Ed Carriere

Ed Carriere, Suquamish Elder, Master Basketmaker and Canoe Carver, is considered by the  Coast Salish communities in the Salish Sea and beyond, as one of the highest status Elders,  traditional artisans, and cultural leaders of this region. He began mastering the old-style cedar limb/root clam basket making at 14, learning from his Great Grandmother, Julia Jacobs, who raised him from infancy. Julia was raised in a traditional cedar plank long-house, Old-Man  House, until a teenager, learning all the early traditions. This is the same house that Chief  Seattle, Sealth, lived in. Julia’s adoptive parents, Chief Wa-hal-chu and wife Wes-i-dult, took over  Sealth’s leadership after his passing (Chief Wa-hal-chu signed the Treaty of Point Elliot with  Chief Sealth in 1855). Chief Wa-hal-chu, his wife, and only child Julia were moved to their allotment in the Port Madison Indian Reservation, where Ed currently resides and maintains the remaining 80 acres of his Indian allotment (this allotment is thought to be the only one remaining under Indian ownership in Indianola, Washington).

Over the past five years Ed has teamed up with Dr. Dale Croes, an archaeologist specializing in ancient basketry throughout his fifty-year scientific career; together they replicated the 2,000-year-old pack baskets from a waterlogged archaeological site called Biderbost, a site in Ed’s traditional Salish territory. Ed and Dale combined their fifty years of cultural and scientific talents to produce their stories together, entitled Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry, Fifty Years of Basketry Studies in Culture and Science, now available through Amazon. Through Ed’s study and replication of ancient Salish Sea baskets, he has learned from and revived the art of over 200 generations of his ancestors and/or grandparents. By replicating their ancient archaeologically recovered baskets, he has learned from each one of them.