Celebration is a culture and dance festival that honors Southeast Alaska Native Tribes. It is the largest global gathering of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.
An estimated sixteen people from Wrangell and Petersburg are about to paddle north to Juneau for the bi-annual festival. They’re not the only ones paddling though. Approximately 10 other yaakw’s – or traditional canoes – from other communities will paddle too.
“The excitement is growing exponentially,” Ken Hoyt said. He’s helping organize the Journey to Celebration.
Tlingit, Alaska Native and non-Native people will paddle up the inner channel, along the mainland, from Wrangell to Juneau.
Hoyt said Ceremony ties the whole region and Southeast Alaska Native Tribes together. It connects people with language, dancing and storytelling.
“We need the canoes now in order to stay connected to our ancestors and to stay connected to our ecosystems and to stay connected to all these other communities that will participate,” he said.
Hoyt said his first Journey to Celebration was in 2012. They paddled to create awareness for suicide prevention, which was supported by Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium – or SEARHC. SEARHC is still sponsoring the Journey. The organization donated a 39 foot fiberglass canoe that fits up to 18 people for this adventure.
A journey for healing
Hoyt and the Wrangell Canoe Community have been preparing this Journey for months. Back in March they brought in the One People Canoe Society to hold a workshop where community members could make paddles for this trip.
“There was just so much enthusiasm for making the paddles,” he said. “There was such a community feeling in the school shop.”
They also held a potluck and movie night about previous Journeys to Celebration. This brought the community together and created awareness for what was about to happen.
Hoyt said this is a journey for healing.
“We’re embracing Wrangell’s recent heritage with the Crossings Program where the canoes were used to heal young people from all over the state,” he said. “They would come here and learn to paddle and then connect with the water and the land.”
The Crossings Program was a wilderness behavioral health program in Wrangell that closed three years ago.
The group has been fundraising to make the means to go. They’ve raised just below $2,000 on GoFundMe, which is beyond their initial goal.
“There’s plenty of canoes that could have been in this journey, or should be at this landing, that are not going to be here because of the money part,” Hoyt said. “They don’t have the financial support. They weren’t able to raise the money.”
The funds will go for food, gear and gas for the support boats. They also will go to support crew members who will have paycheck losses.
Safety is an issue, so there will be support vessels close by. The boats, which are mostly large fishing boats, will store everyone’s sleeping bags, tents, clothes and equipment.
“We are like human powered in the canoe, but we’re also gas powered,” Hoyt said. “So in a way it’s like you’re putting gas in our canoe or you’re putting energy in the tank that’s necessary to get us to Juneau.”
The tentative stops along the way from Wrangell are Petersburg, Read Island, Hobart Bay, Tracy Arm, Taku Harbor, Dupont and landing in downtown Juneau.
Wrangell resident Alicia Armstrong, who is Aleut, started canoeing in 2002, when she was in her mid 20s. She’s been on six Southeast canoe journeys. The first one was in 2012 in the Raven canoe where they departed from Angoon.
She won’t physically go on this year’s Journey because of an injured arm, but she’s helped organize it. She said the paddlers really rely on the commands of the skipper. There will be three people who will alternate as skipper in the Wrangell canoe.
“As you’re paddling, the biggest thing is that you’re in sync with everyone, every stroke, everyone needs to be in sync,” Armstrong said. “That’s how the canoe glides through the water.”
Armstrong said that there are so many memories she’s experienced while paddling to Celebration. She recalls a night in 2022 when they camped in a very new spot that they’d never camped in before along Chatham Strait.
“There was 30 tents lined up on the beach. We had four canoes floating in the water and the tide line came up four feet within our tents that night,” she said. “Obviously we paid attention. We weren’t gonna put tents where, you know, the tide would get us but it was so memorizing to see that and wake up in the middle of the night.”
Armstrong said the route this year leaving Wrangell will be different from previous years since the paddlers will go along Stephens Passage, which is the inside route.
“Once you leave Petersburg there’s no more communities,” she said. “You’re out in the middle of the wilderness until you get to downtown Juneau. Whereas if you went up Chatham Strait, we would stop in Kake, Angoon. There’s also Tenakee. we had never stopped in Tenakee.”
Armstrong said heading from Wrangell to Petersburg in a canoe is a huge feat, crossing the big waters of Sumner Straight. She did it back in 2013.
“It was a little rough, we were still in some rough weather,” she said. “We attempted to pull out paddling, but we jumped right back on the support vessel because the weather was just too bad. And being able to navigate those tidal currents. You got two big bodies of water coming in at each other and they flow different directions.”
Before the May 29th departure, five other canoes will arrive in Wrangell for a ceremonial canoe landing on Shakes Island. This includes veterans, the One People Canoe Society and canoes from Kasaan.
There will be a pre-launch potluck at the Nolan Center in Wrangell at 6pm on Tuesday. Those interested in donating can donate at First Bank in Wrangell or on their GoFundMe account.
