After 160 years of negotiating for their rights with the U.S. government, the Chinook Indian Nation is still in the game.

The most visible and likely least legally recognized Native American tribe in the Pacific Northwest, the Chinook plan again next year to push in Congress for restoration of their tribal status.

The 2,700 members want legal status to run schools, health services, tribal fish ceremonies and businesses. At least 50 members live in Clark County, while others are scattered in Washingtons Pacific, Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties and Oregons Clatsop and Columbia counties.

Tribal Chairman Ray Gardner, tribal Vice Chairman Sam Robinson of Vancouver and former Pacific County Congressman Brian Baird plan to go to Washington, D.C., as early as February to open a new round of negotiations. They would like to revive HR 3084 (111th Congress), the Chinook Nation Restoration Act, which Baird sponsored. It was introduced June 26, 2009, and has languished in the House Committee on Natural Resources since then.

The bill got hung up in debate about national tribal recognition procedures, matters that had little to do with the Chinooks claim, Baird said this week.

Baird said he doesnt know if the bill can be saved. But it is certainly a strong template for recognition, he said. I worked on that for more than a decade, and we handled financial questions, private property and fishing rights. It was a long and challenging negotiation. I wouldnt take a penny to work on this. Its the right thing to do.

Gardner, 56, said this week he is very hopeful about the tribes chances. He testified in U.S. Senate and House hearings where national tribal recognition issues were being ironed out earlier this year, he said. He also sees a possible path to recognition by an executive order from President Barack Obama.

Tribal leaders say their hope is also increasing based on support from U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both Washington Democrats; U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Camas Republican; and Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes. Gardner said he talked with Herrera Beutler this week. She is continuing to listen and learn from the community about the Chinooks quest for recognition, her spokesman, Casey Bowman, said in an email.

Recognition and restoration of the Chinooks tribal rights seem natural. After all, Chinook ancestors saved U.S. explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from freezing and starving when they reached the Pacific Ocean in the fall of 1805 and then nursed them through the winter at Fort Clatsop.

The Chinook Tribe doesnt want to build a casino, leaders said. The tribe rejected gaming by a vote in 1999. Membrs doesnt want handouts or anyones land, leaders said. They just want tribal identity and rights.

Weve got to stay in their face back there, said Robinson, 54. Weve got to keep the faith. Were walking in our ancestors path.

His great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Huckswelt also known as Tom Hawks was the last chief of the Willapa band of the Chinook.

Huckswelt, also Gardners great-great-great-grandfather, was a signer of the 1851 Tansy Point treaty drawn up by Anson Dart, superintendent for Indian Affairs in the Oregon Territory from 1850 to 1852. The treaty gave the Chinook a reservation, including Willapa Bay and running south to the mouth of the Columbia River.

The Chehalis River Treaty of 1855 also recognized the Chinook.

The U.S.Senate ratified neither treaty, however. And in the mid-1800s, the U.S. government tried to move the Chinook out of their territory, either north onto the land of the Quinault, their ancient enemies, or east away from the ocean to the Yakama territory. The Chinook refused.

In 1954, the government terminated any official relationship with four of the five bands of the Chinook: the Cathlamet, Clatsop, Wahkiakum and Lower Columbia Chinook. The terminators overlooked the Willapa band, however, thus giving modern descendants an argument that they never were legally declared nonexistent.

The Chinook appeared to have succeeded in getting the U.S. governments endorsement of their tribal status on Jan. 3, 2001, when Congress recognized them. But then the George W. Bush administration came into office and, on July 5, 2002, reversed the decision, due to national confusion over the recognition process and local issues, including objections from the neighboring Quinault.

The Chinook were discouraged but didnt go away. In 2004, they helped open the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park near Astoria. The following year they made their own recognition of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, building the Cathlapotle Plankhouse in the present-day Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, at the former site of a Chinookan town where Lewis and Clark once stopped.

Time and time again, when you tell people we are not federally recognized, their jaws will drop, tribal Vice Chairman Robinson said. They say they learned about us in the third grade, because we are probably one of the most written-about tribes in the West.

For years, former tribal Chairman Gary Johnson labored to compile historical data proving the tribe had persisted. Its frustrating, said Johnson, 69, who lives in South Bend, a couple of blocks from the home where he grew up among dozens of Chinook descendants. But I believe some day recognition will come.

Johnson hasnt been involved in tribal government for seven years but remains active on the tribes cultural committee with his son, Tony. They teach the Chinook language, build canoes, weave baskets and carve in the Chinook tradition. One of the most recognized Chinook carvers is another Robinson, Wash., Greg Robinson of Vancouver, whose work often appears in galleries around the West.

And the Chinook traditions and language, Chinook Wawa, are becoming more visible. Through a grant from the Center for Columbia River History, a public history partnership that includes Washington State University Vancouver, historians Katy Barber and Donna Sinclair are building a website describing the Chinook history and present life. Its to be online soon.

Former tribal Councilman Phil Hawks, 76, a great-great-grandson of Huckswelt, said hes spent his whole life figuring recognition was coming. He made two trips to Congress, in 2007 and 2009, to look for passage. It hasnt happened yet, but he said he believes the time is ripe, with a Democrat as president.

I cant see why we wouldnt be recognized, he said.

Were still here, Sam Robinson said. We never left.