The Suquamish Museum preserves and displays relics and records related to the

Suquamish Tribe The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people, located in present-day Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish people. Today, most Suquamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized Suquam ...

, including artifacts from the

Old Man House Old Man House was the largest "bighouse" (a type of longhouse) in what is now the U.S. state of Washington, and once stood on the shore of Puget Sound. Lying at the center of the Suquamish winter village on Agate Pass, just south of the present-d ...

and the Baba'kwob site. It is located on the

Port Madison Indian Reservation The Port Madison Native Reservation is an Indigenous Reservation in the U.S. state of Washington belonging to the Suquamish Tribe, a federally recognized indigenous nation and signatory to the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855. Location The reserv ...

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

and was founded in 1983. The museum currently occupies a facility opened in 2012.

History

The Suquamish Museum opened in 1983 as the Suquamish Museum and Cultural Center, then only the second tribal museum in the state of Washington. In 2009 the Suquamish tribe launched a capital campaign to construct a new facility, enlisting Senator

Patty Murray Patricia Lynn Murray (; born October 11, 1950) is an American politician and educator who is the senior United States senator from Washington since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party, Murray was in the Washington State Senate from 1988 to ...

and former

Washington Secretary of State The secretary of state of Washington is an independently elected constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of Washington. Fifteen individuals have held the office of Secretary of State since statehood. The ...

Ralph Munro Ralph Davies Munro (born June 25, 1943) is a retired American Republican politician who previously served as the 13th Secretary of State of Washington. First elected in 1980, he served five terms. Munro was born in 1943 in Seattle, Washington, ...

to help lead the effort. The new facility opened in 2012 and is triple the size of the original building. Constructed at a cost of $6 million, the purpose-built structure is set in a small botanical garden on the Port Madison Indian Reservation and consists of two galleries, a gift shop, a 50-seat auditorium, and a climate-controlled storage room used to house artifacts not on display. The facility was designed by the Seattle architectural firm Mithun and is a LEED Gold certified building. In 2013 it received a citation from the Washington Council of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

Operations

Collection

In addition to a large repository of photographs documenting tribal life from the 1860s to the present, the museum's collection includes 496 archaeological artifacts recovered from the site of the former

, a massive, long

longhouse A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often rep ...

that served as the Suquamish capitol until its destruction in the late nineteenth century. Originally in the custody of the

Burke Museum The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Burke Museum) is a natural history museum in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Established in 1899 as the Washington State Museum, it traces its origins to a high school naturalist club fo ...

at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

, the artifacts, which include harpoon points, smoking pipes, and jewelry, were transferred to the Suquamish tribe in 2013. In 2014, the Port of Seattle transferred additional artifacts to the museum, including crockery and glass bottles, discovered during archaeological excavations in the 1970s at the Baba'kwob site, a pre-contact village located in what is now

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

's Belltown neighborhood. The controversial transfer was contested by the

Duwamish Duwamish may refer to: * Duwamish tribe, a Native American tribe in Washington state * Duwamish River, in Washington state * ''Duwamish'' (fireboat) See also * Elliott Bay Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is ...

, an unrecognized tribe and historic Suquamish rival who claim ownership of the artifacts. Suquamish Museum interior

Exhibitions

The museum's main gallery features a permanent exhibit titled "Ancient Shores – Changing Tides" that showcases drawings, documents, and historic photographs related to the Suquamish Tribe, contemporary and historic crafts, and interpretative panels and multimedia elements. The centerpiece of this exhibit is a 300-year-old carved canoe that was last used in the 1989 Paddle to Seattle, the first of a now annual series of canoe journeys through the

Salish Sea , image = PNW-straits.jpg , alt = , caption = The Salish Sea, showing the open Pacific Ocean at lower left, and from there, heading inland: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the narrow Puget Sound at lower ri ...

undertaken by tribal members. A second gallery is used to house rotating exhibits from the museum's permanent collection, or items on loan from other museums, including traveling exhibits from the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Exhibits have included a SITES display "Native Words, Native Warriors", chronicling the history of Native Americans in the U.S. armed forces.

Management

The Suquamish Museum is governed by a five-member board of directors appointed by the Suquamish Tribal Council. The galleries and auditorium of the museum are open daily during the summer, and five days per week the rest of the year. The museum's storage vault is open to tribal members and accredited researchers weekly.

References

{{Museums in Puget Sound Ethnic museums in Washington (state) Coast Salish museums in Washington (state) Museums in Kitsap County, Washington Museums established in 1983 1983 establishments in Washington (state)