PORT ANGELES — Lower Elwha Klallam tribal officials completed an expansion of the tribe’s cemetery with an ancient burning ceremony Sunday afternoon.
Tribal members have been working more than 40 years to expand the memorial park, known as Place Road Cemetery, to allow for future generations of Lower Elwha tribal members.
Skeletal remains recovered from the state Department of Transportation’s graving yard site in Port Angeles will not be reburied in the cemetery.
Lower Elwha officials say they are searching for a burial site near the waterfront graving yard to rebury the remains.
Since last August, partial skeletal remains of more than a dozen Klallam ancestors have been recovered from the 22-acre site, which once was home to a Native village on the shores of what’s now Port Angeles Harbor.
A $4 million archaeological survey to recover remains and artifacts is set to begin later this week.