PORT TOWNSEND — Ask Jared Fennell who has the most original senior project at Gig Harbor High School, and he’ll tell you he does — by far.
“I’m not only working for a nonprofit, I’m building this,” he said.
“Some kids are doing community service projects, but mine is relevant to my culture.
“And this is just one part — I still have to go on the journey.”
The journey is the 2010 Paddle Journey to Neah Bay in July, which Jared and his canoe family will make in a traditional Aleut cedar canoe, or umiak, that he is building with the help of Mitch Poling of Port Townsend.
Since it started in December, the work has been done in Poling’s garage, but on Saturday, the project moved to the Northwest Maritime Center boat shop.
“We needed a large, heated space for the next stage,” Poling said.
Canoe family
Jared’s canoe family includes aunt Darcie Pacholl, grandmother Maggie Fennell and friend Joe Casto of the Makah tribe, plus Poling — known by the family as Uncle Mitch — and his wife, “Aunt” Sandra Smith-Poling.
On Saturday, Poling showed Jared and his family how to stretch and clamp the nylon “skin” onto the frame, then Pacholl and Maggie Fennell sewed it to fit around the bow and stern, traditionally the women’s job.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Maggie Fennell said.
Maggie Fennell grew up in the southeast Alaskan village of Chenega with Poling and his brother, whose father was the village school teacher.
As the youngest of her generation, she was too young to have helped sew seal skin on the cedar craft, she said, but does remember hunting otters in the family baidarka, as kayaks are called, with her father.
The traditional craft, built by her grandfather, were lost when the 1964 earthquake tsunami washed away the village.
After retiring to Port Townsend, Poling, who taught school in Alaska, started researching the island’s baidarka and canoe-building tradition.
To connect to the family’s Aleut heritage, Pacholl started BRIDGE, for Building Respectful Interactions to Develop Goals for American Indian Elders and Youth, and contacted Poling for help with Jared’s senior project to build the canoe in the style of his great-great-grandfather.
“It is a unique project,” said Stan Cummings, maritime center director.
Kees Prins, maritime center boat shop educator, said facilitating community-driven boat projects is the mission of the center, which donated the space for the weekend.
Canoe at boat shop today
The canoe will be at the boat shop, which is open to the public, until this afternoon, when it will be returned to the Polings’ house.
On March 13, the canoe family plan to have a test launch in Port Townsend Bay, preceded by a blessing from the Father Nicholas of St. Herman’s Orthodox Christian Church.
The canoe will be based in the Gig Harbor area while the family trains, Pacholl said, then in mid-July, it be will returned to Port Townsend, where it will be launched for the Paddle Journey to Neah Bay, with Uncle Mitch as captain and Aunt Sandra on board.
In addition to the canoe, Jared also is making 14 paddles, one for each puller on the trip, plus cedar hats for everyone and drums for the men.
The men will drum to accompany the traditional song and dance the women perform, a requirement of each new canoe family.
“I’m also a lee puller,” Jared said. “That means that Joe and I sit in the middle of the canoe and do most of the work.”
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County reporter-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
