Along with much additional news — including what some union members regard as an unsatisfying end to their strike of the Weyerhaeuser Corp. — this coming edition of the Chinook Observer includes a thorough update on the Chinook Indian Nation and its struggle for formal tribal status.

Shared by Underscore News, a nonprofit that’s uniquely dedicated to reporting on Washington and Oregon tribes, it’s an engaging piece, well illustrated by Amiran White, whose insightful photos we treasure and often run.

I advocate for the Chinook whenever and however I can. Their struggle for basic justice is undeniably valid — and anyway, I’ve always figured it behooves an organization named the Chinook Observer to be on the side of the Chinook.

My involvement with Native people extends more than 60 years. As a 4-year-old I used to play with John Washakie, my next-door neighbor, a descendant of the great Eastern Shoshoni Chief Washakie. Attending Wyoming Indian Elementary School, I became friends with Herb Walsh, a Northern Arapaho flute-maker and artist. He inspires and cracks me up, just as when we were 6. Two of his great-great-grandfathers fought Custer at the Little Bighorn.

We all have much to gain from having strong tribal friends and neighbors. The Chinook mastered living here over the course of thousands of years. They deserve our respect and attention.

Back in 2004, I wrote “the names they gave things still reverberate on some level, like ghostly chisel marks in a rocky headland. And yet we have scant knowledge of those names, the tribe having been driven to the very brink of extinction almost before anyone could record their words.” Thankfully, Tribal Chairman Tony Johnson and others are finding some success in resuscitating the Chinook language.

I’d love to see modern signs and maps show the original names of familiar local places — names that endured for centuries before white people arrived. Cape Disappointment is such a stupid, disappointing name. Let’s return it to Kais, its Chinook name, or compromise with the nicely alliterative Cape Kais. Much, much better.

As always, thank you for your support of the Chinook Observer. We are always on the side of local people.

(The photo is from the front entrance of my primary school alma mater, Wyoming Indian Elementary.)