Land Acknowledgement
The Sacred Waters Center would like to acknowledge that our campus is standing on the unceded land of the first people of this area, the Twana-Skokomish Tribe, past and present. As a ministry of the Episcopal Church, we confess that our church has contributed to, or was complicit in, the process of colonization of the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. While those of us alive today are not responsible for what our ancestors did in the past, we are responsible for what we do today, knowing that the colonization process is still in place, and the effects of it are still felt by Indigenous people.
What is now known as the Skokomish Tribe actually was primarily composed of Twana Indians, a Salishan people whose aboriginal territory encompassed the Hood Canal drainage basin in western Washington State. The tribe’s first recorded direct contact with European culture came in 1792 and resulted in a devastating smallpox epidemic that took the lives of many. There were nine Twana communities, the largest being known as the Skokomish, or “big river people.” The Twana subsisted on hunting, fishing and gathering activities, practicing a nomadic life-style during warmer weather and resettling at permanent sites during the winter. Twana descendants live on the Skokomish Reservation, and all have become known as the Skokomish Tribe.
Sacred Waters is specifically located on ancestral hunting & fishing land between "brush hanging over" cove and "view across the canal" in Twana dialect. We honor with gratitude Indigenous people for their resilience, faithfulness, wisdom, and respect for the Earth and all of creation, which we seek to emulate. We invite our guests to join us in nurturing a just relationship with Indigenous tribal people, particularly our neighbors, the Skokomish Indian Tribe, and are called to stand with them in their myriad struggles to recover from the effects of genocide and enforced assimilation into the dominant society.
Our Calling
The Sacred Waters Center for Restoration and Retreat is an inclusive community rooted in rest and renewal, where every being is affirmed, all spiritual paths are honored, and the Earth herself is our healing teacher and guide.
Sacred Waters is an affirming interspiritual call to rest and human-ecological renewal. We are at home in our common union, honoring our inherent wholeness, and unfolding together within the practice of tenderness. Guided by the great love which holds us all, the soft pulse of tree roots, and the quiet tides that move through stillness and wild spaces, we offer inclusive welcome and a warm bowl of soup, remembering that when what is hard meets what is holy, healing flows outward into the world.
CORE VALUES:
Affirmation and Inclusion
– Embracing and affirming LGBTQIA2S+ identities and creating a space of radical belonging for all by making space for the vulnerable and essential work of cultivating healthy relationships, supporting greater mutual understanding between diverse peoples.
Interspirituality
– Honoring diverse spiritual paths and wisdom traditions rooted in shared sacredness beyond religious boundaries.
Rest and Renewal
– Valuing rest as a sacred, healing act, committing to both human and ecological renewal.
Wholeness and Interconnection
– Recognizing the inherent wholeness in each person by celebrating our interconnectedness with each other and the Earth.
Tenderness and Compassion
– Practicing tenderness as a spiritual and communal discipline by offering care, warmth, and nourishment.
Sacred Activism
– Trusting that healing flows when what is hard meets what is holy and committing to transformation through love, stillness, and presence.
Nature as Sacred Guide
– Listening to and learning from the wisdom of the natural and creaturely world, guided by the rhythms of trees, tides, and wild spaces.
Our Leadership Council
The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia stands at a transformative moment to expand our missional capacity and deepen our commitment to healing and wholeness, racial equity and creation care. The 13.5 acre property adjacent to St. Andrew's House Retreat and Conference Center, which has hosted the wellness center known as Harmony Hill for almost 40 years, has been acquired through a generous donation. This property offers the facilities and spaces to expand our mission of hospitality toward the cultivation of creative practices in racial and environmental justice, prayer and community. The existing ministries of the Circles of Color, Creation Care, and Harmony Retreats of Cancer Lifeline have come together to develop this new collaborative calling now named The Sacred Waters Center for Restoration and Retreat.
The Sacred Waters Leadership Council is nearly formed and has adopted a Covenant to guide our relationships moving forward. The Council has also contracted with Headwater People LLC to develop a strategic framework for building a sustainable foundation for a thriving new ministry of the Episcopal Diocese. Stay tuned for as we unveil plans in the coming months.
