Intertribal canoe journey lands at Seattle’s Alki Beach

After a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of canoe families from across the Pacific Northwest once again paddled to Seattle, landing at Alki Beach on July 30. Canoe families will spend the next week participating in songs, dances and other protocol ceremonies hosted by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

Nika Bartoo-Smith is part of a team at Underscore News that has been covering the journey. She joins to tell us about Sunday’s landing and give us a preview of the upcoming protocol ceremony.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The canoe journey is back after a three year hiatus because of COVID. Hundreds of Indigenous canoe families from across the Pacific Northwest and from much further away, once again paddled hundreds of miles before gathering all together. They landed at Seattle’s Alki Beach yesterday. Now, canoe families will spend the next week participating in songs, dances and other protocol ceremonies hosted by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Nika Bartoo-Smith is an Indigenous Affairs reporter for Underscore News and ICT [Indian Country Today]. She’s been covering the journey with Underscore. She joins us now to talk about the landing yesterday and what comes next. Nika, welcome.

Nika Bartoo-Smith: Thanks, Dave.

Miller: So you were there yesterday, when canoe families from all over arrived at Alki Beach. Can you give us a sense for the scene?

Bartoo-Smith: Yeah. So when the team at Underscore and I first got to the beach, there was probably a couple hundred people that had gotten there early to set up places to sit and watch the landing as it took place. And so when we watched the first canoes start to come into shore, a group of us - there was probably a half dozen or a dozen or so people out on a little sandbar, a couple hundred feet away from shore. So we waded out through the water to get close to the canoes that were slowly approaching and lining up all along the shore, waiting permissions to come ashore.

As they were lining up, they took turns holding onto each other’s canoe. And as the canoes came closer to shore, they took turns asking Muckleshoot permission, first introducing themselves in their own Tribal language. And then there was a sort of protocol that each Tribe went through, talking about how they were humbly asking permission. They were tired, they were hungry and they wanted to share their songs and dance with Muckleshoot and the other Tribes there. And as more and more canoes arrived, the beach filled with thousands of people – probably midday, there was a couple of thousand  people that had set up tents and camp all along, watching the crowd of canoes come through, that was probably in the end, around 120 or so.

Miller: You got us some audio of the Muckleshoot Tribal Chairman Jaison Elkins welcoming a canoe family. And we should say that this year, the Muckleshoot Tribe is the hosting Tribe. So they were the ones who were in charge of the proceedings. Let’s have a listen to Tribal Chair, Jaison Elkins.

Tribal Chair Jaison Elkins [recording]: “We’ve been expecting you and we’ve been working hard, prepared for you. Grand Ronde, you have permission to come ashore.”

[Crowd cheering]

Miller: Can you give us a sense for the crowd? I mean, who was arriving and what was the feel?

Bartoo-Smith: Yeah, as each canoe arrived one by one, they started with the canoes that came from the farthest. So there were canoes from Canada, Alaska, New Zealand, Hawaii and then closer to home. And as each one arrived and asked permission, the crowd erupted with applause and celebration and it felt really welcoming and almost like a sense of reunion. As canoe families were seeing people that some of them have been seeing every year since canoe journey has been happening since the late 1980s. And it was a sense of homecoming for so many people.

After the Muckleshoot representative would grant a canoe permission to come to shore, the puller would stomp their paddles three times on the base of the canoe in celebration. And that would be followed by that applause by that uproar from people in the canoes and all along the shore.

Miller: Did some people paddle from New Zealand and Hawaii?

Bartoo-Smith: You know, I’m not totally sure about that. I know that some people brought their canoes along with. I know that the person that I talked to that traveled the furthest with their canoes came from Alaska and they traveled 1,500 miles by canoe the entire time, stopping at sites every night all along the way.

Miller: You mentioned it’s a kind of reunion. I mean, that makes sense. If you’ve been doing this for decades, I imagine you’d see old friends or people who are almost at this point like family, but then came the COVID interruption. No canoe journey for three years. Did you talk to people who had been going for years and then had to stop and then finally could do it again?

Bartoo-Smith: Yeah. So the theme this year was honoring our warriors past and present. For so many people, it felt like part of the importance of this canoe journey happening after COVID was honoring so many people that actually were lost during COVID and a lot of pullers and elders that were part of canoe families that were actually lost as well. And so each canoe, many of them dedicated their journey to a specific thing such as missing and murdered Indigenous relatives, such as those lost to COVID, such as recovery. And so much of their conversations were about how important it was to come together again after being apart for three years and how it really created this sense of feeling within a community of being able to come together again and be in community and share stories and knowledge. And work really hard to pass on language in particular, because so many of those that were lost during COVID were traditional language keepers. And so figuring out how to have concerted efforts to bring language back and share that on the journey itself with young pullers along the way.

Miller: You talked to a canoer named Skaydu Û Jules from the Eagle/Killer Whale Clan of Teslin Tlingit people in Southern Yukon.

And this was her first journey, unlike people who have been doing this for decades. Now here is part of what she said.

Skaydu Û Jules [recording]: “Being out on the water was like any other experience that I have never felt before, just being on something that I knew that my ancestors did since time immemorial and being in that space of being like we’re seeing this lens through our ancestors’ eyes right now. And there’s no really. . . like, yes, we have our support boats. But when you get separated enough and you’re just on the dug out, all you can hear is your paddles going into the water. And it reminds you of like fish, and you just become really a part of that world, like a part of the land, part of the water is something that an elder used to say in my community because we as Indigenous people are part of the land, part of the water.”

