About This Project

It all began with a simple question posed by my school principal several years ago: In what watershed did you grow up? I'll admit - this was not something I had ever thought of before. After thinking about it, I decided that my answer was Chambers Creek. After all, I grew up less than a mile from the creek, attended Chambers Elementary, crossed one of the bridges over the creek countless times, fished in the creek, ate salmon caught in the creek by Steilacoom Tribe fisherman, and dug clams where the creek meets Puget Sound. Other than the Sound, there was no other body of water that seemed to be more familiar to me than this creek. This thought led me to dig further. The more I uncovered, the more I began to understand the significance of this creek and my life.

Looking at maps, I found that not only did my parents live in the Chambers Creek watershed, but also my aunt and uncle (who live in on the south side of the creek), my dad's parents (who lived on a hill near Lake Steilacoom - a dammed section of Chambers Creek), and my mom's parents (who lived a block away from Spanaway Lake - which drains into Lake Steilacoom). My grandmother, brother, cousins, and I spent many summer days fishing, swimming, and paddling in Spanaway Lake - with no idea that we were interacting with the water that flows into Chambers Creek.

The final discovery I made was the most haunting and moving - one of my grandfathers, who passed away in 2010, is buried about 100 yards away from Flett Creek - a direct tributary to Chambers Creek. The very rain that seeps into the ground at his grave site eventually makes its way into this creek.

Suddenly, what was just a familiar moving body of water near my home stomping grounds became something completely different - it became my sacred waters.
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