Upper Skagit Tribe Offers $5K Reward After Looting Of North Cascades Site

National Park Service police have been investigating the illegal excavation of an ancient mountain-goat hunting camp. They discovered someone had dug up the “Rock Shelter” site outside the town of Newhalem, Washington, last summer.

The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe and the National Park Service seek help capturing looters of a hunting camp. CREDIT: National Park Service/Facebook

The dig caused “irretrievable damage,” according to the park service.

“Whatever artifacts were taken or removed probably didn’t have a lot of monetary value to folks,” said Scott Schuyler, the Upper Skagit tribe’s cultural policy representative. “But to the tribe, they’re priceless and irreplaceable because they’re, in an essence, they’re our culture.”

The site was used for at least 1,500 years.

“It’s an overhanging cliff, and my ancestors used to process the game or fish that they got from Newhalem area right under there and cook,” Schuyler said.

Mountain goats were an important resource for both meat and wool.

The rock shelter site was rediscovered in the 1980s.

Today, there’s a wheelchair-accessible trail to the site and a wooden observation platform with interpretive signage to give visitors a glimpse of indigenous life in the Cascades centuries ago.

Entering the site below the observation platform, let digging there, is a violation of the federal Archeological Resources Protection Act.

Schuyler said the tribe wants people to know about its rich history, as long as they respect it.