TULALIP – More than 20 canoes glided into Tulalip Bay on Friday evening as Tulalip tribal members beat drums and sang an ancient song of welcome.
As many as a dozen men and women in each canoe pulled their paddles out of the water and held them upright as they passed before Tulalip tribal Chairman Stan Jones and hundreds of tribal members. Jones welcomed them to Tulalip territory with his hands stretched out toward them in a traditional greeting.
It was just one of many stops in the Intertribal Canoe Journey, an annual event that dates back to 1989, when many Pacific Northwest tribes began carving traditional canoes again.
On Friday, the canoes stopped for the night and camped in tents at Tulalip, and this morning they are expected to continue on a journey that is scheduled to end Monday at the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation south of Seattle.
Canoeists from tribes as far north as British Columbia and as far west as Neah Bay began their journeys early this week and have paddled up to 10 hours each day. As the groups make their way south, they are joined by other tribal canoes. Several dozen canoes are expected to be in the caravan by Monday.
“It’s emotional when the canoes come around,” Jones said. “It used to be that we would have visitors from other tribes all the time, but then that died down. It wasn’t until we started carving our own canoes that we could do this.”
The annual journey keeps Indian culture alive, said Tulalip tribal elder Ray Moses.
Moses was on the first canoe journey in 1989, when the tribes gathered to celebrate in Victoria, B.C.
“It was awesome,” he said. “It was something brand new for so many people. We had tears coming down our faces.”
This year’s journey continued toward Muckleshoot despite an accident Wednesday in which a Canadian tribal chief died. A canoe from the Makah tribe hit rough water near Dungeness Spit in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the people inside weren’t able to pull down the sail before it tipped over, said Tulalip tribal member and longtime canoeist Ray Fryberg.
All six people in the canoe fell into the water, and Chief Jerry Jack, 55, of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations of Gold River in British Columbia, died. Jack was a close friend of Fryberg’s.
“He died doing what he loved to do,” Fryberg said. “His journey ended on the journey.”
The canoes belonging to Jack’s tribe needed repairs and weren’t put in the water for this year’s journey, so Jack decided to travel with the Makah tribe, Fryberg said.
“Those Makah, they’re seafaring people,” Fryberg said. “They know what they’re doing.”
Jack’s family urged those on the journey to continue on to Muckleshoot, Fryberg said.
Jack would have wanted it that way, they said.
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