Canoe journeys make history

Hear how Canadian First Nations and Pacific Northwest tribes journeyed through ancestral waterways of the Olympic Peninsula for an annual Canoe Journey, a  gathering rich in cultural significance. At the same time, for the first time in 100 years, artists from Quileute and Lower Elwha tribes carved, blessed and launched traditional canoes at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park.

There's much to learn-- enjoy the show!

More information:

Paddle to Nisqually 2026: Medicine Creek Potlach Journey 

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

Carengie Museum - Lower Elwha Tribe

Quileute Tribe

Transcript

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Speaker 7 0:04

Welcome to the Mounty Marmots Podcast, a show where nature lovers and neighbors discover untold wildlife and community news, find ways to enjoy and protect this beautiful area, and of course, have fun. I'm Carol from Port Angeles, Washington. Thanks for tuning in. Our Northwest waters have been busy with celebrations and cultural pride. This July, Canadian First Nations and Pacific Northwest coastal tribes paddled traditional canoes hundreds of miles on a journey to gather for potlatch in Nisqually, Washington. And also for the first time in a hundred years, traditional dugout canoes were carved, blessed, and launched at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. We share these stories and more. Stay tuned.

Canoe Journey

Speaker 7 1:18

You pass oil tankers, container ships, and massive cruise ships. The wind blows and the swells, they can be huge. Well, imagine crossing the strait in a canoe with 20 or so paddlers all the way from Canada to land at a little beach here in Port Angeles. That's what happens during annual tribal canoe journeys. These canoe journeys have been called a sacred living ceremony and a powerful act of cultural revitalization. And it seems very true. The 2026 canoe journey theme is Healing Through Our Waters by Honoring Our Ancestors, and it's hosted by the Nisqually tribe. This year, many canoes landed here for an overnight rest on their journey to Nisqually about a hundred miles further. Let's take a listen. Before landing, they followed traditional protocol, sharing a song and asking permission to land.

Speaker 3 3:20

These canoes both left our home. I hose it.

Speaker 4 3:49

You guys are allowed to come ashore.

Speaker 7 3:57

In tribal tradition, canoes are not said to be paddled but pulled. This refers to leaning the body forward, placing the paddle in the water, and pulling back with your core. There was a wonderful atmosphere on the beach as the canoes landed, and many exhausted and very, very proud pullers.

Speaker 6 4:18

Hi, my name is Shabe Ozichim, and I pulled all the way from House of BC.

Speaker 7 4:25

Can you cross whole strait? Yeah. Wow, how was that going across?

Speaker 6 4:30

It was beautiful.

Speaker 7 4:32

Very um colder.

Speaker 6 4:34

Very calm. Yeah. Very calm and easy. My name is Maddox George and from P ort Alberni.

Speaker 5 4:43

Vancouver Island. I'm part of First Nations, but I'm also I'm registered , but I'm also part House It, so I joined the canoes. It's really empowering. It's the first time that you know I I paddled from Canada to uh America, and um I'm real proud I did this. I tell my family about doing it is real long. Uh it was like seven hours of paddling and it's had pushed through it all but flooded and yeah, it takes some takes some while strength to do it.

Speaker 7 5:21

Also on the beach while the canoes were landing, I met Sue Charles. She's a lower Elwha elder, and she's a videographer who is passionate about preserving and sharing traditions and culture. She filmed the tribe's very first canoe journey back in the 1990s.

Speaker 1 5:43

Uh my name is Sue Charles, and my husband is Ben Charles from the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe. And Ben and our daughter Stephanie and myself started with the canoe journey in 1993. I actually did a video documentary of the carving of our first canoe, the Elwha Warrior. And then we traveled, that was the first journey for the Elwha Warrior, and we traveled with the uh canoe all the way up to Bella Bella and all the way back, and it was a two and a half month journey because um Elwha Warrior and the International Canoe paddled all the way. They didn't the other canoes trailered part of the way and put their little motor on the back, some of them, and I've been video documenting many of the journeys since then. So I'm very, very emotionally attached. I get so emotional about it because I feel as um documentary person that we are preserving those moments of traditional culture that's being relived from ages past, and it's teaching the young people, even like these children on the shore playing in the water, in the sand, and when the canoes come in, they see the canoes, they hear the protocol welcoming in, and that helps them know and live the culture. And I I have felt for years that it was my kind of my job, my responsibility to help preserve those maids. So I was also hired by hired by the Elwa tribe to film the language program, so I did that in 1991. I also um have done a bunch of other video projects for them, besides our TV shows that we had in Olympia for a number of years. So but um to me it's just important to preserve those that those history and help make the connection from the past.

