The members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and their ancestors occupied a majority of the Olympic Peninsula and made their home in villages along the Peninsula's north coast, from Port Angeles Harbor west to the Hoko River for millenia before ceding their land to the U.S. Government under the Point No Point Treaty of 1855. The United States acquired the original reservation land base in trust for the Tribe in 1936, and formally proclaimed these lands as the Lower Elwha Reservation and adjacent trust trust lands, roughly 1000 acres on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula just eight miles west of Port Angeles, Washington, where the Elwha River flows into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The current enrolled tribal membership stands at 984 members with approximately 395 living on the reservation.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is a sovereign, federally-recognized Indian Nation, with its own constitution and government. Not only does the Tribe govern itself, but many Tribal administrative departments oversee the everyday function of the reservation and provide for Tribal members.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe resides in the Lower Elwha River Valley and adjacent bluffs on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula just west of Port Angeles, Washington. As recognized by the United States in 1855 Treaty of Point No Point, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has lived in this area since time immemorial. The Tribe's current landbase was initially acquired by the United States in trust for the Tribe in 1935-36 and these lands were proclaimed as the Lower Elwha Reservation in 1968. Today tribal lands include about a thousand acres of land on and near the Elwha River.
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