By Greg Skinner, for Peninsula Daily News
SEQUIM — Wind and waves and misdirection kept all but one canoe from landing at the Jamestown Beach for a welcoming ceremony Tuesday during the 2008 Tribal Canoe Journey.
About 60 Jamestown S’Klallam tribal members and visitors waited on the beach for about two hours for 11 canoes expected from Port Townsend.
Instead, 10 of the canoes were detoured to John Wayne Marina, east of Jamestown Beach.
“Someone intercepted them, and told them to go to the John Wayne Marina,” several hours earlier, said Ron Allen, Jamestown S’Klallam tribal chairman.
By mid-afternoon, the gathering of people on the beach heard that only the Squaxin canoe was expected to arrive by water.
The other crews would be greeted later over a fried chicken dinner in the Sequim High School cafeteria.
However they arrive, pullers will be welcomed appropriately, Allan said.
After regrouping, the canoes are expected to arrive at Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles at about noon today.
The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe will host the pullers for two days before they leave for Vancouver Island.
A 17-mile open water crossing waits the pullers on Friday when they head for Victoria Harbor and eventually join a total of 80 to 100 canoes in Cowichan, British Columbia on July 28 for a week of celebration.