Speaker 7 8:06

What's amazing about the canoe journey to me as an outsider is also to see all these different tribes and nations get together.

Speaker 1 8:14

I mean, we don't see that usually, so that means a lot when we're traveling to Bella Bella and the other journeys, uh we stop at a different village each night and um get to be acquainted with them and go a lot of them welcome us to their big house and they have uh big like ceremonial things and the farther you get up the island to the smaller um villages, then it's a smaller reception, but it's just as warm and um and we learn from them and they learn from us too. But it was fun for my husband because as we crossed over the is the to Vancouver Island, and as we went up the island, some of the different vill villages, he met some of his cousins he hadn't met before. Were you paddling too or not? No, I was just k filming. Filming, yeah. Yeah, but I did uh two or three times a few of the canoes took me out, so I got some great water shots and yeah, it was nothing like it. It's if you ever get a chance to get a little ride, there's nothing like the feeling of um the connection with the canoe and the water and the culture, it all blends in, and there's such a healing feeling there. It's really beautiful.

Speaker 7 9:46

After leaving Port Angeles at dawn, the canoes then traveled a hundred miles from Port Angeles south along the Olympic Peninsula to Nisqually, near Tacoma. And there they were joined by about a hundred other canoes. They're from various Salish Sea and Puget Sound tribes and Canadian First Nations. The Nisqually tribe says this about the event. Canoe journey gatherings are rich in meaning and cultural significance. The tribe has participated in the annual canoe journey since 1994 and has used the journey to strengthen culture, community, and families. Historical cultural practices from carving techniques to gifting ceremonies, cedar weaving to regalia making, have been revived and rediscovered, while songs have resurfaced to be shared at Journey's End. The tribe's pride of place and history are once again enriching the lives of young and old alike. To learn more about this year's canoe journey, head on over to the Nisqually Tribes website. You can find that link on our website.

Lake Crescent canoe

Speaker 7 10:56

Pride and cultural preservation were evident at another historic canoe event this July. While the canoe families made their way toward Nisqually, artists from the Lower Elwha Klallam and Quileute tribes carved traditional cedar dugout canoes at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. This was the first canoe carving to take place at Lake Crescent in over 100 years. An event that organizers said celebrates the revival and unity of Coast Salish and Pacific Northwest tribal canoe culture.

Speaker 11:42

This is the first time in 100 years it's actually happened here. Uh because uh some of our eldest elders, they can't remember when the last time this actually happened here. And then also the fact that we're doing this here with uh Randy Eastman and Mike Ward from Quileute on a collaborative canoe building like this has never happened here.

Speaker 7 12:06

So it's it's just amazing. And and so for for you, what's the significance of making sure folks learn how to do this?

Speaker 12:15

All of it's all of it, every part of it is pretty significant. Just the fact that we could have uh intertribal collaboration like this uh and being able to build our traditional canoes on site. Um it's just incredible. Um I'm very I feel very appreciative on my on my part. I've been able to be involved in it and just having the other artists come together, um everybody working together and getting and getting our respected canoes built.

Speaker 7 12:50

Yeah, and you ever talk about the sty different styles of canoes?

Speaker 12:54

Yeah, because the canoe we're doing is the sailor style, and the style Randy and Mike are doing the West Coast style, flat bottom. Uh it's gonna be a beautiful canoe when they're done.

Speaker 7 13:08

Where did the logs come from?

Speaker 13:10

The logs actually came from on site here, uh on the southern side of the cabin here. Yeah, like crescent. Yeah, and so uh a Doug fir came down and took out their wood shop here, but it also impacted this cedar tree and gave it a severe crack, so it became a danger tree. So they actually cut it down, fell it away from the site, and then um instead of removing them to our shop, we decided just to make them on site for the oh for well so many reasons, but there's the the historic value it has in it and the cultural value to us.

Speaker 7 13:52

That's just amazing though, because the tree came down and you guys are able to utilize it like right here. Yeah. But it's good for us, the public, because we can see what you're doing.

