Big Game Hunters

Snoqualmie Tribal Council member Ray Mullen is a large man with a handlebar mustache and a mane of graying hair that cascades practically down to his waist. Forty-six years old, he wears turquoise and silver earrings and a "three-piece suit"—jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a long-sleeve denim shirt—matched to his insistence that people accept him for who he is.

One sunny day in late August, Mullen arrives at the home of his brother Joseph, a one-time tribal chair who lives on a former dairy farm turned bottling plant that sprawls amiably against a hillside in the tiny Snoqualmie Valley town of Stillwater. Ray, who heads the tribe's archaeology and economic development programs, is on a mission: Human remains linked to the tribe have been found on a construction site, as frequently happens in this artifact-rich region. He has asked his brother, a jack-of-all-trades, to build funeral boxes for them out of the red- cedar logs that are piled on Joseph's property. Joseph has spent the morning sawing planks and covering himself in cedar shavings, when Ray comes to check how things are going.

Sitting on a makeshift bench outside Joseph's workshop, Ray says he can't say on which construction site the remains have been found. "Once people have an area, they'll start looking," he says. He's referring to artifact thieves, and talks about the day— June 3, 2000—when the construction of a Fall City soccer field came to a halt because of more than 1,000 artifact flakes that appeared in the wake of a backhoe. The tribe made sure a fence was put up. "That night, someone cut through the fence and started digging," he recalls.

Ray literally carries his interest in archaeology with him at all times. Around his neck hangs a leather pouch that contains a 400-year-old stone with a sharp edge signifying its use as a tool. "It lets me know where I come from," he says.

Ray also has compiled numerous traditional songs from elders and other tribes. Concerned with authenticity, he has rejected what he calls "powwow music," which utilizes big round drums. Instead, he uses the kind of hand drums and wooden boxes that the elder Snoqualmie traditionally played at potlatches and other ceremonies.

In the late '90s, soon after the then-landless tribe was recognized by the federal government, he started thinking about a very different kind of project. Talk of opening a casino had begun to circulate among the Snoqualmie. Initially, Ray resisted the idea. He didn't object to gambling per se, given that there were traditional Native American forms of the activity. But, he says, "I thought, how commercial. Do we want to just jump out and start being that way?" He wanted to start other types of businesses that would employ tribal members, perhaps getting into recycling.

Other tribal members thought different projects should take precedence over starting a casino. Sandra Phillips, sister to Chief Jerry Enick, says that a reservation for people to live on would have been her first priority. With tribal members scattered throughout the state after 150 years without a land base, Phillips says, "We have to get reacquainted." Former chair Joseph Mullen maintained a personal distaste for gambling. "I don't play with my money when I have a family to support," he says. "I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in luck. I believe in hard work."

Then the tribe studied projected revenue figures for different economic development scenarios, including the kind of small businesses Ray favored. When the numbers were read aloud, they all pointed to one thing: a casino.

"The numbers were astronomically different," concedes Ray, who is now so occupied with casino work that he wears a Bluetooth ear clip to access his cell phone while he drives. "You let your personal feelings go."

But the process of getting the Snoqualmies' casino off the ground has proved both heady and arduous, a tumultuous ride through a Wild West gold rush that has buoyed—or, in some instances, plagued—the Native American gaming industry.

Stepping over thickets of brambles and ferns at the casino site on the outskirts of the town of Snoqualmie, tribal administrator Matt Mattson discusses the status of the proposed casino. Some things, like plans for the look and feel of the facility, are in place.

"We're going to keep the topography," Mattson says, reaching the top of a hillside overlooking busy Southeast North Bend Way. "The main entrance will be cut through the berm."

In March, the Snoqualmies' undeveloped 56-acre parcel was granted reservation status by the federal government. It will not, however, be a reservation in the traditional sense—that is, a place where tribal members live. Instead, this reservation will be the casino, slated to employ 700 people—slightly more than the entire Snoqualmie population, which will continue to be spread out across the Snoqualmie Valley and the state.

It will be the closest tribal casino to Seattle, a scant half-hour drive away, even less for those living in the affluent, populous suburbs of the Eastside. The 30-year-old Mattson, whose slight, boyish looks belie his sharp, to-the-point manner, points to the west, where we can see a conveniently located Interstate 90 exit, No. 27. At street level below us, a sign will announce the casino. From there, a road will wind its way back onto the property where the facility will stand. "It will be like you're entering a country club," says Mattson.