NORTH BEND — While its name may bring to mind gaming, The Mill Casino-Hotel’s upcoming Mill-Luck Salmon Celebration isn’t about hitting the slots.

A play on words that alludes to one of three languages originally used by the Coquille Indian Tribe — Miluk — the event serves as outreach to the local community to teach people about the historical traditions of coastal tribes.

“We started it because we wanted to do an event where the tribe can share some of its heritage with the community,” said Ray Doering, a spokesman for The Mill. “For the most part, tribal events like this are private affairs.”

The celebration is linked to a traditional observance marking the return of the salmon. The event began five years ago as a means of sharing the culture and traditions of the tribe.

Among the cultural offerings are a salmon bake dinner — prepared in sand pits and on nearly 6-foot-long stakes — and a canoe racing competition. The celebration runs Friday through Sunday, and also includes children’s activities, cultural exhibits, a Native American marketplace and comedy performances.

Lyman Meade, the husband of a tribal member, has helped cook these time-intensive meals during the Coquille’s Restoration Celebration. Although he won’t be manning the pit this weekend, he said the cooking in this manner is a time-old tradition reserved for special events. He explained that tribes usually cooked their fish on open flames for everyday meals.

“Cooking in the sand is typically done for celebration time. ... It’s not a real conventional way of cooking,” he explained.

Tribal member Jason Younker will head up cooking of the salmon.

In pit cooking, a fire is built on the sand. Then, salmon wrapped in tinfoil — as opposed to skunk cabbage or seaweed as in days of old — is buried into the heated sand. The process can take an hour or hours depending on how weather conditions impact the sand’s temperature. The result? Very moist fish. In the case of “stick cooking” the fish is placed on red cedar stakes that also will poke out of the wide sand pit. This method of cooking produces a smokier flavor, Meade said.

“It’s a good opportunity for the public to get a chance to taste traditional cooked fish,” Meade said. “Everyone has their favorite. I like stick-cooked, but a lot of people prefer the pit-cooked. That’s just a personal preference thing.”

The Mill plans to serve about 1,000 dinners of pit and stick salmon, produced from 2,000 pounds of whole, wild salmon. Each fish averages about 14- to 18-pounds. This Saturday, preparation will begin around 3 or 4 a.m. However, if the weather doesn’t hold, cooking may begin tonight to build up enough heat to bake the fish.

Meade said he began helping with the cooking process in 1988, working as a sort of sous chef with other young men, splitting wood, gutting fish and doing other physical labor. He learned the process through two tribal members who became his uncles through marriage. Meade said he didn’t actually get to cook the salmon until the early 1990s.

“You do the menial type jobs first before you get to handle the fish,” Meade explained. “You just have to learn. Cooking on an open fire is not the same as cooking on your barbecue. With sand there is no consistent heat.

“So the science to it, if there is a science, is you have to learn hands-on.”

Although he was unsure how pit cooking got started, Meade said it is an old tradition.

“How they came to cooking in a pit, who knows. It’s kind of like (saying) how did we end up cooking on a barbecue.”