WEEK 18: PLACE-STORIES

In his much-lauded history, Native Seattle, Coll Thrush explores the concept of “place-stories,” describing how our understanding of a place is inextricably linked to the stories we hold in our imagination (4). In the case of Seattle, Thrush charges us to re-write the traditional Euro-American mythology of the city—one that has forged its identity from a Native American heritage that it has systematically ignored as a vital player in its ongoing urban development. The new place-story, in Thrush’s vision, is one in which Seattle’s

many Native pasts . . . can be unearthed. These place-stories . . . will be dialogues about the transformations of landscape and power in the city and about strategies for living together humanely in this place. Bringing new stories to light and considering how those stories can inform new kinds of action should be our agenda for the future, and it is crafted in the moments when we simply ask each other, What happened here? (207)

 

 

Thrush’s words resonate with our design team, absorbed—as we’ve been—in a re-writing project of our own.  As we begin to call our design proposals “place-stories,” in homage to Thrush, we must consider what they might mean within the context of the National Park Service as a whole. The NPS has a mythic, timeless hold on the American imagination, one that may not always seem human-scale and might not always invite individual collaboration.

To engage all people in national parks, and in San Juan Island National Historical Park in particular, it is essential to provide a relevant park experience that instills a sense of ownership and belonging on an individual level. We believe this can be achieved when people understand that their interactions with a place are part of a much larger—and ongoing—story of human relationships with the land. This is a story, of course, that should be continuously re-written by the people, changing with time.

 

 

We want visitors to our National Historical Park to not only ask What happened here?,  but also What happens here?

Work cited:

Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).