Water: don't take it for granted!

At the Burke Museum, we are constantly reminded about the wonders of our planet and its peoples. Part of my job that I love is being able to see the awesome things in our collections and our galleries and learn more about them. I think it’s important that an institution like the Burke, which is devoted to life in all its forms, takes a stand to help preserve the world as we know it for ourselves and future generations. It was with that in mind that I volunteered for the Burke Sustainability Action Committee, because there is always more to do than has been done.

One of the first projects that this committee was able to complete was to install a series of signs around the museum (specifically near the drinking fountains and in the bathrooms) educating visitors about water usage. We learned some interesting things about water, including:

• Nearly all of the Earth’s water is salty or trapped as ice, leaving less than 1% available as freshwater for all living things, including humans.
  
  
• If all of the Earth’s water fit into a two-liter bottle, the amount of freshwater would only add up to a tablespoon!
  
  
• Even though the United States has some of the cleanest drinking water in the world, Americans drink twice as much bottled water as they did a decade ago.
  
  
• Over 80% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills.
  
  
• A gallon of tap water costs 1,900 times less than a gallon of bottled water!
  


• Most interesting to me has been discovering the origin of our water here in Seattle: the Cedar River Watershed (pictured below).

What has the Burke Museum done to conserve water? We’ve made some small changes like adding aerators to bathroom faucets and providing a pitcher of good tap water for meetings instead of bottled water. We also have an ethnobotanical garden in front of the museum, full of native plants, which typically require less water than non-native plants to thrive. I'm looking forward to figuring out what else the museum can do to conserve water!

Posted by: Sarah Tollefson, Facilities

Twilight series thrusts Quileute Tribe into spotlight

Most people out there, whether they want to be or not, are probably vaguely aware that the second movie installment of the Twilight saga, New Moon, opens soon. Those who live in Washington State may also know that the books and movies of the Twilight series take place in Forks, Washington, which is a real town on the Olympic Peninsula. And those who are familiar with the story know that in addition to sparkly, romantically-inclined vampires, the Twilight books also feature a band of werewolves as primary characters (as seen in the promotional poster to the right). And in the story, those werewolves are all members of the Quileute Tribe, a real culture whose reservation is located in the small coastal town of La Push, which isn’t far from Forks.

Having now been made famous by the on-going, pop-culture phenomenon that is the Twilight series, the Quileute have found themselves thrust in the global spotlight as their reservation has become a tourist destination for thousands of middle-school age girls and their families who may or may not be on the lookout for actual werewolves. In response to their instant popularity, the Quileute seek to inform potential visitors to Forks and La Push about their culture and about the misrepresentation of them as werewolves.

So what does the Burke Museum have to do with any of this? As a museum of cultural heritage, we encourage respect for and understanding of all living cultures in the Pacific Northwest, such as the Quileute. Our curator of Native American ethnology, Deana Dartt-Newton, has therefore partnered with the Quileute Tribe and the Seattle Art Museum to develop several educational tools to inform Twilight fans about the real Quileute culture – a culture that indeed has a wolf origin story, a historic relationship with the wolf as demonstrated in songs, stories, and various art forms, but whose people most certainly do not transform into werewolves even on an occasional basis.

Stay tuned for more details about these projects, but in the meantime, Deana has excitedly reported that Summit Entertainment is flying the Quileute Tribal Council out to Los Angeles for tonight’s New Moon premiere. Let’s hope they enjoy the show!

Meet the Caribou

It's fall again, and during this time of the year at the Burke, mammals are on our minds. That's because this Saturday is the annual family day, Meet the Mammals. Bring the family and get face-to-face with mammal skulls, touch the fur of big cats and assemble whale vertebrae while talking to Burke mammalogy experts. One Washington State mammal that I personally can't wait to meet is the caribou.

Woodland Caribou, or Rangifer tarandus, are even-toed hoofed mammals (or ungulates) that inhabit North America, Northern Europe and Asia. The Selkirk Herd, found in the north-eastern corner of Washington State, is a herd of roughly 30 members. Caribou are social herding animals that live in groups of no less than 10 and sometimes as large as tens of thousands when congregating at summer feeding grounds.

Caribou are migratory animals that travel over 3,100 miles per year. During these migrations, caribou traverse over all kinds of terrain, and have many adaptations to handle extreme weather conditions. During the winter, caribou have 18,000 hairs per square inch on their bodies that are hollow in order to help insulate the animals in subzero temperatures. The hairs are also hollow, making caribou more buoyant while crossing bodies of water. They are the fastest swimmers of all ungulates, with broad, paddle-like hooves, and can reach speeds of up to 6 mph in the water.

