Tribes are racing time to pass on the intricacies of Native languages only mastered by a handful of elders. The woman credited with saving the language of the Puget Sound watershed is the late Vi “taqʷšǝblu” Hilbert, an Upper Skagit. Vi attended 15 different schools growing up and was banned from speaking Lushootseed at Chemawa, an Indian boarding school in Oregon. But Vi later devoted her life to revitalizing the language she learned from her parents. She translated tapes of Leon Metcalf, a music teacher who spent time with the Tulalips growing up and learned to speak Lushootseed while working in the woods.

“I listened to a few words, then stopped the tape and wrote those words down,” Vi recalled. “If I didn't understand something, I left a blank. Sometimes there were lots of blanks. Then I rewound and listened again, then again. Maybe I could fill in a blank.”