Traditional Arbor Building at the Native American Encampment
4-H Students working on an arbor.
4-H Forestry Education Program "Completing the Circle"
Students from Cascade and Cashmere High Schools came together this past summer to assist regional tribal members in completing a traditional arbor for the Leavenworth Salmon Festival.
The arbor is used by several Native American tribes attending the festival as a central gathering place for traditional dances, artists and a wide variety of culturally unique educational activities.
An arbor under construction.
Tribal member Clifton Bruno, his wife Christine and their sons traveled to Leavenworth from their home on the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon to facilitate gathering of materials from the forest for arbor construction.
Clifton led the students through the forest near Lake Wenatchee to carefully select and cut the posts that would support the poles providing shade for the artisans and dancers.
Great care was taken to harvest only those trees that would be needed and the students were provided with several opportunities to learn about and develop a respect for the traditional ways and methods of gathering resources used in tribal activities.
With the posts cut, prepared and planted in the ground, poles and evergreen boughs placed upon the structure and the circle now complete the arbor was ready for all that came to the festival.
The completed arbor at Salmonfest.
The 4-H Forestry Education Program is offered through WSU Chelan County Extension providing local youth with “hands on” experiential learning.
Program director, Kevin C. Powers shared, "The students participate in local community-based service projects like the arbor project as a means to more effectively connect youth with their communities, local history, and the natural resources that surround them".
The project brought together the students, tribes, US Fish & Wildlife and US Forest Service staff in a collaborative effort to complete this integral part of the Wenatchee River Salmon Festival Native American Encampment.
Details of the project along with pictures were covered in an article in the Sunday edition of the Wenatchee World on July 29, 2007. That article can be viewed online here.
