The Quileute School will break ground at 10 a.m. Thursday on a planned $4 million gymnasium to be built in the shape of a tribal canoe.
The groundbreaking will take place on Raven’s Crest Street in LaPush.
A federal Bureau of Indian Affairs grant will finance the 17,000-square-foot gym, which will house basketball courts, bathrooms, a cultural room, lockerrooms, a kitchen and a ceremony circle for tribal festivities.
The gym will be supported by five cedar poles representing the fish, whale, wolf, weather and elk societies that make up Quileute culture, said Bonita Cleveland, a cultural tribe specialist and leader of the project.
The project is expected to be completed by January.