[Splashing]
ALIKA: Native traditions aren't stagnant.
They're constantly growing with the times around us.
Tribal Canoe Journeys
is that reminder that we have to look forward
as we also connect ourselves to our past.
PHILIP: Our identity
was taken away from us.
We were entitled to our own culture.
It had been rudely taken away,
and there were luckily people who resisted
and held that cultural knowledge.
ALIKA: This is just the fruition of everything that we've been practicing,
everything that we've wanted to do as
a Family is coming together now.
But also the feelings of
will I physically be able to make this?
MARYLIN: I have been lost in fog
with a support boat that can't find us,
with four other people in the canoe that are afraid they're going to die.
ALIKA: A lot of us are
really novices when it comes to being on the water.
If it means being towed,
we're going to find a way to make it.
It's going to be a challenge,
for sure, to our bodies and minds.
So being able to make it through these adverse
situations of high mud,
quickly moving tides,
just making sure that you have the spirit to keep going.
What they don't know right now is they don't
know what it's like to be on the water for six to eight hours.
That’s the only thing they don't know, and it's something that I can't tell them.
They will find out.
[Splashing]
ALIKA: The Canoe Journey is a way for Native youth
to practice tradition in a space and world
where we're encouraged to eschew tradition for the modern.
We learn all of the steps that the people before
us took into preserving their traditions.
And these traditions help propel our choices that we make into the future.
The Canoe Journey isn't just an act of sport,
it's an act of reconnection and an act of love for the language and the peoples.
I first heard about the UW Canoe Family
through the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies
When they brought in Philip H.
Red Eagle as our Native knowledge coordinator,
I learned that he was starting a Canoe Family and I got immediately excited
and wanted to join.
PHILIP: The idea was that we would not just have
a journey in the canoe, it would become a ceremony
using the canoe
as a cultural carrying device.
I wanted to start working on what
for me was like a re-culturation process.
It gives you an identity.
It gives you knowledge and wisdom
that you wouldn't ordinarily get.
And so the students really got into it.
ALIKA: Carving this paddle is the most important thing
that I'll do with my time at UW.
This practice of carving a paddle invites future students to the water.
So I'm really pleased that these paddles
will be a part of the Canoe Family long after I'm gone.
It's been a lot of just learning alongside very talented
elders who have poured a lot of themselves into this process.
It gives us that longer perspective on
what it took to bring us back to the water.
Both Marilyn Oliver and Phillip Red Eagle
bring decades of experience into our Canoe Family,
where we have a lot of energy, but not necessarily the experience.
We’re an intertribal groups
so we’re Native and non-Native peoples from all over the world.
So getting that place-based context is very important.
And also the storytelling that we receive helps us
understand our place within this broader canoe movement.
SKIPPER: All right let’s go all ahead, full stroke, ready go.
[Splashing]
[Drumming and singing]
MARYLIN: The reason that
I'm here is because my canoe is here.
The Willapa Spirit, which is an honor canoe that was built for my father.
I know that if my father had a vision,
I certainly can have the same vision
and see it to fruition.
[Drumming and singing continue]
We're a new Canoe Family.
This is the first time that we're going
to be on the Canoe Journey.
So that's going to be another transformation.
It's another vision.
It's another dream.
This is her home
and she's going to be here.
We move a lot faster
when we all pull all at once.
MARYLIN: It's going to be amazing to see them leave,
to see them land and to gift the canoe to them.
Because I'm ready;
they're ready.
PHILIP: We were very lucky to have some of the people that came on board
with us to bring songs,
to bring knowledge and wisdom into the process.
TAMMY: If you have your drums,
go ahead and just follow along.
ALIKA: As a group of Native youth, it's really important for us to learn the songs
of the lands and waters on which we live.
A lot of us are from all over
Turtle Island or North America.
Being able to learn Southern Lushootseed
with our elder Tammy Home,
it connects us in a way that gives back to the lands and waters and the peoples
that sustain us.
KUWLKADIM: Being somebody
that grew up in this culture, in Coast Salish culture, in these communities,
Canoe Journey is a very big thing, not only for the students to
get cultural experience, but it's what's going to help
keep a lot of these students here at the UW.
They're going to realize, hey, I have this solid group of community.
I have this solid support network and I can go and do these great cultural
things with them.
Sing the song when you're out in the canoe paddling too,
just try to remember it and just get used to singing it.
