The Gang of Four. Bob Santos
down on Bernie. They did not want their sons and daughters associated with a “Siwash,” a derogatory term that whites used against Indians in stereotyping them as dirty, lazy, and shiftless.
Bernie knew that he and his white friends lived in different worlds.
When he was invited by his friends to their homes, he found they lived
with running water and indoor plumbing, oak floors, chandeliers,
well manicured lawns, and lush drapes which covered large picture
windows. It was so different to what he had grown up with.
Bernie’s first girlfriend was an attractive girl - a blonde blue-eyed girl
named Marilyn Hodgson. He spent a lot of time with her during his high
school days. They were an item yet he was not welcome in her home.
In fact, her parents tried their best to break up their relationship, and
later it eventually ended. Later, Bernie met the love of his life--Marilyn
Sieber. Bernie met Marilyn, a member of the Nit Nat tribe located near
Victoria, British Columbia, during the early days of the United Indians of
All Tribe Foundation. They were together for ten years. At one time,
Bernie announced plans to marry Marilyn but they never did. She
eventually moved back to Canada.
In 1955, Bernie graduated from Okanogan High School. Good
paying jobs in the Okanogan Valley were scarce for young Indians.
He decided to go to the coast to see if he could find a job. He
moved in with his mother Mary and her second family in Tacoma.
After weeks of searching for a job, he gave up and went back to
the Okanogan Valley. With his father Julian’s help, Bernie found a
summer job with the Great Northern Railroad. He saved enough
money for tuition to enter the UW in the fall.
In the summer of 1956, after just one year of college, Bernie decided
not to return to the UW. He hadn’t done well in his studies and had
not found a field of study that interested him.
CHAPTER 6: Bernie Meets His Mentor
One day that summer in 1956, Bernie met a man named Bob Satiacum, a friend of Bernie’s mother, who was a regular customer at Harry Wong’s Tacoma restaurant. Satiacum was a local Indian legend. He was a striking figure, six feet tall with an athletic build. He was unlike any person Bernie had ever known. Bernie was a country boy at heart while Bob Satiacum was a savvy, city slicker. Bob promised to introduce Bernie to some of his Indian friends.
Bernie continued to look for work that summer without success and he again ran into Satiacum. After Bernie confided how hard it was to find work, Satiacum offered to take him drift net fishing for salmon in the nearby Puyallup River. Bernie had never fished for salmon before. He knew how to fish with a pole but this was an entirely new experience for him. Bernie took Satiacum up on his offer.
It was the beginning of a life-long friendship.
Satiacum became a mentor for Bernie. Satiacum taught Bernie everything he knew about salmon--how to prepare it for cooking, how to cut it, and how to smoke it with a strong alder fire. Bernie developed a taste for Indian alder smoked salmon. Satiacum lent Bernie a canoe and they went salmon fishing in Commencement Bay. All the while, Satiacum told Bernie about Indian treaties that had been signed in the 1850s when Washington State was still a territory, which gave Indians the right to fish for salmon.
Bernie found that white sports fishermen resented their presence and often tried to sabotage their fishing nets. Bernie had experienced some hostility from whites while he was growing up in Eastern Washington but not to the level he experienced in Western Washington. Satiacum told Bernie that whites in Eastern Washington tolerated Native Americans because they were no threat to them but it was different in Western Washington. Confrontations were commonplace. Satiacum carried a shotgun in his canoe. Bernie started carrying an ax handle, just in case, for protection.
Salmon was a valuable commodity and the white commercial fishermen depended on the salmon for profits. The white sports fishermen viewed the salmon as their property. The Native American fishermen needed the salmon to sustain their way of life. Native Americans had fished for salmon long before the white man entered the territory. But commercial fishing had taken its tolls. Salmon runs had become dangerously depleted. State authorities, particularly the State Fish and Wildlife Commission, took the position that drift net fishing violated the law. Satiacum had been arrested many times for “illegal” fishing without a state permit on the Puyallup River.
In 1959, Bernie had finished a tour of duty with the U.S. Army. While he was encouraged to re-enlist for a second tour of duty, he decided to return to Tacoma and get involved in the Indian Fishing Rights Movement. After he returned to his mother’s home in Tacoma, Bernie was hired to work at the Boeing Company, assigned to Plant Two, fabricating parts for jets.
Bernie decided
to change his
last name to
Grizzly White
Bear, in honor of
his grandfather,
Alex Christian,
who was known among the
Lake tribes as
Chief White
Grizzly Bear.
14
Bernie with actress and activist, Jane Fonda. Photo courtesy UIATF
In 1961, Bernie had resumed his friendship with Bob Satiacum. He spent a lot of his free time with Satiacum, who introduced Bernie to other urban Native Americans, particularly members of the Puyallup, Muckleshoot and Nisqually tribes. He encouraged Bernie to embrace his Native American heritage. Although Bernie carried the name of his Filipino father, Reyes, he had always identified himself as Indian. But for many years, Bernie had taken his Indian heritage for granted. Growing up in Eastern Washington, Bernie was familiar with living in poverty but didn’t realize then the political and social implications involved.
Every so often, the Indians in Tacoma held a pow wow where they would celebrate their heritage through traditional dancing and drumming, handed down from generation to generation. These pow wows brought the various Indian groups together. It also served as a means for the younger generation of Indian youth to learn about and preserve their culture. The Indian elders were afraid their youth would lose the cultural connection to their past.
In the summer of 1961, Bernie joined his mother, his brother Lawney, and his sister Luana at a meeting of the Colville Indians held in Seattle. The meeting had been called to discuss the merits of terminating the Colville Indian reservation. There were about 150 people at the meeting, most of whom had relocated to Seattle. The U.S. government wanted to open up the reservation land in Eastern Washington to logging and mining companies because of the rich natural resources on reservation land. The government was offering