Kalispel Tribe to unveil ambitious technology project Saturday

The Kalispel Tribe will unveil the flagship feature of
a pioneering project for digital cultural preservation this Saturday,
Sept. 27 at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture from 12 to 4 p.m.

The Tribal Access Network (TAN), an online, Web-based environment for
the preservation, documentation and archiving of tribal culture, history
and language for the Upper and Lower Plateau Tribes is slated to
revolutionize how history and culture are communicated for tribes
throughout the Northwest and the rest of the nation. Funding for the
project comes from a three-year $505,000 Technology Opportunities
Program (TOP) grant the Tribe received in late 2002 from the U.S.
Department of Commerce

"This project is very different than previous attempts to document
tribal history, culture and language," Michael Holloman, director of the
Center for Plateau Cultural Studies at the museum, said. "It is
essentially digitizing culturally significant information to help
preserve a tribe’s culture and history, and it is presenting that
information in a way that is unique to each participating tribe’s
perspective."

The TAN will be a venue for tribal members and elders to share their own
knowledge and narratives on their history and culture, Holloman added.
Previous attempts to document tribal history and culture have done so
through Euro-centric narrative.

Initially, the TAN will be accessible through three Technology Access
Centers (TACs) that have already opened at the museum, the Kalispel
Community Building in Usk and the Camas Institute Learning Center in
Cusick, Washington. Contained at each center are public computer labs
that provide users with access to networked high-speed computers, video
and audio digital recording equipment, two-way video communication and
high-speed Internet access. These centers will provide access to the TAN
so tribal members can contribute content and stories for the network,
and will also serve to provide training programs for participants on
employing the technical skills required to use the technology at the
TACs.

The TACs will also create a Web-based framework that enables educators
to create curriculum grounded in the information about tribal culture,
history and language.

Kalispel Tribal Council Chairman Glen Nenema said he hopes TACs will one
day be available for tribes across the country.

"The Tribal Access Network gives tribes all over the opportunity to tell
their story and share their culture with the rest of the world," Nenema
said. "It also gives us the opportunity to preserve our story, culture
and language for future generations."

Other partners in the TOP grant include: Star Nations, SIRTI, Camas
Institute, Class 101, Spokane Public Schools, Innovative Education
Solutions and Cusick School District.

The Kalispel Tribe of Indians, also called the "river/lake paddlers" or
"camas people," were semi-nomadic hunters, diggers and fishermen. The
Kalispel Indian Reservation of 4,660 acres is located approximately 55
miles north of Spokane in Pend Oreille County along 10 miles of the Pend
Oreille River. In 1996, the Tribe added 40 acres of trust land in Airway
Heights, which is where the Tribe’s Northern Quest Casino is now
located. Currently, the Tribe has 329 enrolled members, and is
recognized as a sovereign nation by the federal government.