Vashon’s world storytelling day celebration
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026
As the clouds parted and a fire crackled to life, roughly 70 people gathered on a recent Saturday afternoon at Camp Burton overlooking Quartermaster Harbor to celebrate World Storytelling Day.
Dubbed Once Upon a Place, this event came to life through the collaboration of three Vashon organizations: the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust, the Vashon Wilderness Program (VWP), and the Vashon Heritage Museum. Though each organization works in its own way — stewarding land, nurturing young naturalists, and preserving island history — all three share a common thread: a deep responsibility to care for this island and its people, past, present, and future.
The afternoon began with the building and lighting of a campfire. VWP students Sebastian and Gabriel Turnipseed, ages 14 and 10, lit and tended the fire with care throughout the afternoon. They also picked up drums and joined their father, David Turnipseed, and his mentor, Zalmai “Zeke” Zahir, for a traditional Puyallup song to open the storytelling circle. David, a teacher of Twulshootseed language with the Puyallup Tribal Language Program, then shared, in Twulshootseed and English, a portion of the Puyallup creation history, one that ends with the Transformer becoming the moon, a figure who changed all things for the coming people. It was a powerful way to begin the day.
Stacey Hinden, founder and recently retired director of VWP followed with a story about Sage, a young girl who, in a time of turmoil, retreats to the forest and finds herself surrounded by friends and teachers in the trees, chickadees and a particularly mischievous Douglas Squirrel.
Vashon Heritage Museum board member Jim Roy then brought the crowd something different: a lively lumberjack tale set in the early days of Vashon’s settlement, of dangerous work for very little pay, where meager earnings could buy goods in the company store and that’s about all. It was a cautionary tale of the exploitation of people and nature alike.
Jacqui Lown, a Mentor with VWP, shared a story close to her own life: a bad fall deep in the Olympic wilderness, a helicopter evacuation, and a bit of a reckoning that followed. We may believe we understand our circumstances, she offered, but from a higher vantage and a bit of hindsight, we often find we knew very little after all.
Then came Michael Buck, an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation and Traditional Medicines Practitioner with the Seattle Indian Health Board, who first had the audience laughing with a memory sparked by Jim’s lumberjack story, a man he recalled from his youth who could hold two chainsaws straight out with extended arms. Buck then told the story of the Pacific lamprey, the eel, once more beautiful than the salmon, who lost everything — arms, legs, all his possessions — in a fateful round of Stick Game. This story of Stick Game, also referred to by some tribal communities today as the “Bone Game”, tells how, in the time of the animal people, the Eel gambled away his own flesh and bones in a legendary loss to the sucker fish.
Renowned mythologist Michael Meade closed the program with a drum-accompanied version of The Old Woman Who Weaves the World, an old story about the ongoing nature of creation, destruction and recreation, helping us all to remember that when things fall apart, it’s wise to look for a loose thread and begin to weave again, and that unraveling can become the very thread from which something more beautiful is born.
The magic of the day was possible thanks to each of the storytellers’ willingness to share their genuine gifts with those who gathered. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the words of the storytellers, the calling of shore birds and the joyful sounds of children playing in the near distance as they came and went from the storytelling circle. The entire afternoon was a sensory delight, one that offered the opportunity for grounding and healing to everyone who gathered and, I like to believe, rippled out into the harbor, across the island, and well beyond our shores.
Nature writer Barry Lopez once wrote that “sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.” On that beautiful afternoon at Camp Burton, with the fire burning and the harbor before us, it was easy to believe him. Once Upon a Place will return next year. We hope you’ll join us.
Adam Pimley is the Outreach Coordinator for the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust. He lives on Maury with his wife, Rebecca, their two kids and their dog.