Speaker 14:02

Yeah, yeah, and that was a big thing is I wanted to make sure everything wasn't everything we did was very publicized and open to the public. So that way people could come in and see, come over and ask questions and take pictures of of what's happening and how it's happening.

Speaker 7 14:20

Yeah, yeah, for me, I mean once in a lifetime to see canoes being carved. Yeah, yeah. But traditional carvers.

Speaker 14:27

Yeah, and it's great because the Nature Bridge has such a broad group of participants out here. Because one week we had a group from Houston, uh, one week we had a group from Philadelphia, and so they're all over the country, Southern California. Um but it's been great that you know a lot of them get very excited because they're probably not gonna see something like this again in their lifetime unless they come back to Washington or out to the coast somewhere.

Speaker 7 15:01

And they're using both hand tools and then you occasionally the power tools.

Speaker 15:06

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and we power tool where we can and then uh use our use our hand tools as much as possible. All of our all of our ads and knives are are pretty much hand forged, except for the black, except for the black iron. And so I ordered those and then everything else fell into place because people came and donated metal to the shop. And I was able to was able to forge ads, forge the knives we need. Primarily a lot of the stuff we use, we you know generally we can't get on Amazon. And like some of the metal we needed to be flexible so that when we're especially when we're carving through a lot of knots. Like they need to be they need to be strong enough to cut through a knot, but they need to be flexible enough it doesn't break.

Speaker 7 15:59

Yeah, well, thank you for setting this up and sharing it with us. Yeah.

Speaker 16:05

I don't know when the next time this will happen again for me, so I gotta enjoy it while I can too.

Speaker 7 16:14

When the canoes were finished, they were blessed in a ceremony attended by many tribal families and members of the public. The canoes were given their names by two of the elders present.

Speaker 4 16:30

Honored friends and relatives, my name is Paula. My English name is Shaianne Wheeler, my parents are Michelle and Jason Wheeler. My grandparents are Alice and Frank Charles. I am honored to speak up here on behalf of my papa, Fred Charles. Daryl Charles had asked my papa to name this beautiful canoe they have been working on. It's been a privilege to witness these carvers hard at work, and with that, the canoe name, my pop-up cake is the Klallam Spirit.

Speaker 7 17:13

After more prayer song, the canoes were carried into the lake. Several youth boarded the canoes and pulled a short distance to complete the dedication and blessing ceremony.

Speaker 2 17:25

We're taught that through prayer, we're given strength to do mighty things like hard canoes, hard paddles, to pick up a drum. This is a canoe being born, this is a life being born. We're grateful that all of you have come here to watch this. I hope you're listening. I hope you remember this, and I hope you take this with you wherever you go out into this world, into this universe. True.

Speaker 7 17:56

This month-long celebration of canoe culture and native traditions have been particularly meaningful for me. I've experienced that healing and peacefulness that Sue Charles described while paddling on lakes with my partner in a big red canoe and paddling in long dragon boats down the river. I cannot imagine the strength needed to take canoes out in the open waters. Beyond my awe for the strength of the indigenous paddlers, learning about the canoe celebrations here has a deeper significance for me. These journeys took place at a time when our federal government is actively working to change U.S. history. The Trump administration has ordered signs removed at national parks that speak of genocide and climate change, and they want to put up signs at the Smithsonian Museum explaining U.S. history in a way that's more comforting. It's true that both Canada and the United States have historically tried to erase native culture. Yet the canoe journeys show that it's not possible. Vibrant cultures and celebrations honoring our indigenous peoples continue right here on the Olympic Peninsula. A reminder that it's not the government that makes history, it's us, and it's our job to preserve and celebrate it. And if you'd like to learn more about local indigenous history and culture, visit the Elwha Klallam Museum at the Carnegie in Port Angeles, or the Jamestown Skalallam Tribal Library and Cultural Exhibits in Blyn. And when the canoes come through next year, watch for volunteer opportunities. And I have to add a special thanks to Sue Charles for your help in understanding the Canoe journey. And a big thanks to Jan Donald, who is of Ponca and Osage Heritage. Jan, thanks for the generous donation for the podcast. It takes a community to keep history alive. The Mouthy Marmots Collective acknowledges that the lands we broadcast from are the appropriated homelands of six tribal nations who continue to care for this region today, including the Ho, Jamestown Sklalam, Lower El wha Klallam, Macah, Quinault tribes. Thank you.