Visiting La Push, home to the Quileute Tribe, required another detour but was absolutely worth it to chat with tribal member Emily Foster, editor of the official newsletter of the Quilete Tribe The Talking Raven, over lunch. I’ve been reading Howard Hansen’s depictions of Quileute life in La Push in the book ‘Twilight on the Thunderbird’ but to hear about life in current times was just as interesting.
Turns out La Push was the setting for Twilight, which I’m led to believe is a tale of vampires, wolves and angst. Fans of the series have since boosted visitor numbers to Forks and La Push. Not really my thing but La Push is certainly a spectacular setting. If you can picture a dense, lichen-cloaked forest running down to a craggy coastline where pines perch atop rocky islands and surf crashes onto sandy beaches littered with bleached tree trunks, that’s La Push and it’s beautiful.
The gray whales are most apparent here in spring as they migrate north. Then, a Welcoming of the Whales ceremony is held, with prayers, singing and dancing on the beach. The ceremony, first held back when the Quileute would hunt the whales, continues although the whaling has long since stopped. An offering of salmon is paddled into the bay, representing the importance of the sea and its inhabitants to the Quiluete Tribe. If I can time my next visit to La Push to coincide with the ceremony, all the better.
The Gray Whale Cycle 