A task force created by the Washington State Office of Financial Management may soon recommend the return of nearly 23 acres to the Chinook Indian Nation, including buildings that could support the cultural survival of the first people of that land
Since time immemorial, members of the five tribes that comprise the Chinook Indian Nation spent their winters in a sheltered inland spot along a creek that feeds the Naselle River. The U.S. government forced Chinook people from their winter home and in the 1960s, Washington State converted the area to a juvenile detention center. Now, the state has closed the facility and is mulling a plan to return the land to the Chinook Indian Nation.
The Naselle Youth Camp, a juvenile detention facility, has been empty since state officials closed it in September 2022, with the exception of a single maintenance worker. In July, a task force was convened by the Washington state Office of Financial Management to help decide what to do next with the camp property and facilities.
The task force appears poised to recommend action aligned with calls from the Chinook Indian Nation for the return of the land and Naselle Youth Camp facility.
“Naselle is the place where our ancestors often lived in the winter,” said Gary Johnson, Chinook citizen and Chinook Chairman Tony Johnson’s father. “The mouth of the Columbia River was a place of frequent violent storms in the winter. The Naselle area offered protection.”
That’s in contrast to the nation’s current headquarters in Willapa Bay. While the current headquarters are threatened by sea level rise and would be completely destroyed by the impending megaquake and tsunami, the Naselle site is on a hillside and protected from flooding.
Naselle (nisal) is a Chinook word and the camp lands fall within the Chinook Indian Nation’s land claim boundary. Back in 1854 when the Chinook were asked what they wanted in exchange for their lands the Chinook said they would give up both sides of the Columbia River for the nisal, according to Chinook Chairman Tony Johnson.