Stories of Union
Dawn Hanson Smart (https://dawnsmartllc.weebly.com/) is the author of numerous books, including Untangled Intertwined, Crossing Time in Pine Creek, House of Solace, and Path to Portugal. She currently lives and writes on Hood Canal in Washington State, where she grew up, and is contributing local stories for Sacred Waters.
Little Hoquiam
In the 1920s a group of families from Grays Harbor who were drawn to Hood Canal came to Union. They bought property and built homes along Highway 106, from Alderbrook east about over a mile toward what is now called “The Castle” and Pebble Cove. Albert Callow, a lumberman, was said to be the first. He visited, saw the Canal, and said, “We’ve got to come here.” Throughout the 30s and 40s, friends and other families stayed in cabins and cottages, some also choosing to buy and build, joining what became known as Little Hoquiam.
The names are not all familiar to Union residents today. Property records show Peterson, Lightfoot, Wandel, Tuttle, Logue, Murnan, Crim, Crumpacker, McClanahan, Leach, Arthaud. They called themselves “The Bunch”. Some of their descendants live here still and got together to share remembrances of spending summers here.
The stories reflect growing-up memories of the 1950s with many common themes. Swimming, paddling, and boating figured often in most of them. Taking a swim or a homemade paddle board out in sometimes freezing water. Or swimming across the Canal, a rite of passage, with boat rowers for safety because the current could take you off course.
Taking a rowboat out, singing at the top of their lungs, not realizing parents on shore could hear it all. Building flat-bottomed dories and kayaks, leaky until fiberglass was applied. Or taking wooden fishing boats and speedier motorboats out for spin. There was one memory of a trip across the Canal and losing the rudder on the way back; another of going to Bald Point to fish, to have the motor die and paddling with a jury-rigged milk crate as an oar until they got it going again.
Fishing off a boat or a dock for perch and flounder was also a shared pastime. Shrimping and crabbing, too. And learning to waterski, including for some of the intrepid, skiing in a pyramid. A 5-man or 3-man (and woman) version was practiced one year in order to put on a show on Capitol Lake in Olympia. Even more industrious, one person remembered her brother building his own deep diving suit with a breathing tube and walking out into the Canal. She didn’t think it worked all that well. As they grew older, there were motorcycles racing up and down the road. And boys would cruise the docks along the water, looking for action… “Not that they got any.”
Parents never worried about the kids on the water or in the neighborhood. After chores, out they would go until dark—playing outdoor games, like kick-the-can, Red Rover, hide and seek, badminton, baseball in a field. And bicycle riding for hours, no helmets. But you had to be close enough to home to hear your mother’s whistle. On rainy days and in the evenings, there’d be board games and cards.
Did everyone get along? There was a rivalry between Aberdeen and Hoquiam, although it played out more back in Grays Harbor, not so much on the Canal. Sometimes there’d be fistfights, but in the end kids made up and continued their fun and friendship.
Another recollection was about some of the girls going to the Aqua Follies in Seattle and their coming back to recreate what they’d seen at Green Lake. Putting on their own show on the beach. There were the 4th of July celebrations every year, with picnics and fireworks blow outs. Regular small gatherings with shared food—hot dogs, chicken, and baloney or peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Then, the big parties to observe major events… the end of World War II when people dressed up on the sunny day to watch a blimp flying low over the Canal, throwing out paper confetti. Another big one was in 1971 when the University of Washington was shut down to protest the Vietnam War.
Phones were not common in the early days of Little Hoquiam. At first only the Callows had one, but they rigged up a house-to-house intercom system they use to ring another family to say, “You’ve got a call.” In time, a few others were added. Little green box phones on the wall. Families also didn’t have washers and dryers, so mothers would pack up the laundry and trek or bike down to Robin Hood. If they had a boat, they might power over to get it done.
One of the group talked about feeling the Canal in summer was like the Wizard of Oz… blue skies and sunshine, not at all like the gray skies of Hoquiam. I like that! To hear the town I grew up in, the town I now live in, could be such a dream-like place. So, here’s to Little Hoquiam and all the memories.
My thanks to those who participated in the conversation or chimed in later to read the draft of this story. Jean Arthaud Fisher, Jane Nelson, Tim and Cathy Wandell, Kevin Hoonan, Dan Hanson, Wendy Hagen, Weedy Hagen, Betty Kay Anderson.
Read Previous Union Stories from Dawn
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