Swinomish Village

That's what Noelani Augustin says, and that's something she did not experience growing up here.

I am a Salish woman from Nooksack and Swinomish Village, and also Hawaiian.

She says Bellingham, which is a port city, has always been a thriving and vital place for indigenous people from the entire area.

It was actually, like, a hub between the islands, between the Lummi and the Nooksack, between, uh, you know, those trade trails and routes that came from the Fraser Valley and from the south.