PORT TOWNSEND — An old tribal canoe that’s been on display outdoors on Point Hudson since John F. Kennedy was president has been given to a Makah elder.
Timed with the Inter-Tribal Canoe Journey passing through Port Townsend Bay late last week, inspired Port of Port Townsend commissioners granted the request Mary McQuillen has made for decades and returned the canoe to the tribe.
News of the dilapidated Makah canoe’s gift was presented to McQuillen at Fort Flagler State Park late Thursday as the Makah elder and longtime Port Townsend resident awaited arrivals of canoeists participating in the 2006 Inter-Tribal Canoe Journey.
The commissioners voted unanimously during their meeting a day earlier to return the historical canoe to McQuillen and the tribe.
McQuillen had been campaigning for many years to acquire the canoe — found on Protection Island at the top of Discovery Bay in 1952 and placed under an outdoor covered structure at Point Hudson in 1962 — so it could be restored.
‘Sing to the canoe’
McQuillen had gone to the Port commissioners as well as the Jefferson County Historical Society to plead her case.
She said the canoe belongs to the Makah tribe and should be restored, placed back in the water and used.
“I would go down and sing to the canoe and apologize for no one caring and loving the canoe,” McQuillen said Thursday.
Bob Sokol, Port commission president, met McQuillen at Fort Flagler to deliver the news that the canoe was being given to her.
