A Red Letter Day

 Construction is set to begin on a Coast Salish-style longhouse located in the Sehome Hill Arboretum. This will be the first of its kind for the City of Bellingham and at Western Washington University.  

Dignitaries participate in the groundbreaking of the House of Healing during a blessing ceremony on April 11, 2024 in Sehome Arboretum. // Photo by Luke Hollister.

Story by Lottie Jensen // Photos by Nick Whitehead

June 13, 2024

On a rainy spring afternoon, community members gathered to witness the groundbreaking and blessing of Western Washington University’s Coast Salish-style longhouse, the House of Healing. In the middle of the crowded tent, Koso / Yai Duʔac Michaela Vendiola (Walker River Paiute/Swinomish), and her daughter, Tsi Kstatab Auviannah Vendiola (Lummi/Walker River Paiute/Swinomish), pose for a photo in front of a framed document. 

The document is the Native American Student Union’s (NASU) “Red Letter” written in 2016 and named for its similarities to letters historically authored by Native American and Alaskan Native activists. Among other requests, the letter asked Western administrators, including current President Sabah Randhawa and the Board of Trustees for a tribal liaison and a Coast Salish-style longhouse.

“The longhouse has been an idea that started before my generation of students. It had always been talked about by prior students as a need,” Vendiola said, a former NASU member at Western and one of the authors of the Red Letter. 

Eight years later, the university has finally begun construction on the longhouse-like building. The House of Healing is projected to be completed in the summer of 2025.

Koso / yai duʔac Michaela Vendiola (Walker River Paiute & Swinomish) and her daughter tsi kstatab Auviannah Vendiola (Lummi/Walker River Paiute/Swinomish) pose next to the Red Letter at the House Of Healing blessing ceremony on April 11, 2024 in Sehome Arboretum. //Photo by Michelle Vendiola (Walker River Paiute).

The term House of Healing was chosen for the building as it will be a place for the Indigenous community of Western to heal together, according to the executive director of American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations relations and tribal liaison to the president Laural Ballew / Ses yehomia/tsi kuts bat soot (Swinomish). This will be the City of Bellingham’s first longhouse-style building and the first place on Western’s campus dedicated to the Indigenous community.

The House of Healing will be located in the Sehome Hill Arboretum on original Lhaq’temish (Lummi) land. The building will be built in the only meadow in the arboretum, just beyond the main parking lot and tucked behind Western’s commissary and the Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies. 

The House of Healing will accommodate the tribal liaison’s office, a fully operational commercial kitchen and student collaboration areas. Outside, there will be a traditional Coast Salish salmon pit, gardens, a circular gathering and cooking area and paths into the surrounding forest.

A digital rendering of the future WWU House of Healing to be built in Sehome Arboretum. // Render from Western Washington University

The building itself is shaped like a body with two arms, according to floor plans of the House of Healing. The main body will house a large gathering area, and the arms will house two classrooms. The shape is a tribute to the Lummi saying, “raise your arms,” in an act of celebration. Four cedar logs will make up the entryway to the building, and the entryway doors will feature traditional carvings from a yet to be chosen artist.

While the House of Healing may have aspects of a traditional longhouse, there are many places where the traditional melds with the contemporary to create something unique. It’s important not to equate the House of Healing with a true traditional longhouse, according to James Miller, an urban planning professor at Western specializing in Indigenous placemaking. 

Miller is also a member of the project’s steering committee, a group of Indigenous faculty, staff and students that acted as consultants for the project.  

“We can refer to it as a longhouse-inspired project, but a longhouse is a very specific cultural space, and this was not that,” Miller said. “It was really important to distinguish the difference between this institutional space of education and learning from what a traditional longhouse is."

The steering committee collaborated with architects who had extensive knowledge of the importance of community and Indigenous design. Wellman and Zuck Construction, Rolluda Architects and Jones and Jones Architects were all chosen to build and design the Coast Salish-style longhouse.

“We’re working with not just the Lummi tribe and their representatives, but also the university and their representatives to find consensus and common goals on what this facility could be and making it reflect the way the Lummi tribe and students want to interact with each other in this facility,” Alex Rolluda, the principal architect for Rolluda Architects, said. 

Evan Peone, a member of NASU, echoes Ballew’s sentiments that the House of Healing is an important project that gives a safe space to Indigenous students on campus. 

Ballew relied on community members’ input throughout the proposal process for the House of Healing. Student support was crucial when advocating for funding through the state legislature, according to Ballew. 

“We shifted it to housing, a sense of place, a place where they would feel safe. A place for wellness resources, food sovereignty, and speakers,” Ballew said. “Really it’s the Native people who have survived hundreds of years of epidemics, challenges of trying to eradicate our people, but we’ve survived. So coming out of this I thought what better place than to turn to the people who have survived these challenges.”

Ballew was able to secure $4.5 million from the state legislature for the project. An additional $600,000 was donated by local tribes and other donors such as the City of Bellingham and Whatcom County. 

Western will be the last major university along the I-5 corridor to build a longhouse-inspired space for Indigenous students. Ballew noted that although it has taken the university years to create a space specifically for Indigenous students, faculty and staff, she wants to focus on the positive.

“I’m just excited that we're getting it now, and I think everyone else is too,” Ballew said, “It has been a long time coming.”

Koso / yai duʔac Michaela Vendiola (Walker River Paiute & Swinomish) looks out over the future site of the House of Healing in Sehome Arboretum on May 8, 2024. //Photo by Nick Whitehead

Lottie Jensen is an environmental science student at Western. She enjoys learning about the ways we can serve our natural world, and what it can give us in return.
Nick Whitehead is a senior environmental science major interested in fish ecology and wildlife conservation.