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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 $60,000 to each tribal member. It was a lot of money and although the offer was tempting, the Colville tribe voted unanimously to reject the offer.

Bernie was relieved.

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.

But White Grizzly Bear wouldn’t fit on Bernie’s Boeing employee nametag! Thus, Bernie shortened his last name. For the rest of his life, he would be

known as Bernie Whitebear.

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Bernie Whitebear