Restored Lummi story pole returns to this display in Bellingham
A Lummi Nation story pole that depicts the arrival of early European settlers has been restored and installed again at the Whatcom County Courthouse after it was vandalized in early 2021.
It shows Chief Chow’it’sut and his brother Tsi’li’xw paddling a Coast Salish canoe carrying Henry Roeder and Russell Peabody as they visited a site for their future sawmill near the mouth of Whatcom Creek on March 5, 1852.
Felix Solomon of Lummi Nation and Ralph Bennett, an Alaska Native, restored the pole and canoe, replacing dry rot and repainting it, and Whatcom County workers installed them at the main entrance to the courthouse in downtown Bellingham on Thursday, April 13.
“This is about the people that came, the people that were here and the people who we are now,” Bennett said during a short ceremony.
“We came together and we want to give thanks for this time that we share,” Bennett said, holding a cedar branch.
Daniel Goger, special projects manager with the county Public Works Department, said the restoration effort cost about $60,000 in county funds.
“They brought it back to life,” he told The Bellingham Herald.
It’s the second restoration effort for the pole that was created in 1952 to mark the 100-year anniversary of Roeder’s and Peabody’s arrival on Coast Salish land.
This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 9:04 AM.
