The Naming of the Salish Sea

Turn Point Light House - right on the border

When I first heard that the Puget Sound and inner coastal waters of Vancouver Island in B.C. were being given a new name - the Salish Sea - I was excited. The United States Board on Geographic Names and the Geographic Names of Canada made the designation in 2009. I immediately embraced the Salish Sea as a wonderful way to describe this rich bio-region. I liked the idea of the United States and Canadian government coming together and identifying these waters as a unique sea that spans the border between our two countries. I remember hoping that perhaps with a common body of water, both the U.S and Canada would begin to identify mutually beneficial practices and regulations that promoted a healthy thriving ecosystem.

A little history:
Marine biologist Bert Webber is credited with coming up with the term Salish Sea in 1988. He didn't want to replace the existing names of the various bodies of water - he wanted a term that complemented them AND encompassed them as a whole. His intention in adopting the term was to promote awareness of the overall ecosystem, how to take care of it, how to talk about it. The process took twenty years - but it succeeded much on the merits of research that continually put forth the uniqueness of this particular region.

I have to say, its to the British Columbia side of the Salish Sea that I look for more drastic changes. With raw sewage still being pumped into the waterways and lax enforcement of regulations with the fish farming and whale watching industry - the impact of these practices is certainly felt mere miles away in U.S. waters. On both sides of the border, decisions on oil pipelines, oil tankers traversing the inner water ways, boat regulations, watershed protection impact not only our human livelihood but the multitude of species we co-exist with. It makes sense to me that we approach the dilemmas facing our industry needs in an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly fragile and vulnerable. We need to address these environmental and economic concerns with all the players at the table.

But what makes sense to me doesn't necessarily mean it makes sense to someone else.

In conversation, I refer to the waters of this area as the Salish Sea. On more occasions than not, I hear push back on the name change from what it was - the Puget Sound - here on the Washington side of the sea. Young and old, people want to cling to the old for reasons of comfort and a strange solidarity. "That's what I grew up calling it, I'm not changing now."...or ... "Salish sea - just more political correctness!"

I haven't quite figured out the resistance. Is it because "Salish" is a First Nations designation and honors the indigenous Coast Salish people who lived on and along side these waters long before Europeans started searching for a Northwest passage? Are folks remiss to give up the name Puget? The Puget Sound was named after Peter Puget, a naval officer and companion of George Vancouver in 1792 - and was originally designating the waters south of the Tacoma narrows.

There is a sense of lost identity by renaming anything. And, I suspect, renaming a body of water with an indigenous honor and getting rid of the colonizing western term can bring up the ways in which we culturally privilege and marginalize a certain power deferential. To name this sea "Salish" is to privilege that which our cultures have historically marginalized for centuries. Allowing "Puget" to fade away is to acknowledge the fading power of western white colonialism. It forces us to acknowledge that colonialism was forged on exploiting resources and meeting/creating the voracious needs of the dominant culture. Money and power. That's what colonialism comes down to - and its what brought so many white settlers - my ancestors included - to the northwest in the first place.

Is part of this vanishing Puget Sound identity a sense of lost power and entitlement? What does someone give up by changing the designation of these waters? What has to shift for them to let go of an insular image and explore a larger vision?

The renaming of Puget Sound to the Salish Sea marks a paradigm shift - so of course there is resistance. To embrace "Salish Sea" is to open oneself up to rethinking a belief - a story about territory and power and - yes - interconnection. To say "Salish Sea" is to understand that your actions on either side of the international border matter to the other side - that your actions have impact on the wildlife, the land, and the health of the region. We need this paradigm shift - not just for decisions regarding whether or not pleasure boats should be allowed to empty their holding tanks anywhere - but for catastrophic situations like oil spills. Washington state has well developed response plans for oil spills. B.C does not. Well, they are trying with new legislation - but many say that lack of resources will make the new rules hard to enforce ( New Rules Coming). Considering what could happen to the waters south of the border makes Canada's lack of thorough planning a catastrophic disaster in the making. When we acknowledge that there is no proverbial fence between our waterways - that the actions or lack of action by our neighbor will absolutely impact our home - then we can start to develop collaborative plans to mutually aid and support each other.

Look, Humans like to name things. We like to name something and then claim it. We have been doing this to land probably since the first time we gathered around a fire. A name means nothing to an island or a whale or a lake. But name them we do and always in the spirit of the time and place and at the whimsy of whomever is there with enough power to get the name to stick.

In this time and place, I want this new officially designated Salish Sea naming to stick hard. I want conferences like the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference to become powerful incubators for collaborative and generative dialogue promoting sustainable ecosystem health - which includes humans as well. I want to see more international dialogue like what the Oil Spill Task Force is doing but on a bigger scale (They work on small spill education). I'd like to see Canadian and U.S. regulations regarding whales and salmon and fish farms work towards similar goals. We can start stepping towards those types of difficult discussions when we all acknowledge that we are talking about the same ecosystem and leave the arbitrary boundaries behind.

I'd love more insight into the mindset of resistance. I'd really like to hear what that stance believes. I want to know what the fear is, the loss, the problem with a new name. If we don't listen the differences into conversation, we'll never find each other in the middle.