Photo of Woodland Caribou, Rangifer tarandus

Caribou are also the only members of the deer family in which both males and females have antlers; males have larger antlers that can weigh up to 33 pounds! Rutting season is from late August - October. During this time, males will compete for females by sparing, bashing their antlers together and head-butting over mates. Once rutting season is over, males will lose their antlers in the winter and will begin re-growing their antlers once again.

Every mammal has its own story and the Burke’s mammalogy experts are eager to share these stories at Meet the Mammals this weekend. It’s an exciting event with the chance to get up close and personal with mammals of all shapes and sizes—hoofed or not!

Burke visitors touch and examine porpoise skulls at last year's Meet the Mammals

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications.

New storage compactors arrive!

This week, the back rooms of the Burke Museum are filled with the sounds of drilling, hammering, and other cacophonous noises associated with a construction project. But it's with great excitement that we allow these sounds to flood our offices because it means the museum is finally moving forward with the installation of brand new storage compactors that will help keep ethnology collections at the Burke safe from potential earthquake damage and long-term degradation due to light and dust. The new storage compactors, which are being installed over the next two weeks, will also make much more efficient use of our very limited space than the open shelving units that were previously being used.

The ethnology collections staff has been hard at work preparing for this and has been documentating the process:

Photos: (top) The space where Native American art curator Robin Wright stands is typically filled with objects, but room has been cleared for the new compactors. (middle) Working on the installation of the compactors. (bottom) The new storage compacters are installed on tracks so they can roll open and closed as need.

Once the work is done in ethnology, the same process will happen in the geology collection space. Read more about the entire project here.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

1,000 Sugar Skulls Made for Dia de Muertos

What can you find when walking through the hallways of the Burke Museum? Many exciting and interesting projects! Community involvement is a very important part of our work here at the Burke, and last week many dedicated staff, students and volunteers came together to create 1,000 sugar skulls for the Burke’s table at the Dia de Muertos Festál at Seattle Center last weekend. Isaac Hernández Ruiz led the group through the sticky process, as sugar and meringue were mixed and molded to make the skulls.


Burke educators then took the skulls to the Dia de Muertos: a Mexican Remembrance event at the Seattle Center where hundreds of people decorated the skulls to take home. Celebrating life through death, Dia de Muertos or “Day of the Dead” honors loved ones who have passed away through community alters, dancing, music and much more. The sugar skulls were accompanied by Mexican heritage performances and crafts at the Seattle Center House.


Learn more about Dia de Muertos on the Burke’s special interactive educational Web site all about the holiday.

Photos: The creative process of making sugar skulls for the event.
Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

Tribal leaders to meet with Obama for summit

On Nov. 5, a number of Washington State tribal leaders will join other representatives of 562 federally recognized tribes from across the country who have been invited to meet with President Obama for the 1st Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. The purpose of the conference is to facilitate interactive discussions between Obama Administration officials and tribal leaders in the areas of economic development and natural resources, public safety and housing, and education, health and labor. A schedule and a live video feed of the summit can be found here.

Just a few days ago, President Obama signed an official proclamation designating November 2009 as National Native American Heritage Month and November 27, 2009 as the first ever Native American Heritage Day. Obama’s proclamation called upon all Americans to “commemorate this month with appropriate programs and activities.” You can read the entire proclamation here.

I asked Deana Dartt-Newton, curator of Native American ethnology and a member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, what she thought about the proclamation and tomorrow’s summit. Says Deana:

"Not only did Obama acknowledge Tribal concerns during his candidacy, but he's demonstrating in these first months as President, that he aims to prioritize the Nation to Nation relationship and address issues most important to Native people. Obama's October 30th official proclamation of November as Native American Heritage Month, and Nov. 27th as Native American Day might have been viewed as a token gesture, had he not already scheduled a Tribal Summit to hear from representatives from the 562 federally recognized Tribes this Thursday, Nov 5. For the first time in my life, I feel like the leadership of this country is listening to us."



If you’re looking for ways to observe Native American Heritage Month, the Seattle Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has put together a useful guide to Seattle’s Native American Heritage here. We also suggest visiting our current exhibit, on view through Nov. 29, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: Indigenous Voices Reply, or coming to hear Little Big Band, Swil Kanim, Gene Tagaban (pictured) and other First Native musicians at a lively concert on campus called Tribute to the Spirit on Nov. 20.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications