, which was followed in short order by “Found Out About You.” After their breakout success came a tragic chapter in the Gin Blossoms’ history, when primary songwriter and guitarist Doug Hopkins committed suicide after being fired from the band.

Those events led to the Gin Blossoms titling their follow-up album Congratulations…I’m Sorry, as it was a sentiment commonly espoused by people commenting on both the success of New Miserable Experience and Hopkins’ suicide. That album eventually went platinum, bolstered by the hit singles “Follow You Down” and “Til I Hear it From You.”

A few years later, following some internal struggles that manifested in some lineup changes, the Gin Blossoms broke up, presumably never to be seen again. However, band breakups are almost never the permanent kind, and just more than a decade ago, the Gin Blossoms reunited. They’ve since released a couple of albums and have resumed touring, which brings them to the present day and their two-show stint at the Skagit Valley Casino.

Whether your walk down memory lane takes you to Fabian and the American Bandstand tour or you detour at the Gin Blossoms, this is one wander that’s sure to have an entertaining outcome.

If you get the aforementioned references, you’re already well aware the murderous musical currently showing at the Bellingham Theatre Guild tells the story of a man named Sweeney Todd who, after getting out of jail after 15 years—where he was falsely imprisoned thanks to a jerk of a judge who coveted his lovely wife—returns to his hometown and sets up shop as a barber with vengeance and homicide on his mind.

When I gathered together with a few friends for dinner before the show, those of us who already knew the plot particulars were trying to explain to the uninitiated that the flesh of the bodies the “demon barber” gave his closest shaves to were then used by his wannabe girlfriend, Mrs. Lovett, as the main ingredient in her meat pies. We also pointed out that it was a musical, and was likely going to inspire them to want to sing—or shriek—along.

While those who hadn’t heard of Sweeney before were shaking their heads in disbelief and shunning the piece of pie that was currently making the rounds at the table, those of us who knew the story assured them there was no need for alarm.

Not long afterward, when we were part of the audience and the house manager made the announcement that there’d also be “smoke and gunfire” in the production, I wasn’t so sure they shouldn’t be scared—especially after the woman sitting next to me informed her friend she was a “screamer.”

But, while I was sufficiently creeped out by a number of things—most notably the love song Sweeney Todd (Joseph R. Sasnett) crooned to his straight-edge razors and the voraciousness with which the townspeople ate their altered meat pies—I spent more time during the production being entertained than I did wondering how I’d look with my throat slit and my innards used for an “eat local” campaign.

Sasnett was eerily convincing as a man who’d lost his way (and his mind), and leading lady Samantha Brochta tempered his lunacy in her role as Mrs. Lovett, a pie-maker on the lookout for the choicest cuts. Since a fair portion of the play is sung, the two had big shoes to fill—and they did.

While some of the other singers in the cast were noticeably stronger than their counterparts, the story was told with style, and left a favorable impression among those in my crowd who’d never met Sweeney before that night.

“I’ve always been scared of straight-edge razors,” one friend noted as we made our way to the car, humming along to “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.” “Now I know why.”

The Lummi Nation thrilled the audience earlier this month with a sold-out performance at Bellingham High School of “What About Those Promises?” The original historical stageplay told the story of the tribe’s way of life and connection to nature, and how both were severed by the broken promises of the Treaty of Point Elliott, signed in 1855.

More than 800 people packed the high school auditorium the evening of June 1 to hear this story in multiple parts, beginning with a blessing of song and drum from the Crab Bay Singers and a moving recital of the tribe’s world story, delivered in native tongue, their connection to sea and sky.

Produced by tribal council member Darrell Hillaire and directed by Western Washington University Theatre Arts emeritus Dennis Catrell, the production is based on an original stage play by the late Joseph Hillaire. Performers included tribal elders and students at the Lummi Youth Academy, where Darrell Hillaire serves as director. The cast and crew will perform an encore on Sun., June 16.

“My uncle wrote the parts where the Lummi fisher, the clam digger, the sea lion hunters tell their stories,” Hillaire said. “Other parts were added. The rest came together almost magically.”

Punctuating dramatic performances, Charles Wilkinson, a law professor at the University of Colorado, steps forward in the soft light of powerful archival visuals and tells the story of 1855 and what followed. Others echo the story, in a mix of native tongues.

In that year, Lummi—along with representatives of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Skagit, Swinomish ,and other tribes—signed a treaty with the United States, which called for natives to relinquish much of their homeland in western Washington Territory. In return, they were assigned land reserved for them that initially consisted of 15,000 acres. Onstage, an anguished Chief Seattle (movingly performed by Vancouver artist Gene Harry) begs these tribal leaders not to sign. In the end, territorial officials scratched Seattle’s mark on the document. Within a score of years, their numbers devastated by disease and the poverty of reservation life, Lummi Nation—which had once fully peopled the San Juans—had dwindled to fewer than 435 souls, cut by half in four decades.

In the 1920s, Lummi Nation made appeals to the federal government to restore their rights to fish in traditional and accustomed places and to fairly compensate them for their lands. By 1970, this had suppurated into an official claim with the Indian Claims Commission, requesting additional money from the United States, arguing the amount granted to Lummi in the 1855 treaty was too low. The commission argued that $52,067 was a fair market value when the treaty was ratified in 1859 and, in 1972, after a series of suits and appeals, the tribe was awarded the amount of $57,000.

“This was a great insult to my people,” Lummi Historian Ramona Morris recalled.

Lummi tribal government formally rejected the amount and vowed never to accept it. Each year, the tribal council renews their resolution never to touch that money. The money sits in a trust, managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, gathering interest and dust.

“Some of our newest members on council, our newest generation, did not understand all of the background of Resolution 110,” Hillaire explained. “So we had the idea to teach them through a performance. From there, the idea just grew to include the rest of the community. We thought everyone should know this story.”

“What we learned is it is not about money,” TJ White Antelope said. White Antelope is a student at Lummi Youth Academy, a multidisciplinary school that ticket sales benefits. “There will never be enough land or money for what was done to us. Money was offered to us because that’s what they think natives always want. ‘Money will make them be quiet.’ But, no, it was never about the money. It was never about the land. It was about the promises made in the treaty. We want our sacred sites noted.”

“For people who don’t know who the Lummi people are, this might be like an outing for them,” another student, Kyla Frajman, said of the performance. “For our own people, I feel like this play can make them proud of who we are.

“We were practicing and practicing, really overwhelming at times,” said Frajman, who has studied drama at the Academy. “Then, right before we were going up on stage, we got dressed up and ready, and it was real. It had a different feel.”

“The elders had their sticks and they were walking like I had never seen them,” White Antelope agreed. “Some of them are like 80-plus. It all became very real for us. They did perfect steps.”

“It was magical,” Hillaire laughed. “And the biggest magic was how it all came together right at the very end.”

A capacity crowd stood and cheered: “We raise our hands to you… O’ Si’am!”

In anticipation of the NW Weavers Conference, which will take place June 17-23 throughout WWU, members of the Seattle Weavers’ Guild will spend part of Monday “yarn storming” various educational edifices with woven, knitted and crocheted pieces that will embellish everything from the aforementioned refuse receptacles to handrails, light poles, columns and much more.

Although the 500-plus fiber enthusiasts who will be attending the conference—and yarn-bombing the school—have filled the 75 workshops, seminars and one-day classes to capacity (and did so in within 45 minutes after registration opened in January) those who are interested in fiber arts—whether they’re participating in the creative practice or purchasing the works of those who do—will have plenty of opportunities to get involved.

For example, a Marketplace Mall featuring supplies, demos and finished pieces by more than 30 merchants from around the United States and beyond will be open at various times June 20-22. Additionally, five textile-related exhibits will be open to the public and, come Sat., June 22, a free “Felting Frenzy” will focus on teaching participants how to take un-spun fibers and turn them into their own hand-felted item, which they can take with them when they go.

“In the Marketplace Mall, there will be merchants from near and far—from Bellingham and the surrounding area to Texas, Canada, California, Mexico, Guatemala, the Hill tribes of Laos, and more,” says organizer Joyce Hunsaker. “If you are a weaver, spinner, dyer or garment maker, you will find looms, tools, yarns and accessories for your work. If you are not a fiber artist yet, but appreciate what others have created, you will find rugs, scarves, baskets, bags, and much more, from local artists as well as women’s cooperatives in Mexico and Guatemala. Come look, come touch, come be inspired.”

For those who aren’t quite sure what fiber arts actually are, registration chairperson Sue Willingham has an apt description. “To me,” she says, “a person who designs and creates items made of fiber or using fiber techniques, such as weaving, twining, braiding, sewing and many others, is an artist, whether or not she or he sells that work.”

Judging by how quickly the conference filled up, and how many people are taking part, those putting on the event can confidently say getting involved in weaving and fiber arts isn’t an anachronistic practice, but a vibrant art form that continues to reinvent itself.

And, although the conferences only take place once every two years, members of the regional roundup say it takes that long to organize instructors, volunteers, locales and more.

Once everything’s in place, however, most guild members get down to the task at hand—learning more about their art form, and networking with other members.

“One of the most exciting events is the Fashion Show Exhibit,” exhibits chairperson Cyndi White says. “Most weavers are women, and we love to see what innovative methods have been used to create a woven garment. The conference also creates a togetherness among weavers, as we all love to touch, analyze and share fibers.”

