Counter-mapping the Coos Bay Estuaries: Amplifying Indigenous and Environmental Histories

84 pagesMy research examines the (in)visible histories of the Coos Bay estuaries through creative mapping. Currently, members of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw (CTCLUSI) reside in Coos Bay and remain traditional stewards. As a recently colonized landscape, Coos Bay is an ideal site to study the urgent issues of indigenous and water justice. Over 150 years of colonial back-filling and diking for farmland has caused massive repercussions for the health of the river and Native ecologies. Critical changes made to this estuary mask the deliberate efforts to eradicate and decimate peoples of the CTCLUSI and neighboring tribes. I approach this environmental and indigenous history using creative practices of mapping as a form of inquiry. Specifically, I use an ‘overdrawing’ method—a mapping technique developed over the past two decades by Dr. Liska Chan, that allows for integrating many kinds of knowledge into a map. “Overdrawings are layered collages of drawings and photographs about place that allow both the maker and the viewer to apprehend imperceptible features of a place (e.g. moments of change, patterns over long histories, hydrology).” Given the context of this landscape, I ask: what insights and questions might be revealed by these ‘overdrawings’? In addition, a complementary written narrative about the context of the Coos Bay estuary, including the meanings and questions that arise from the ‘overdrawings,’ accompanies the creative work. I examine the ‘overdrawings’ through a culturally geographic lens, and hypothesize that they will probe and problematize the (in)visibilities of landscapes, investigating how space is politically and culturally created. I present my work and thoughts as my own perspective on a history diverse in experience and background, and I have found a plethora of ways to interpret and feel this space and history. My identity is non-Native, and therefore I have limited capacity for understanding the indigenous histories and landscapes precisely because, at all times, I can choose my level of engagement with all of these various knowledges and violences. The landscape I studied exists on CTCLUSI and Coquille Indian Tribal lands; a tribe connected to CTCLUSI through generations of intertribal marriage and landscape sharing. I have a unique access to their lands because of their historical displacement. In addition, I want to acknowledge that I currently work and study—and created these cultural maps—on Kalapuya territory, original stewards of the southern Willamette Valley, who were also violently displaced