PKOLS

05/19/2026

STOLȻEȽ remembers what governments try to forget: we were already here, we are still here, and our future does not stop at customs.

Be different.

We never agreed to your border.
The sea did not sign it.

The salmon did not recognize it.
Our grandparents did not ask permission from a line drawn through their relatives.

04/14/2026

There are places where investment means return.
And there are places where investment means restoration of relationship.

STOLȻEȽ is both.

PKOLS is building something different in the Salish Sea
not a project, not a program, but infrastructure for the next 100+ years.

We are restoring Indigenous stewardship systems that already sustained these islands for thousands of years: • Reef net knowledge
• Nearshore habitat restoration
• Cultural food systems like camas and qexmin
• Language tied directly to land and water

This is climate resilience.
This is biodiversity recovery.
This is cultural continuity.
And it’s investable.

Through the San Juan Island Community Foundation , donors have a direct pathway to support PKOLS-led work that is:
✔ Community-rooted
✔ Measurable in ecological outcomes
✔ Scalable across the Salish Sea
✔ Led by the people who have never left this place

Community foundations like this one exist to move capital where it creates the most impact supporting health, environment, and long-term sustainability on the island.

What we’re doing is simple:
We are rebuilding the original systems that worked.
Not as history.
As the future.

The kind of investment that doesn’t just generate returns but restores balance, responsibility, and relationship.

This is it.

https://sjicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/grant?grant_id=21664

04/09/2026

At ṮIQEN¸EṈ, the land is remembering.

Not because we discovered something new.
Because what was always here is being allowed to live.

These are not just plants.
These are relatives.
These are foods.
These are laws.

Before fences, before trails, before the lighthouse
this was not an empty place.
This was a tended place.
A fed place.
A place where people knew how to live without starving the future.

This work also carries the relationships that have always tied our peoples together.

We are honored that Clay Albany, Songhees carver and carrier of the traditional name of this place, plans to visit STOLȻEȽ soon bringing another layer of memory, connection, and responsibility back to the land.

Now the work begins again.
Not as a project.
Not as a concept.
But as a return.

Because restoration, from a STOLȻEȽ perspective, is not about fixing land.
It is about fixing our relationship to it.
And that means showing up.

Planting.
Learning.
Listening.
And remembering that this land has always known what to do.

We are just catching back up.

̱IQENEN ̱SÁNEĆ

https://sanjuanislander.com/re-flowering-cattle-point/?fbclid=IwdGRjcARD_uFjbGNrBEP9zWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHhxCWAUIOb9gtIzwzkHPUCwT4HAVY7uu68xlSeJNJkWGQ1bSITWFO2BCtuRQ_aem_cjRitArhIEdXfTHWVI-H-A

Kwiaht and the Coast Salish cultural association PKOLS began fundraising this week through the San Juan Island Community Foundation for experimental restoration of part of the Cattle Point meadow at the lighthouse trailhead. The goal is not just to replace sheep grass and weeds with wildflowers, but...

04/07/2026

The work has already begun.

At ṮIQEN¸EṈ (Cattle Point), we are not just talking about restoration we are growing it.

Together with the Bureau of Land Management and community partners, PKOLS is helping bring forward a culturally informed restoration garden one that reflects what this place has always known.

When restoration stops being abstract and becomes physical, seasonal, accountable.
When the land is treated not as a project, but as a relative returning to balance.

If you want to be part of that return, you can support this work through the San Juan Island Community Foundation:
https://sjicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/grant?grant_id=21663⁠

Every contribution helps move these plants from pots…

back into the soil that remembers them.
STOLȻEȽ is still teaching.

03/30/2026

Land. Sea. Memory.

03/09/2026

Thinking about:
Chief Leschi, the Nisqually leader who defended his people and homeland during the conflicts surrounding the Puget Sound War.

03/06/2026

PKOLS — Preserving Knowledge of Land and Sea

is honored to be part of “The Sea Remembers Us,” an upcoming gathering hosted by the Western Washington University Foundation.

This event centers Indigenous knowledge and the living relationship between the Saltwater People and the Salish Sea.

📅 Learn more and register:
https://foundation.wwu.edu/event/sea-remembers-us
HÍSW̱ḴE.



https://foundation.wwu.edu/event/sea-remembers-us

In this collaborative presentation, Josiah Feld and Erin Corra share how Indigenous history, language, and community stewardship come together on STOLȻEȽ (San Juan Island). Josiah tells the living story of his Coast Salish and Paiute ancestors — families who carried law, ceremony, and reef-net t...

03/02/2026

KEḴELSEN.

Chest out of the water.

That’s what this place is called the James Point area, near Blakely waters.

Not “James.”

KEḴELSEN.

When you stand there at low tide and look across the reef and rock, you can see it.
The land rising like a body surfacing.
A chest breaking through saltwater.

Breath returning.
Our place names are not random.

They are observation. They are instruction.
They are memory.

KEḴELSEN tells you how to see the land. It tells you how the reef reveals itself. It reminds you that this coastline was known long before it was charted.

Long before boundary lines split families across Haro Strait. Long before maps renamed everything.
From STOLȻEȽ to Blakely waters, these shorelines were highways.

Reef net sites. Fishing grounds. Travel routes. Ceremony places. Infrastructure.

When we say KEḴELSEN, we are not replacing history.
We are restoring it.

The land still rises from the water.
So do we.

— PKOLS
Preserving Knowledge of Land and Sea

03/02/2026

Fur traders and voyageurs especially those coming through Hudson’s Bay Company networks would have carried those European beliefs with them.

Long before fur traders arrived, this was STOLȻEȽ, within W̱SÁNEĆ homelands.

The name “Friday Harbor” is commonly traced to Joseph Poalie Friday, a Kanaka (Native Hawaiian) man who worked in maritime trade and later farmed there in the 1850s.

So the colonial name likely comes from a person named Friday not directly from a superstition.

The fur trade world absolutely ran on:

Christian cosmology
Maritime superstition
Company culture (Hudson’s Bay, Northwest Company, etc.)
Imperial mapping and renaming practices

The fur traders may have feared starting journeys on Friday.