Weather changes canoe plans at Jamestown; journey comes to Port Angeles today
By Greg Skinner, for Peninsula Daily News
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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.
Windy weather
Allen said weather concerns Monday night led to a plan to barge some of the canoes around Point Wilson, the roughest water of the day's journey, and into calmer water for a safer paddle into Dungeness Bay.
Other smaller canoes, propelled by younger, less experienced pullers, would be brought by trailer, he said.
"You're not going to beat the water," said Jamestown S'Klallam skipper, Marlin Holden, who will join the journey today.
Holden and a crew of seven paddled the "Laxaynem," a 37 foot canoe of ancient red cedar, around the bay for hours, waiting to greet visitors as they came to shore.
Holden, a skipper for two years, said a large degree of skill and endurance are required to maneuver the traditional canoes through rough water.
Wind, wave and current often conspire against crews during eight-hour days of pulling during the annual journey.
Holden's crew started training in May for this year's journey.
"As much as anything, it's a mental feat," Holden said.
Sherrena Edwards, 14, crewed with a group of younger Squaxin pullers that trailered their canoe around the rough water to Sequim Tuesday.
A puller of three-years, Edwards made no bones about arriving by land.
To paddle during a small craft advisory would have just been too scary, she said.
"I wouldn't want to," said 14-year-old Clara Capoeman, a Squaxin puller with five years experience.
She said leaders were smart to keep younger paddlers out of more technical water until they have more experience.
You have to be over 18 to even paddle in open water, Holden said.
The water can be dangerous.
During the 2006 Inter-Tribal Canoe Journey a canoe capsized near Dungeness Spit and Joseph Andrew "Jerry" Jack, hereditary chief of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht tribe of Vancouver Island, drowned.
Last modified: July 22. 2008 9:00PM