Posted on March 13, 2023
Post categories: Landscape Architecture News
After Native Americans occupied Fort Lawton—today part of Seattle’s Discovery Park—in a peaceful protest in the early 1970s, the city negotiated a long-term leaseback of 20 acres of the 534-acre site with the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. “The land was supposed to be given back to the local tribe from which it was taken, but that didn’t really happen,” says Meghan Jernigan, a traditional medicine program director with United Indians, which led the protest. “There wasn’t a lot of political support, but a growing, cross-cultural coalition made this space thrive and allowed for development of the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.”
Since then, the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center and its surrounding forest and wetlands have served as an important resource for Native Americans of all ages in the Seattle area. The center offers events, Indigenous art, programs on teaching traditional medicine, social and community services, and an indoor–outdoor preschool.
In 2021, Tim Lehman, a landscape designer of Northern Arapaho descent, was hired by the Indigenous women–led Na’ah Illahee Fund, which supports the regeneration of Indigenous communities, to improve drainage conditions around three detention ponds on the Daybreak Star property. In the process, he found himself creating a “loose” master plan for the site, which includes an existing sweat lodge, a smoke pit, and an outdoor classroom.