[Repetitive chanting]
ALIKA: All right, so that's the whole thing.
[Flags blowing]
ALIKA: We're leaving the first day from Tulalip,
where we have a 25-mile pull to Suquamish.
I'm really going to rely on the fact that we have experienced leaders.
We have a skipper that's going to be our guiding heartbeat
that's going to push us through when we can't continue to pull.
KUWLKADIM: When we get to the ferries,
we're going to need to go out a quarter- mile to stay out of their pathways
because that's going to give us time to get around us.
As skipper, I help make a lot of the decisions
on things like possible safe route for us to travel as a Canoe Family.
CAPTAIN JOHN: Recommended crossing is in these circles, They’re called cautionary zones.
That's when shipping is paying extra-special attention to crossing traffic,
which is why you go across there.
KUWLKADIM: I have plenty of people not only willing to help me, but willing to help guide me
and the Canoe Family just because we are first years.
KUWLKADIM: I got a lot of eager power pullers.
We'll see how eager they get, though after a couple of hours of pulling.
[Laughing]
KUWLKADIM: So we had a lot of support there.
Setting up camp went really well.
Got our little tent villages
set out in Tulalip Bay, and then getting to start and understand
and realize what Canoe Journey is about, a lot of that sharing songs, sharing food,
just sharing time and space together and being a part of that moment
and that instance together for Journey is really touching.
[Laughter and chatter]
KUWLKADIM: Tomorrow
we are going to have an early morning, as I'm sure a lot of you were expecting.
We are going to be trying out on the water pulling by 5 o’clock in the morning.
Hopefully we'll be crossing closer to just a little south of Edmonds.
But that is the plan for tomorrow morning.
So get your sleep. Like.
No joke.
SPEAKER: Leave singing your song for all to hear as you depart.
I will be thinking of each and every one of you on the water.
Stay safe.
[Tent being shaken out]
[Plastic bag crinkling}
KUWLKADIM: I mean, day of there are so many different factors
because I just want to ensure that the family is taken care of,
as part of ensuring that the canoe is also taken care of,
the canoe is doing well and the Family is doing well.
Everything's going great.
ALIKA: Intentionally
removing ourselves for a week, going out into a sacred space on the water
allows us to really connect in ways
that we don't necessarily privilege in our everyday lives.
KUWLKADIM: Grab your paddles.
Let’s start moving.
[Footsteps]
ALIKA: That tradition that we are learning now
is something that we can carry forward into our lives beyond the canoe.
But also into future generations of this Canoe Family.
[Singing]
KUWLKADIM: We are showing them that, hey,
not only is there enough Native American,
Alaska Native, or Indigenous students at the University of Washington,
but there are
enough that they can create a sustainable Canoe Family,
and that's a Canoe Family that our community
and our children can go and support and be a part of and learn from.
SPEAKER: Circle.
Circle up.
Circle, circle.
[Repetitive singing and clapping]
ALIKA: And the last word.
That's a word for breath and sovereignty.
And with our living sovereign breath, we're going to go out there
and have a good day.
[Cheering]
CANOE FAMILY: Three, two, one.
Lift.
ALIKA: Being able to lift the Willapa Spirit overhead
and seeing the salmon right next to me,
that's when it started to feel special.
It felt like we were doing something together.
[Singing]
KUWLKADIM: Good morning Tulalip.
We are the University of Washington Canoe Family.
We're starting our Journey today.
Thank you for all of your hospitality to my family.
We're asking for permission to leave your shore.
SPEAKER: Thank you UW.
How many dogs do you have on the canoe today?
I got a canoe full of dogs.
Thank you for stopping at Tulalip on your Journey to Suquamish.
Tell our cousins hello and we'll all meet together soon.
[Singing]
KUWLKADIM: Pulling out for Journey,
that was one of the most exciting things because that was at least two years
of preparation all for that one culminating moment of us setting out from Tulalip
that morning and getting to be a part of Canoe Journey for 2023 was
probably one of the most exciting things that I've done.
[Splashing]
ALIKA: It was surreal to go through pulling on that first day
with everybody on the water.
For me, as a Pacific Islander,
like the distance from my island, O’ahu to Moloka’i is 15 miles.
So the Tulalip trip basically is the distance
between islands in Hawai’i.
When I started to realize that, it made it a little more daunting.
But then somehow, someway,
every stroke forward gets you one stroke closer to the destination.
[Cheering]
Every destination is just always around the corner.
