PORT ANGELES — Scores of young paddlers on the 2005 Tribal Canoe Journey are following ancient paths across the water in traditional canoes, singing songs they learned from their elders, carrying on a culture hundreds of years old into the 21st century.
They are nothing less than travelers in time.
Even when they arrive at Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles on Monday, their spiritual destination will be a place far older than the memories of their elders’ elders — the ancestral village of Tse-whit-zen, where Native Americans lived for at least 2,700 years.
Theme of the Paddle to Elwha is “Reflections of Our Past: Honoring Tse-whit-zen Village.”
The drama of the site beneath the former Hood Canal Bridge graving yard will draw more canoes and participants than ever to the hosting Lower Elwha Klallam Reservation.
A ceremony of prayers and songs is tentatively set for 10 a.m. Tuesday near the village site just east of the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill on Marine Drive on the Port Angeles waterfront.
The ceremony will be open to the public.
Voyage to cultural identity
Tse-whit-zen, however, is not the sole goal of the 70 canoe crews who will ask the Lower Elwhas’ permission to come ashore at Hollywood Beach late Monday afternoon.
The voyage for the hundreds of young “pullers” who paddle the canoes will be one away from the drug and alcohol abuse and suicide that plagues Native Americans, and into an increased cultural identity and enormous pride.
The very task of paddling a cedar canoe through the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Strait of Juan de Fuca or Puget Sound is a maturing experience as well as a physically toughening one.
Moreover, the canoes follow water routes that tribal traders, visiting families, wedding parties and warriors traveled for scores of generations before Europeans sailed into the Northwest from the Pacific Ocean or scrambled over the Cascade Mountains.
The water “sings” to the pullers on their way, they say, and they sing back with songs they learned from their elders.
They share traditional stories, passing on oral traditions.
And they make the journey without drugs, alcohol or — in most cases — tobacco.
‘Time for healing’
Linda Wiechman, one of four Lower Elwha coordinators, outlined the spirit of the paddle journeys in an application for a grant to support the 2005 celebration.
“This is a time for healing and spiritual healing for our bodies and of our minds,” she wrote.
Pullers often hold healing circles each evening when they come ashore.
“This enables a person to relinquish any bad thoughts or feelings they may be having that day,” Wiechman wrote.
“Another part of healing circles that is taught is: ‘We do not bring anything into the canoe that inhibits it.”‘
