During a short hike to Brighton Creek, a child approached Nisqually tribal member Hanford McCloud with a pair of antlers, likely shed by a deer, that he’d found along the trail.
One of the tribe’s cultural educators, McCloud had said earlier that antlers could be a tool for gathering cedar bark.
If the boy’s recollection of that detail was any indication, McCloud’s cedar harvest talk and demonstration in April was a powerful look at the important cultural practice. A masterful weaver of cedar, McCloud teamed up with the Nisqually Land Trust to teach the practice of pulling cedar bark in a way that heals the tree and allows the resource to be there for future generations.
Harvesting and weaving cedar has been an elemental part of McCloud’s life since his early teens, when he learned to gather and work with the resource from his mother and, later, mentors such as Bruce Miller of Skokomish Indian Tribe.
“My mother started showing me how to peel bark off trees, she told us why we did it,” McCloud said. “Once I put my hands on the bark, it was healing.”
Cedar can be fashioned by skillful weavers into goods such as hats, baskets and clothing. But more than that, it can bind people together.
“Weaving, it brings people together. When you pass a basket along—we give our first one away—we know it’ll be moving along. I’d peel bark and I’d give it away,” McCloud said.
Such gathering and weaving goes back tens of thousands of years, he said, and it’s tradition to take only as much cedar as your hands can hold.
About two years ago, McCloud became a board member of the Nisqually Land Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to the protection of the Nisqually River Watershed. Founded in 1989, the land trust buys properties in the watershed to preserve it from degradation or development.
“Having the land trust own the land so it can’t be developed and stripped was a great idea,” he said.
One of the areas the land trust protects is nearly 5 acres around Brighton Creek. It was there McCloud held a cedar harvest demonstration in April with a few dozen participants.
“This trail’s been here for 10,000 years,” McCloud said as he led a group of a few dozen into the woods.
In the same way cedar brings people together, it’s an integral part of the environment, protecting younger trees and salmon that swim beneath its shade.
With threats such as development and climate change looming, McCloud said he hopes his demonstrations persuade others to join him and the Nisqually Land Trust in protecting cedar.
“I see this as paying this forward to the next generation,” he said. “ My goal is to take people out so they can carry this message forward.”
Participants at the Brighton Creek watched attentively as McCloud put in the careful and artful work to gather strips of cedar.
“Bark is healing,” he said. “So when you work with it, you heal everyone around you.”
Nisqually tribal member Hanford McCloud demonstrates how to harvest cedar bark while promoting the tree’s growth. Photo and story: Trevor Pyle