Jeff Olsen

we're going to get started in a couple of minutes if our guests and speakers would come to the front of the room and up on stage on stage mayor line I'm done good morning again my name is Jeff Olsen and I'm with the National Park Service I'm the spokes for core Discovery 2 200 years to the Future and the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail on behalf of many people in green and gray and a long list of other people that help us get core of Discovery to around the United States I want to welcome you what we're going to do is have a combined uh program here this morning we're going to have uh the colors posted and an honor guard with us uh Mike iall um is going to do the opening in prayer for us and then we're going to have some brief remarks by the mayor and uh and Sam Robinson from the chinuk and then uh County Commissioner Mark bolt is going to open core two for us so if uh you would stand and we're going to begin for he oh hey the for I I all he for you are you are heart Mike I guess uh I'd like to tell you that uh before we start I've obviously I I don't have the the KET Salish or the the tium sah hapton so I'll just speak to you as is the language we have uh we're here to Mark the the the coming together of our two cultures and I would like you to uh to think about this the the Indian history of the Northwest is truly the ancient history of the Northwest and once you accept that then you can understand why when the tribal people are insistent about cultural resource prote protetion we are protecting your ancient history and so if it seems unreasonable please just remember that as residents of the Northwest the tribal history is your history so with that amen for uh please be seated right left face please stand for the retirement of the Native American color guard good morning I'm Roy par the mayor of America's Vancouver and behalf of the city council of the city of Vancouver and the citizens of the city of Vancouver I want to thank you all for coming this morning for this opening ceremony but beyond that I want to thank everyone and I you know I can't name everybody because I certainly would forget someone and someone I haven't met who had a significant role in bringing this great core to to Vancouver and Clark County it's a great opportunity for our County and our city to Showcase those activities which we have created to commemorate the Journey of Lewis and Clark and the interaction with with our Native American brothers and sisters I'm very proud to represent the city of Vancouver here look forward to all the crowds that will come they will enjoy they will become educated hopefully they will in fact absorb some of the diversity that will be offered here over the next several days and I look forward to participating in it it brings Great Value to our community anytime we can display the culture of our region particularly for our young people for the future of our country and the future of our world rests in our young people they are our greatest assets so I look forward to seeing them and seeing you all here as as we enjoy this great exhibit and again I want to thank everyone particularly want to thank Arlene Johnson who is the executive director of the Vancouver Clark County Lewis and Clark organization who has for years and years and of course there are City people involved and the National Park Service people involved and there people from every city involved Arlene has led the troops in this effort and she certainly deserves a round of applause I don't even know where she is she was here earlier raise your hand she's back there okay welcome to you all welcome to cou thank you very much God bless you all and God bless America thank you thanks here and Mike again my name is Mike iel I'm with the cge tribe um when we talk about the history because that's what we're here for sometimes you tend to put it too far away uh a while back somebody asked me uh is there any positive connection between you and the Hudson Bay Company about an hour later I realized the well du the way I spell my name it's the Scottish spelling uh there's a Jesuit spelling that's that's French that we we don't use my great-grandfather used it but our family uses the Bay Company spelling so when you think about the history you need to to again realize that today we know more about Lewis and Clark than they did 100 years ago you got the Molton Journal set you still have Ruben th's Journal set and you have the the journals of the fur Traders and what I compare the Lewis and Clark journey to is driving down a dark country road at night with your headlights on and that's more than Lewis and Clark saw a lot of places through here they either stopped for lunch or they didn't stop at all when leis and Clark got here they compared this to a Marketplace equal to any in world this had already been a A Gathering Place a trading place for centuries perhaps Millennia before Louis and Clark got here and when they came here they saw people wearing sailor suits using metal pots carrying pistols carrying muskets we'd already had contact Lis and Clark didn't discover this area it was already discovered so uh with that I guess I'll be brief and uh I'll pass it off to Sam thank you my name's Sam Robinson I'm a council member with the chinuk tribe and it's just such a beautiful morning uh to hear drummers when you come in here and and uh and we're honored by our veterans you know I mean the Native American veterans go back a long ways we I mean there was people fighting in World War I that didn't even have the right to vote but uh I I just uh you know the ten to many voices it's it's brought the word of So Many Nations along the trail together and and later on today I'll be able to speak about my ancestors and and the chinuk nation and and uh hopefully Enlighten you on all of this and I think we're just uh uh blessed and honored to have this voice and along the ls and Clark Trail and uh let people know that there was more going on than just these guys coming down the river and and let people know that uh how we helped them you know how especially on this end of the river where they didn't have a whole lot going for them and didn't have a whole lot that we needed but we we we helped them survive and I hope that you all enjoy this the uh the stay that coru will be here you know for 2 weeks and and learn a lot uh thank you thank you Sam our final speaker this morning is uh Mark bold who is the county commissioner and also chairman of the Lewis and Clark committee here Mark well thank you very much and it is an honor for this County to to host this Exposition uh first of all on behalf of Clark County and the other two Commissioners I'd like to thank the park service for all your work for bringing this exposition to Clark County and uh for the thousands of students that will come here to see the the Heritage that the mayor has just talked about for the other and to uh just it's not by accident that our uh County isn't is named after uh of William Clark and it's not by accident that we're Americans so it is it's an honor to be here uh just welcome have a good time within this camp and the rest of the this Exposition and behalf of Clark County I now now CL uh declare the Lucen Clark Exposition core Discovery 2 open thank you and God bless and good morning and welcome to all you folks here in the Ten of many voices welcome to Cor Discovery 2 we're glad to be here in Vancouver and get things started off here on this Monday morning here in the tenam voices we have regular programming every day that we're here we have regular programming uh we have programs every hour on the hour and we'll be starting our day this morning hearing a little bit about Yakama history and culture so please join us for that