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A celebration to honor Chief Seattle. Since 1911 when the celebration started, many of the same activities are still featured including the traditional salmon bake, canoe races, baseball, drumming and dancing, and a memorial service honoring Chief Seattle at his gravesite.
Learn more about the first people of the Kitsap Peninsula including their wooden canoes and traditions.
For at least 2000 years this was the site of the largest Suquamish winter village and longhouse in the region. The Old Man House was home to Chief Seattle before it was dismantled and burned around 1870 due to attempts by whites to anglicize the tribe.
Pay your respects at this popular spot for tourists and historians. Seattle's gravestone is surrounded by a mound of grass and a walkway, and surrounded by two carved, cedar canoes. Visitors often leave gifts and mementos next to his grave and the city that was named in his honor can be seen across Puget Sound. Chief Seattle died in Suquamish June 7, 1866. The spelling of 'Sealth' on his grave marker that was later donated in 1890 was probably an effort to render the pronunciation more correctly, unfortunately the result of this effort toward accuracy has been the spread of a completely inaccurate version of the Chief's name. No Puget Sound area newspapers covered the actual funeral ceremony, and there is no indication that any of the founding pioneers of the area came to pay last respects.