Thirteen years ago, master carver Wayne Price of Haines had a vision in a sweat lodge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Creator told me to create a healing dugout and a healing totem,\u201d he said. He gestured to the wood chips piled at least two feet deep around the 40-foot dugout in Hoonah. \u201cThis one has been dedicated \u2014 it\u2019s a healing dugout for Hoonah.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a way for the Huna Tlingit to make their ceremonial return to Glacier Bay, and it\u2019s the beginning of a movement the carvers, and the people supporting the project, hope will continue in Hoonah and other communities in the years to come.<\/p>\n
Wayne Price has been working on the project for the last 15 weeks with his son, Steven Price, as well as carvers \u2014 and cousins \u2014 Zack James (Tl\u00e9l Tooch Tl\u00e1a.aa) and James Hart (Gooch \u00c9esh). All the apprentices, who work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, are volunteers, something James said is possible because of the support of the people of Hoonah.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing but support from the community,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t get paid, but what we\u2019re doing feels pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hart echoed that sentiment, as did Price, who left his job in New Mexico to come work on the canoes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was enjoyable to get a paycheck, but this is a lot more fulfilling,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
People bring them herring eggs and salmon, and sometimes they\u2019re invited to community meals. Just in the few hours the Capital City Weekly was in Hoonah, someone dropped off a box of food.<\/p>\n
One of the requirements Wayne Price has for those working on the canoe is that they live a clean lifestyle, with no beer or any other mind-altering substances.<\/p>\n
Hart said the experience of working on the canoe is \u201clife-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s challenged me physically and mentally,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really helped in pretty much all directions in my life, since I\u2019ve been here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also helped him become more immersed in Tlingit culture, he said. He\u2019s working with language teacher Heather Powell to learn more of the language.<\/p>\n
James said it\u2019s been very impactful to see the process from start to finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first line that gets drawn affects the whole thing,\u201d James said. \u201cBasically, you have to see where the dugout is inside the log.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really interesting to see how much mathematics there is in this,\u201d he added. \u201cWith stone tools and very crude measurement devices \u2014 sticks and string \u2014 they (our ancestors) were able to do much more than we are now. It\u2019s amazing to see how much precision was in their work. It\u2019s proof of their mastery of the form that they could make a 40-foot (or) 50-foot sculpture and have it be completely parallel on both sides. And their knowledge of wood, their ability to shape it \u2014 it\u2019s a testament to the greatness of Tlingit culture. People see that and they\u2019re really proud of what it is and what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Price said the 40-foot canoes are the largest he\u2019s ever carved. The log weighed 43,500 pounds when they started. It\u2019ll be carved down to about one-twentieth of that. The length of the canoe is studded with more than 400 one-inch pegs; the carvers are now scraping the log down until they reach those pegs. It\u2019ll soon be ready to be steamed open, at which time it will expand significantly.<\/p>\n
Each dugout will require about 15 paddlers, Price said, as well as backups.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are really stepping up to meet that demand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One of the ways they\u2019re stepping up is by carving. Price would like each person who paddles the boat to carve their own paddle. The carvers have been holding classes, with many people in the community attending. Two groups of high schoolers have also been carving paddles, with Steven Price leading the lessons.<\/p>\n
Hoonah elder Melvin Williams, 74, comes down every day to carve paddles, talk to the carvers and tell stories.<\/p>\n
His father, David Williams Sr., was a carver. \u201cHis work took him to London, to New York \u2014 it took him everywhere,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
It had been a long time since he\u2019d seen an artist like that in Hoonah, Williams said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Wayne came down. He is an artist,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Williams is carving paddles in case people want to make the trip but don\u2019t have one of their own. Right now, he\u2019s on his fourth.<\/p>\n
Huna Indian Association is funding the carving of the two 40-foot canoes with the help of federal highway funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognized the traditional transportation mode of the Tlingit … was becoming a lost art,\u201d said Huna Indian Association tribal administrator and CEO Bob Starbard.<\/p>\n
Hoonah carvers like Jeff Skaflestad are participating when they\u2019re able, he said.<\/p>\n
They also plan \u2014 and have the log for \u2014 a 33-foot veterans\u2019 canoe, which will be carved and used only by Hoonah\u2019s many veterans. Ultimately, Starbard said, they\u2019d like to make an even larger, ocean-going canoe, some of which were more than 60 feet long.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons HIA wanted Price to be the one behind the canoes is because of his approach to wellness, Starbard said. In recent years, two police officers were killed in Hoonah; the community also disagreed strongly about the location of a planned cruise ship dock, now 99 percent complete at Icy Strait Point, which is owned by Huna Totem Corp.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to use this canoe process of bringing healing back to the entire community,\u201d Starbard said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the third healing canoe Price has created.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach chip that comes off this dugout represents a life we (indigenous people) have lost to drugs,\u201d he said. \u201cAs people come by and they hear the story, … they put the name on a chip.\u201d<\/p>\n
The canoe is also meant to help heal other kinds of trauma such as sexual abuse or loss of culture.<\/p>\n
Those chips are piled high inside a beautifully carved bowl made from the burl of a tree.<\/p>\n
When they steam the canoe open, they will also conduct a ceremony and burn every last wood chip, Price said.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, each village had between 40 and 60 dugouts, Price said.<\/p>\n
The carvers hope every Tlingit community can begin making steps in that direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see a traditional-style dugout in every village and community,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust being in Jibba (the canoe Wayne Price brought to Hoonah) and doing the different activities that we\u2019ve done \u2014 it\u2019s led me here, led me to my culture, led me to a healthier lifestyle. … I\u2019m excited to see where it could take us. I\u2019m on board.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those activities was going out hunting. Steven Price harvested a seal, the first brought back to Hoonah in a dugout canoe in more than a century, Wayne Price said.<\/p>\n
Huna Tlingit will be paddling the canoes from Hoonah to Glacier Bay for the tribal house dedication ceremony Aug. 25, which is also the 100th anniversary \u2014 to the day \u2014 of the National Park Service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m building the ships to take my people home,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
To read a story about the cedar canoe carvers are making in Sitka, go to capitalcityweekly.com\/stories\/022416\/ae_1266859321.shtml.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact Capital City Weekly editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thirteen years ago, master carver Wayne Price of Haines had a vision in a sweat lodge. \u201cThe Creator told me to create a healing dugout and a healing totem,\u201d he said. He gestured to the wood chips piled at least two feet deep around the 40-foot dugout in Hoonah. \u201cThis one has been dedicated \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":31041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31040"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}