PORT ANGELES — Sounds of sawing, sanding, digging and mowing rode the breeze Tuesday at the Lower Elwha Klallam Reservation as tribal members made final preparations to host the 2005 Tribal Canoe Journey — the Paddle to Elwha — that culminates at Hollywood Beach on Monday.
Meanwhile, about 70 Native American and Canadian First Nations canoes and sealskin bidarkas were on their way to Port Angeles from as far north as St. Paul Island, Alaska, and as far south as Coos Bay, Ore.
Lower Elwhas and non-native volunteers continued making the 7,000 to 10,000 necklaces, earrings, pillows and other gifts the Lower Elwhas will give away at the celebration of Indian culture that will run through Aug. 6.
And Linda Wiechman, one of four canoe journey coordinators for the Lower Elwhas, was making plans to dig clams and harvest Indian tea.
“We’re so busy getting everything prepared,” she said in her cluttered office behind the tribal center, 2851 Lower Elwha Road.
“We’re asking, ‘What more do we need? What did we forget?’ “
The momentum would seem to be unstoppable.
Tent goes up Thursday
The tribe already is halfway sold out of the T-shirts that depict a bear, wolf and eagle paddling a canoe buoyed by a killer whale.
A huge tent where each tribe will perform its unique songs and dances will be set up Thursday, when more than a dozen vendors will start to arrive.
The vendors will offer arts, crafts, clothes, food and jewelry, all at the reservation and some at City Pier.
Forty young Lower Elwhas left Port Angeles on Monday towing the Spirit of Elwha canoe on a trailer to the Muckleshoot reservation near Auburn.
They will paddle home with other South Puget Sound voyagers by way of Manchester State Park, the Suquamish Reservation on the Kitsap Peninsula, Port Gamble, Port Townsend and Jamestown.