Then one day at the Mount Vernon Farmers Market, a friend of ours walked by with a takeout container of something that smelled wonderful. It was saag channa from a stall run by the Pami’s crew, and our friend was raving about it. My husband and I immediately went and bought one and ate it on the boardwalk by the river. Shortly thereafter, we got takeout from Pami’s to eat on the patio at North Sound Brewery, and realized Mount Vernon finally had the Indian restaurant we’ve been waiting for.

On a recent visit, we took a friend to lunch at Pami’s who had never been to an Indian restaurant before. To make sure she had the full experience, we got plenty of different dishes. We had to start with a plateful of crispy pappadum ($2.99), a puffed lentil cracker served with the usual pairing of tamarind chutney and mint sauce. This is really the perfect appetizer—crunchy, savory and sweet all at once—but I can also recommend the vegetable pakora ($4.99). Deep-fried food is a highlight of Indian cuisine, and these bite-size fritters coated in chickpea batter and served with chutney are a fine introduction.

After demolishing our pappadums we shared butter chicken ($10.99), saag paneer ($9.99), mango curry with lamb ($11.99), and channa masala ($8.99), all served family style so each of us could taste every dish. Our waiter took it upon himself to recommend the garlic naan ($2.99), leavened flatbread sprinkled with garlic and spices. We normally prefer plain naan, but really enjoyed this. We tried the chai ($2.49) and the mango lassi ($3.99), and both were very good. I appreciate that they also offer wine and beer, including two Indian lagers, Kingfisher and Taj Mahal, which are excellent at damping the fire from a hot curry.

I particularly love Pami’s version of saag, a dish of spinach cooked with spices and pureed. It’s creamy and rich and wonderful scooped up with naan. I like it best with paneer (a firm Indian cheese used much like tofu) or channa (chickpeas), but you can order it with chicken, lamb or prawns instead. Since most of the other curries are tomato based, saag makes a great contrast.

The mango curry was a surprise hit for us. We like to order it very spicy and love the sweet and fiery mix of mango and chili heat. Butter chicken, on the other hand, we prefer ordering fairly mild so we can appreciate the smooth richness of the sauce. The chicken is cooked tandoori-style, its red color very attractive in the bright orange curry.

The main dish I haven’t loved here was the vindaloo, a type of curry we often make at home whose heat is enhanced with vinegar to produce a truly searing experience. Unfortunately, most of the extra spice in Pami’s version seemed to come from cayenne added late in the preparation (this seems to be how they accommodate “extra hot” orders), so the flavor wasn’t as rounded as I would have liked. The flavor of their curries seems to be best at medium to hot.

Service at Pami’s is very welcoming and attentive, the only problem I’ve had being a recent visit where we were brought our bill without anyone asking us if we were actually done (and they tried to take away my dessert before I was finished with it). But on every other visit the service has been perfectly polite and patient. The restaurant offers an Indian buffet on the second Saturday of the month for $9.99, although you can still order off the menu on those days.

Traffic on Memorial Highway (one of the main detour routes around the collapsed Skagit River Bridge) may not be at its best at the moment, but Pami’s provides a pleasant oasis for locals as well as those traveling through Mount Vernon.

Known as Scällaor, “of the Killer Whale,” Hillaire is a member of Lummi Nation. As a young child, Hillaire was sent to stay with various Lummi elders to learn tribal arts, traditions, stories, songs and dances that reflected her family’s and her tribe’s value system. Her grandfather, Frank Hillaire, was the last chief of the Lummi and a spiritual leader. Her father, Joseph, was a renowned orator as well as a master carver of totem poles. Hillaire learned artistic traditions such as basket-making and Lummi songs from her mother Edna. Throughout her life, Hillaire has worked to preserve these traditions and share them with the next generations.

Hillaire is also well known for her decades of work in carrying on the efforts of her father and grandfather, who founded the song-and-dance group Setting Sun Dancers in order to preserve the art form and to educate both Native and non-Native communities in this tradition. The group has performed for more than a century in Native communities in the northwest United States and nationally at tribal gatherings and public institutions. Hillaire has taught classes on Lummi arts and culture at the Northwest Indian College as well as public schools, museums and cultural organizations in Washington.

Hillaire has been recorded for audio and DVD productions as a resource on the arts and culture of the Northwest Coast. In 2005, the Seattle Art Museum honored her for her work as a culture-bearer and featured her work in the exhibition “Song, Story, Speech: Oral Traditions of Puget Sound First Peoples.” She also has two books with media coming out soon: A Totem Pole History and Rights Remembered: A Salish Grandmother Speaks on American Indian History and the Future (both from University of Nebraska Press).  In A Totem Pole History, Hillaire tells the story of her father’s life and the traditional and contemporary Lummi narratives that influenced his work. She is the recipient of three apprenticeship awards from Washington State Arts Commission and in 1996 was presented with the Governor’s Heritage Award.