I think that the Chinook Observer typically does a good job of remembering to include reporting on issues and events surrounding the Chinook people. Better, I think, than your ally, the Wallowa County Chieftain, even.

That said, a couple statements in Sydney Stevens’ “Characters of Pacific County: The Bruce Boys” bear revision. The first is factually incorrect: “Only one man, Bill M’Carty, was then living permanently on Shoalwater Bay.” James Swan arrived in 1851 and his book, “The Northwest Coast,” speaks often of the men and women, children and elders, living on the bay then. Some were his neighbors. They happened to be Chinook.

The second sentence suggests a attitude only acceptable if the original sovereign nations are ignored by the narrative: “Yes! In 1853, all Shoalwater Bay was The Bruce Boys’ oyster!” There is no doubt that these capitalists did develop a non-Native export market that probably eclipsed the Native export oyster market (yes, the Chinook people were both exporters and importers) but is the tone of the sentence (while undoubtedly true to the 1850s Bruce Boys own sentiments) acceptable today?

I can only answer for myself, of course. I find both sentences exclusionary and unacceptable.

TIMOTHY NITZ