Stilly Valley historical map to serve as welcome center

Published 10:15 pm Tuesday, June 2, 2009

ARLINGTON — When the new welcome center map at the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum is finally finished in 2010, more than a dozen metal fish will adorn the carved cedar map.

The fish represent areas where Stillaguamish tribal encampments and fishing grounds were located 100 years ago, said welcome center volunteer Shirley Prouty.

The gazebolike welcome center is set to resemble an open-air Salish longhouse that will shelter a 5-foot-by-10-foot carved cedar relief map of the Stillaguamish River watershed as it was in 1910, when Arlington was the cedar shake mill capital of the world.

The map also includes pioneer communities, mines, logging operations, dairies and the locations of old roads, schools and cemeteries. It’s based on the Snohomish County plat map of 1910, one of the first maps that detailed land ownership in the county.

Since 2006, Twisp sculptor Bruce Morrison has been curing and carving thick old growth cedar planks to make the map.

Plans call for the map and its roof to be held up by a dozen 7-foot to 10-foot story poles. The poles were carved from cedar logs by well-known Lummi master carver Jewell James and based on the salmon story of the Stillaguamish Indian Tribe.

All that’s missing to pull the center together now is the money to buy the lumber for the roof of the center, Prouty said.

The $90,000 project is running about $20,000 shy, the amount needed to buy the last of roofing materials.

“We’re praying that at least one of the two grants we’ve applied for will come through,” Prouty said.

Prouty, her husband Dick and their friends Michelle and Steve Heiderer have been working on the project for several years.

The welcome center is likely to become a tourist attraction and a great learning tool for local students, Prouty said.

For more information, call the museum at 360-435-7289.

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.