Bio

Michael Buck is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and is currently a master’s student in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington. Michael carves time and space to gather traditional foods and medicines of Columbia River tribal people at Mt. Adams, and at the confluence of the Snake, Columbia and Yakima rivers near the Tri-Cities in Washington. 

Yakama Nation communities understand the critical nature of environmental history and corresponding language of Columbia River plateau people. As an enrolled member, Michael is guided by the academic concept of relationality and “research as ceremony” (Wilson, 2008), which promote diligence in self-reflection (journaling), sweat lodge (ceremony) and traditional gathering (reciprocity). 

Michael enjoys cutting firewood for winter and providing for his family and personal sweat lodge in this manner. He enjoys hiking new trails in the Columbia River gorge, around Snoqualmie and within the Olympic Peninsula.

Broadly, Michael is interested in Indigenous Knowledge repatriation and perpetuation of current Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWOK), for youth and future generations. He seeks to bring together oral history of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) with archived (documented) history along the Columbia River and its tributaries. Michael hopes to someday teach environmental history of the PNW through an Indigenous perspective and worldview.

Learn more about Michael’s research