What I learned today as a Whale Museum Docent - August

Every time I go into the Whale Museum to tend the display floor and answer questions - I end up learning new things about whales.

Today:

Question: Did you know that whale's have growth rings on their teeth? In a very similar fashion to growth rings on a tree, a whale's age can be roughly determined by how many growth rings there on a tooth.

Question: How do whales get fresh water?
Huh?
Well, they are mammals, afterall. This question was asked by the new education curator with a sparkle in her eye.
We talked about it and then I looked it up. Sure enough, whales get fresh water from what they eat. It isn't just that what they are eating have H2O in them, but one of the byproducts of eating the other critters is - you guessed it - water.
One of the articles I read said that many sea mammals - like whales - have very large livers that help them process the salt in the water they digest. Most sea mammal's urine has a very high concentrate of saline.

Being Part of the Ecosystem

The years that I have spent gunk-holing around the inland waters of the Puget Sound and beyond - these waters that are now designated the Salish Sea - have always brought Williams' words to mind. There is a dynamic aliveness to how the land, with its rock, trees, grass and underbrush meet the nutrient rich depths of deep moving water. Coming up Haro Strait puts you ten yards off shore - and in 800 feet deep water.

There is something about these islands and the waterways that separate them.

Both have been carved, shaped and given personality by the constant expansion and contraction of glacier ice. The Puget Sound, with British Columbia islands and mainland as well, is an incredible rich landscape that first drew many of the First Nations tribes to settle and live. And then the europeans came, with western world settlers to follow. Today, the Salish Sea ecosystem is the address for approximately 7 million people.

As humans, we are a community that needs to 'meet and integrate' with our very unique environment. It is my sense, that human beings rarely consider their ecological identity. Our footprint on the lands we call home are lost within the cacophony of sound and fury that feeds into our lives. We've focused on the socially constructed divisions - on who we are versus who they are - instead of exploring how our diversity can bring a deeper, richer wisdom of what it means to be a members of the human race on this particular planet. Whether it is the concrete world we never leave; the messages of fear, scarcity, and impotence fed to us daily; or the TV/Computer that we lose ourselves in every day for hours on end, human beings have become disconnected from one small fact: The earth doesn't need us to survive. We, however, need a healthy environment in order to continue to live.

Becoming aware of how our human community interacts with any given ecosystem is going to be in direct correlation with the well-being and survival of our species. We can't ignore the interface. We need to find our way back into relationship with this planet for many reasons. Perhaps the most important reason right now is so that we can find our way back into connection with those that we like to label "them" or the "other." Those human beings that you've closed ranks against. The cultures, religions, genders, sexual preferences, political positions that you lock out of your world. We won't find peace, we won't thrive as a species until we recognize that we are all homo sapiens: an indigenous life form on this planet.

I do not mean to disrespect the term indigenous as I do believe it has been incredibly important for indigenous peoples to hold that term as a defining attribute for their cultural communities. However, as long as the rest of us human beings don't grok the fact that we are a unique species of this one, particular planet in the vast galaxies of space, we will continue to violently express our singular visions of sanctioned humanity. Oh what we as a species could learn from the indigenous peoples of our planet!

Look, what I'm trying to say is this: we can't lose sight of what we are. Human beings are biological creatures (surprise!). We are mammals, warm blooded, bipedal and big brained. We depend on water, air, and all the minerals, vitamins, fats, calories that are found within and on the soil, in the atmosphere, and in the water that surrounds us. Our bodies are miracles of biological evolution - right along with all the other millions of living animal and plant species on this planet. That's why its so important to get outside - to find that edge, to breathe in the borders of our constructed world with the planet that actually exists. Its uncomfortable, humbling, scary - and yet it gives us back a sense of self that makes it impossible to ignore the reality of what we humans all have in common...

Earth.

Humans need to actually 'meet' - to take in, see, pause within, explore or simply breathe in - the natural world, we have to be willing to connect with some part of it.

To connect, we navigate the borders - and find ourselves. We remember that the term "ecosystem" more often than not includes us in the mix.

Look around you, find the landscape. Stop and watch a bird. Go out and experience the awe of a whale breaching or an eagle gliding over the water. Listen to the wind in the trees and walk the rocky beaches that line our sea. Find that piece of agate that skips perfectly across the water. Just get out and connect. Find the place where the being that is you meets the implacable, bewildering power of this planet. Find the creative edge and explore what dwells there.

Remember.

Ecotones

Just so you know:

"An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes. It is where two communities meet and integrate. It  may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and grassland ecosystems).An ecotone may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line." - from wikipedia
The word ecotone was coined from a combination of eco (from Greek oikos meaning house) with a modern meaning pulled from the word ecology (late 19th century); and tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, our home place where ecologies - the combination of elements that make up our environement are in tension."

Terry Tempest Williams, one of my all-time favorite earth stewards, says,

"As a naturalist, my favorite places to be are along the ecotone. It’s where it’s most alive, usually the edge of a forest and meadow, the ocean and the sand. It’s that interface between peace and chaos. It’s that creative edge that we find most instructive. It’s also the most frightening, because it’s completely uncertain and unpredictable and that’s again where I choose to live."

We live in relationship - within the tension of what makes up our home, our place, our planet.