The Coquille Tribal Community Fund will provide $294,000 in grants this year to projects at 46 area non-profit organizations and public agencies.
We recently captured some images of the workers at Coquille Cranberries, our sister company owned and operated by the Coquille Indian Tribe,
harvesting the organic cranberries. The cranberries are harvested in
the early Fall- once they have reached full maturity and production.
The Coquille Cranberries is also Certified Organic by Certified Organic by the Quality Assurance International (QAI) , an internationally recognized USDA National Organic Program (NOP) certifying agent. While growing organically is more costly and labor intensive than conventional farming, we believe this method supports healthy vines and more flavorful fruit. The berries reach good size and a deep, dark color in early Fall. The vine-ripened berries are harvested with hand operated machines for the Holiday season and the seasonal fresh fruit market.
Native American canoe teams from tribes throughout the Northwest will challenge each other and the Coos Bay currents this Saturday, Sept. 12 at the sixth annual Mill-Luck Salmon Celebration being held at the South end of The Mill Casino Hotel.
Now in their fifth year, the canoe races have become a featured event at the Salmon Celebration as skilled teams maneuver their canoes, patterned on traditional designs, through waters that have been home to this mode of transportation for thousands of years.
The Mill-Luck Salmon Celebration is held as a means of sharing the heritage, culture and traditions of the Coquille Indian Tribe and other Pacific Northwest Tribes with residents and visitors to Oregon’s Bay Area. The canoe event offers visitors an opportunity to experience an important element of the traditional culture of coastal tribes.
Races will be held in two general categories – one for dugout canoes (those that are carved from a single log) and a second for hybrid journey canoes that are built with modern materials but exhibit traditional lines. Teams will begin their warm-ups at 9 a.m. Races begin at 10 a.m. and continue throughout the morning and into the early afternoon.
The Mill Casino Hotel is owned and operated by the Coquille Indian Tribe. This is a community whose binding thread is their Coquille
identity; where members give to and receive from the Tribe; and where
Tribal sovereignty and culture are exercised and protected by decisions
and actions that are based on the long-term sustainable health and
well-being of the Tribe and the region.
When we define community, we do not speak of geographic boundaries or lines drawn on a map. Community is our relationship with all that surrounds us. The land. The sky. The sea. And every person that touches our lives. We are all connected. This philosophy is reflected in our view of The Mill Casino • Hotel: It is a resource which benefits our community as a whole.
The Coquille Indians lived and prospered in the southwest region of Oregon for centuries. With the arrival of the white man in the late 1700s, diseases such as smallpox, measles and plague decimated entire villages; then, in the 1850s, a new form of "fever" — the discovery of gold — led to an influx of settlers whose mining bespoiled the rivers and whose hostility toward the Native Americans caused destruction and murder in village after village.
Although a treaty negotiated in 1855 acknowledged Indian title to the Coquille lands, it was overlooked and never ratified when it reached Congress, and the Coquille were marched northward to the Coast Reservation, where overcrowding and disease took their toll. Over the years, many Coquille returned to their homelands and fought for acknowledgement of the treaty. By 1989, the Tribe was successfully restored to Federal recognition and Tribal sovereignty.
