Obituary: Alison Bridges Gottfriedson, activist

National

Friday, July 24, 2009

"Alison Bridges Gottfriedson, nationally celebrated as a warrior for Indian treaty rights, is mourned this week by Indian activists from around the country following her sudden death July 18 from a stroke. She was 57.

Born Oct. 18, 1951, in Tacoma, Mrs. Gottfriedson for most of her life was enrolled in the Puyallup Tribe and served two terms on the tribal council. She recently changed her enrollment to the Squaxin Island Tribe.

Mrs. Gottfriedson was most famous for her activism on behalf of treaty-fishing rights during the 1960s and '70s, literally becoming the poster child for the movement when, as a young woman, she was photographed as a Washington state game agent twisted her arms behind her during a 1970 raid on a Puyallup riverbank fish encampment.

State officials at the time scoffed at the fish-ins on the banks of the Puyallup and Nisqually rivers. But public sentiment was affected by the spectacle of women, children such as Mrs. Gottfriedson, and her uncle, Billy Frank Jr., arrested time and again for fishing. When Marlon Brando joined the fish-ins, the movement was catapulted to national fame.

Carol Burns, a documentary film maker, captured the drama in her 1971 film As Long as the Rivers Run. She remembered Mrs. Gottfriedson as a brave young girl, who while slight in stature, never backed down. "It was not as though she at some point decided to join the struggle," Burns said. "She was born to it."

Before she was even 3 years old, Mrs. Gottfriedson was watching as her father, Alvin Bridges, was arrested outside their home for fishing. She could not know at the time that she, too, would be arrested over and over, throughout her life, said Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually tribal elder and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

"She spent a lifetime, fighting for our rights, just time after time, fishing and going to jail," Frank said. "She was just a rock, she was just solid, and always there. She represented all of us tribal people that are now free to fish, to dig clams, to dive and make a living on geoducks.""

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Alison Bridges Gottfriedson fought for Indian treaty rights (The Seattle Times 7/24)