And then there's the next corner and the next corner.
But this time, we literally rounded the corner
and opened into Suquamish.
We made it work and we got there.
MARYLIN: The canoes left,
18 of them in 1989 from Suquamish
to paddle to Golden Gardens.
And in 2023,
I will give the Willapa Spirit,
the canoe, to the University of Washington.
When I went to consult a spiritual leader,
she said, “Marylin, your father, in this vision
has his hands held out. And in his hands are a set of keys.
And he is telling you, ‘Take the keys; the canoe is yours.
Do with it what you want.’”
And that's when I knew that
the canoe can be gifted now. [Choking up] Because I have the blessing of my father.
MARYLIN: There’s the keys. There’s the keys to the canoe.
MARYLIN: His dream.
My dream. This vision.
It's coming around.
OK. Congratulations.
Take care of the canoe.
ALIKA: We weren't just gifted a canoe.
We came into our new name, č̓away̓altxʷ ʔiišəd, which means
Shell House Family.
KUWLKADIM: It’s a picture of us all pulling back to the Shell House.
The home of the Willapa.
ALIKA: Being recognized as, č̓away̓altxʷ ʔiišəd, as the UW
Canoe Family, and as the holders of the Willapa Spirit
will give us belonging in the canoe movement for time
to come.
[Cheering and clapping]
[Footsteps]
ALIKA: Establishing ourselves with this Canoe Journey and receiving the canoe
and receiving the name č̓away̓altxʷ ʔiišəd sets a precedent
that this will continue for generations at the UW.
[Drumming and singing]
ALIKA: We're a learning vessel.
So we're going to be filtering in and out as we leave the UW.
So I'm excited for the time to come,
and all of the work that we've done.
And they will
live through it the same way that we lived through
the people who came before us.
[Cheering]
ALIKA: So the Suquamish to Alki Journey day we had a little bit of a
better expectation of what the pull
was going to feel like.
KUWLKADIM: There wasn't really anything
but good vibes out on the water.
It's really
an unforgettable experience of seeing the community bond like that.
Getting to do it with the canoe in the method of travel that my people,
my ancestors most commonly used as the method
of travel, before we had the I-5 corridor.
All the work that we just did was us traveling
the original I-5 corridor.
Being able to experience stuff like that,
it not only feels good for me
as a community member, but feels good for me spiritually.
SPEAKER: Good afternoon.
ALIKA: Landing in Seattle
felt unique in that it's not a reservation.
It's not somewhere that's primarily hosted by a single tribe.
This was really the Muckleshoot show, but also a public event
that a lot of people who may not have gone to any other Tribal
Canoe Journey in their life had the opportunity to experience.
And that felt really good.
ANNOUNCER: Come to shore
now; we will enjoy visiting one another.
PHILIP: Academia is a very head-oriented place.
These are very intellectual people, so you have to get them out of that
head and into a process of dealing with your heart,
dealing with your emotions,
dealing with who you are, your own identity.
This Journey process has moved them to their heart. Because they were smiling.
They were enjoying themselves on Journey.
You could see the joy in their eyes.
It was beautiful to watch.
KUWLKADIM: Today, my pullers are going to represent their nations
and speak their words.
PHILIP: To see that come to these students,
and the light go on and to all of a sudden see that flow of energy
and that understanding and the beauty
of what they're doing.
Because I knew it would work.
It was just convincing them that it would work.
And it did. [laughs]
This is something special.
ALIKA: This is something that will outlive us.
And even if it doesn't look the way it looks today, the things that we did
not only brought us to the water, but will bring future generations to the water.
And I think that's what ultimately folks like Philip Red Eagle
envisioned when they embarked on creating Tribal
Canoe Journeys.
[Cheering]
This is not just a
one-generation or individual-level impact.
This is a community intergenerational impact.
I hope that future generations
can feel the way I do.
MARYLIN: Going into the future,
this is for the youth.
It's not like some of the pullers of 1989,
that it was all new for them. And the stories that they told,
they said,
‘When I was growing up,
I didn't know
about my heritage.
I was looked down on.
And when this came about,
[choking up] I felt the pride,
and I can get up.’
And she said, ‘I can speak now
because of how it changed my life.’
And I hear more and more stories about that.
And those stories will continue.
To lose
a ceremony is to lose the past.
To create a ceremony is to create the future.
And I can see that here they are creating a future.
And it will go on and on and on for years to come.
[Cheering]