Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
A nation today
Background
The Strong People is what the Tribe writes its own name as, ʔéʔɬx̣ʷaʔ nəxʷsƛ̕áy̕əm̕, and it describes itself as a sovereign, federally recognized Indian Nation with its own constitution and government, living in the Lower Elwha River Valley and the bluffs above it on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula just west of Port Angeles. Its own historical timeline says the Point No Point Treaty was signed on January 25, 1855 by Governor Isaac Stevens and representatives of the S'Klallam, Skokomish and Chemakum tribes, that the Elwha Klallam villages are named in that treaty and that it constitutes federal recognition of the Tribe, and that Congress ratified it on March 8, 1859. The Tribe's front page records that its current landbase was first acquired by the United States in trust in 1935 and 1936, was proclaimed the Lower Elwha Reservation in 1968, and totals about 1,000 acres on and near the Elwha River today. Its natural resources pages give the river's own figures: a watershed of roughly 321 square miles, 85 percent of it inside Olympic National Park, Elwha Dam 105 feet high at river mile 4.9 built in 1910 to 1912 and removed in 2011, and Glines Canyon Dam 210 feet high at river mile 13.5 built in 1927 and removed in 2014.
Where they were, and where they were put
- From
- The village of Pysht, on the Elwha River. Edward Sampson, 1992: "Pysht was a very nice Indian village. That was our home. It was where we were from. It was our land."
- To
- Port Angeles. The village itself ceased to exist.
- Year
- 1930
Edward Sampson, as told in 1992 and translated by Beatrice Charles, Adeline Smith and Timothy Montler: "When we were at the village of Pysht working on the logging, the logging jobs ended. And there was no more work there again. And so we left our homes and moved to Port Angeles. Then the logging bosses tore down our houses. Our houses were torn down and burned to nothing left of the Indians homes... Our belongings and everything inside was torn down by the bulldozer. Everything we owned. We weren't told by the logging bosses about our houses being torn down. It was their own idea. We didn't know what they were going to do. That's the way it is. We Indians have been treated badly by the white men."
Source: Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, as told by Edward Sampson 1992, translated by Beatrice Charles, Adeline Smith and Timothy Montler (read 2026-10-03)
- From
- The land under Tse-whit-zen, a village site on the Elwha River.
- To
- Recovered and now held by the Tribe; 335 human remains and over 100,000 artifacts.
- Year
- 2003
The village of Tse-whit-zen was flooded by the Elwha River dam and its descendants remained unrecovered for decades. Between 2003 and 2006 the Tribe recovered them under an agreement with the Department of Transportation.
Source: Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, official site (read 2026-10-03)
Visit and learn
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's own site
Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.
Parks on its homelands
Olympic National Park85 percent of the Elwha watershed lies within Olympic National Park. The Tribe says removing the two dams, Elwha in 2011 and Glines Canyon in 2014, was the first large-scale dam removal in history, and that the dams had been stopping fish from more than 70 miles of upstream habitat. Source
Programs
Elwha River Restoration
The Tribe's page tracks what is left to do. About 30 miles of tributary streams inside the watershed are accessible by salmon, the former reservoirs have been planted with 450,000 rooted native trees and shrubs and 7,100 pounds of native and locally sourced seed, and 24 million cubic yards of sediment had built up behind the dams, 75 percent of it released to the Strait of Juan de Fuca within the first three years after removal.
Sources
- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-30/html/2026-01899.htm
- https://www.elwha.org/
- https://www.elwha.org/culture-and-history/elwha-klallam-historical-timeline/
- https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/river-restoration/
Checked September 2026.