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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.

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Bernie with actress and activist, Jane Fonda. Photo courtesy UIATF