Miller: Nika, did you hear from other first timers?’

Bartoo-Smith:  Yeah, we talked to lots of people who were there for the first time, many of them were youth, so pretty young ages that were learning how to carry on this tradition. That was something that was emphasized and reiterated again and again, the importance of sharing this tradition with the next generation and making sure it continues.

Miller: It also sounds like, I mean, from some of your reporting that literally, part of the paddling time is language class.

Bartoo-Smith: Yeah, so much of the journey is about sharing language, sharing traditional knowledge and stories and songs is a big piece as well. We talked to multiple people who created songs along the way in their traditional language that they will now be sharing with us during protocol.

Miller: I want to play another clip that you brought us from Skaydu Û Jules from the Teslin Tlingit people in Southern Yukon. Here’s something else she had to say:

Skaydu Û Jules [recording]: “These are all people that I’ve recently met and some I’ve known a little bit longer and we just all like unconditionally love each other. We sing songs for each other, like we all have different songs in our languages that we sing, specifically while we’re out in the water to give each other strength; We say prayers to start out our day. So just doing it in a good way and just holding your head up high because there are spaces here for us, so we just have to, you know, find those people that light us up and to hold us up in those spaces. And that’s why we wear the handprints on our face. For those women who aren’t able to do this. We want to bring them there with us with our Every Child Matters flag and all those children who never had the chance to go out and do this. They’re actually that we have one seat open in our dugout and that’s for them.”

Miller: Nika, you mentioned that this year, more than others in recent memory, was a kind of year of memorials for various reasons. How common was that for there to be purposely an empty seat in canoes in remembrance of individuals or multiple people?

Bartoo-Smith: You know, that was the only canoe I talked to that I know for sure had that open seat reserved as a memorial seat for those people. But I do know that a lot of the canoes, like I said, dedicated in their introduction where they first introduced themselves in their own traditional language and their own Tribal language. In that introduction, they would then talk about what they were dedicating the ride to, and so often people would talk about those that were lost, oftentimes naming people that either had passed or were missing and sending out a prayer to those people as part of their journey.

Miller: So let’s turn to what’s happening now. And for much of a week right now, going forward, it’s called protocol. Your team talked to Jolene Lozier who is an art and culture teacher at the Muckleshoot Tribal School about protocol. Let’s hear what she had to say, first.

Jolene Lozier [recording]: “At our host site, there’s tents and everything and it’s gonna be 24 hours a day, Tribe after Tribe after Tribe, they’re gonna be sharing all their songs and dances, day and night and then the very last night, whatever time that will be is when Muckleshoot will go on, we’ll share our songs and dances and then everybody gets to go home. So when we hosted in 2006, Muckleshoot didn’t get to go on until like three o’clock in the morning, the very last night. And I think we finished everything at like five or six o’clock that morning. So it was pretty awesome.”

Miller: Do you know why it’s day and night, 24 hours?

Bartoo-Smith: So I know that a huge piece of protocol is that every canoe that comes in gets two hours where they have the floor to share their stories, their songs, their dances. And when there’s over 100 canoes, getting through two hours for each canoe takes a long time. And so looking at the schedule today from 10 a.m. until 12 a.m. people will be going through those regimented aspects of protocol and I’m pretty sure and in those other hours everybody is camping all around the Muckleshoot Community Center. As we pulled in this morning, we saw hundreds, if not thousands of campsites. And so people are here 24 / 7 and part of that is being in community. And so there are opportunities for people to be together all day long until Friday.

Miller: It’s, in a sense, a kind of cultural and communal marathon after the canoe marathon.

Bartoo-Smith: Exactly.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for what it’s like inside the building where the protocol is going on?

Bartoo-Smith: So this morning as we walked in, there was people just wrapping up from the breakfast line because part of the protocol, it’s all about giving and sharing. And so as canoeing families are coming in and sharing their songs and dance, Muckleshoot is sharing their space with canoe families. They are providing food, they’re feeding everyone here. And so people were wrapping up from getting food and then trickling into the main gym where the protocol will take place, where people will share their songs and dance. And to kick off the ceremony, the days of ceremony, Muckleshoot introduce themselves and introduce protocol and started the honor guard came in and they sang a traditional song to kick off the ceremony with the honor guard.

Miller: Have you been to a canoe journey before yourself?

Bartoo-Smith: No, this is my first time. This is the first time for everyone here at Underscore.

Miller: What’s it been like for you as both a journalist and as a Native person yourself to - I don’t imagine you feel like you’re taking part in it as a puller, as a member of a canoe team - but certainly just to be there?

Bartoo-Smith: It’s been certainly more emotional than I thought it would be. I feel just overwhelmed by this sense of community and gratitude that people have for one another and both excitement and celebration, but also grief for those that were lost. And so really, I felt myself get emotional watching, being at the beach with my toes in the sand, feeling the water, watching those first canoes come in was pretty breathtaking and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. And it’s been pretty amazing how much it feels like we have been welcomed into the community here and people are really excited to have us here wanting to share stories and wanting to share their stories with us and that feels really exciting.

Miller: Nika, thanks very much.

Bartoo-Smith: Thank you.

Miller: Nika Bartoo-Smith is an Indigenous Affairs Reporter for Underscore News and ICT. She joined us to talk about canoe journey. The arrival, the landing, was yesterday at Alki Beach in Seattle.The Muckleshoot Tribe is hosting the protocol and the landing this year, and the festivities and ceremonies will go through the end of this week.

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