Past, present, future converge at canoe events
By Richard Walker — Today correspondent
SAN JUAN ISLAND, Wash. – Few public events are as rich in cultural significance and meaning as Northwest Coast canoe gatherings, journeys and races. Past, present and future converge at these events, with canoe teams, or families, plying the same waters their ancestors did.
The canoe is a cultural connection like no other: With the cedar, which for millennia has provided material for art, canoes, clothing, fishing nets and houses; with the water, the marine highway for coastal peoples since time immemorial; and with extended families across the Northwest Coast.
In the Intertribal Canoe Journey July 30 to Aug. 4, canoe families from around the Northwest Coast will paddle from their home shores to the Lummi Nation, near Bellingham, Wash., where they will potlatch and celebrate for five days.
Hosting the Canoe Journey is an honor (last year, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in Auburn hosted more than 60 canoes and 40,000 guests), and Lummi will mark the occasion by celebrating its first potlatch since 1937. The event will be open to the public.
”Traditionally, the potlatches were the most distinctive feature of the Northwest, helping to share local bounty, keep track of the shifting loyalties among the people and legalize claims to nobly entitled names,” according to the ”Paddle to Lummi” Web site, www.paddletolummi.com.
”Each one involved a formal display of crests, privileges, members, foods and resources in the presence of honored guests and witnesses, who accepted meals and gifts in return for supporting these changes in the social fabric.”
At each stop along the Canoe Journey, the public can watch the colorful, soulful arrival of the canoes: Colorful, because each canoe and paddle is an elaborately carved work of art; and soulful, because many of the canoe families keep time to songs, which often come to them on the water.
On the shore, in keeping with tradition, canoe families ask permission – often in their own languages – to enter and leave each territory.
This event, known as protocol, is moving for participants as well as observers. At Swinomish, the next-to-last stop in the 2006 journey, Chester Cayou responded to each request in English and in Lushootseed: ”We welcome you. This is your home for the next two days.”
Cayou, a respected Swinomish elder and a member of the tribal senate, told pullers, ”This is the way our people used to do it years ago. They’d visit each other, care for each other. This is the way it used to be – we would come together and love one another.”
The Canoe Journey is an intense athletic event. Pulling (those in the canoe call themselves pullers, not paddlers) for hundreds of miles is no small feat; one has to be healthy of mind, body and spirit. Pullers train rigorously and stay alcohol and drug free; some canoe families ban smoking as well. The pullers must also trust and encourage each other. ”Ten Rules of the Canoe,” written by the Quileute canoe family in 1990, states, ”We all pull and support each other … The weary paddler resting is still ballast.”
Autumn Washington, Lummi, who has been racing for 15 years, said the self-discipline she got from pulling helped her in school. ”It made me try hard in everything else,” she said in an earlier interview. ”It teaches you about life. How you train is how you are in life.” Washington and other pullers in her canoe family now race internationally.
Canoe pullers will tell you that being a part of a cultural continuum is a powerful experience. In the Swinomish smokehouse during the 2006 Canoe Journey, Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby told of the healing power of the canoe journey; his brother had been a drinker and smoker but then pulled in a journey.
”This journey healed him. He is alcohol- and drug-free today,” Cladoosby said. He advised young pullers: ”You go from 18 to 40 in 3.2 seconds,” he said. ”Don’t let anything or anybody steal your future. Be proud, be strong and know you have support no matter where you are.”
In another interview, Swinomish Sen. Ray Williams echoed that statement. ”The message is that there are a lot of healthy ways to stay away from substance abuse. One way is to connect to one’s culture where there is spiritual grounding.”
Richard Walker is a correspondent reporting from San Juan Island, Wash. Contact him at rmwalker@rockisland.com.
Calendar of canoe events
* June 22 – 24: 61st annual Lummi Stommish Water Festival, Lummi Indian Nation, www.stommish.com.
* July 14: Swinomish Canoe Races, Snee-oosh Beach, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, www.swinomish.org.
* July 30 – Aug. 4: Intertribal Canoe Journey, www.paddletolummi.com.
* May 10, 2008: Penn Cove Water Festival, Coupeville, Whidbey Island, Wash., www.penncovewaterfestival.com.