About Us

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.    

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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.