Category: Port Angeles

The hospital

This is a view of the hospital at Olympic Medical Center that you can only get from the water.

Located in Port Angeles, this is Sequim’s nearest hospital, a 67-bed acute care facility and level 3 emergency department. They can handle a lot of our basic needs but serious trauma and more specialized surgery and care means a trip to Seattle.

This photo was taken from the Black Ball Ferry on the way to Victoria. I don’t know what the crane was doing but it’s not a permanent fixture.

More masks

The Peninsula College Longhouse multipurpose room has Native American artwork on display. This is “Portrait of an Ancestor” by Makah artist Greg Colfax.

This is “Wild Woman of the Woods” by another Makah artist, Micah McCarty. I’ve heard a couple of versions of the wild woman legend this represents. They seem to center around fierce old women who lurk in the woods, ready to snatch up bad children.

Makah traditions

This grouse feather fan was one of two on display at the Makah Regalia Exhibit in the Longhouse at Peninsula College. Fans have significance in Native American dance ceremonies and can be used to dispatch prayers to the heavens. They are also used in smudging or purification ceremonies to circulate purifying smoke.

Two of these beautiful fans are on exhibit with a vest displaying a Makah family design. The red shapes are the profiles of traditional Northwest dugout rowing boats. I believe the silver shapes represent whale tails.

It’s necessary to squeeze behind the display case to see the back of the vest but its distinctive design is well worth the effort.

More Makah regalia

The gallery at the Peninsula College Longhouse is not large, located just inside the front door. This mask and rattles are among the first items on display from the current Makah Traditional Regalia exhibit.

Like the shells on the dress I showed you yesterday, rattles can be used to keep rhythm during dance ceremonies. Click here if you’d like to learn more about their symbolic use.

These child’s moccasins looked soft as a cloud and were simply precious.

The Makah exhibit is on display until August 30th. The Longhouse is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Back to the College Longhouse

The Longhouse at Peninsula College has a new exhibit, “Makah Traditional Regalia.” The Makah are one of our local Native American tribes, living at Neah Bay, remote and beautiful lands at the furthermost Northwest tip of the continental U.S. The exhibit features items used during Makah Days celebrations, a sort of tribal family reunion, in the month of August. This dress was on display.

I assume that this is a dance dress. It makes generous use of olive shells and beading as well as tiny abalone shell buttons.

The shells are attached so they dangle and can freely move with a dancer. The tiny shells would make a soft rattling sound with rhythmic moves plus add visual movement as a dancer steps.