{"id":33830,"date":"2018-06-05T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/spiritual-and-powerful-canoes-land-at-douglas-harbor-for-celebration\/"},"modified":"2018-06-05T17:14:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T00:14:00","slug":"spiritual-and-powerful-canoes-land-at-douglas-harbor-for-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/spiritual-and-powerful-canoes-land-at-douglas-harbor-for-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Spiritual and powerful\u2019: Canoes land at Douglas Harbor for Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Tvt09KJV8QY\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Drums and traditional songs filled the air at Douglas Harbor on Tuesday afternoon as Alaska Natives from all over Southeast Alaska made their way into the boating dock.<\/p>\n<p>One People Canoe Society gathered together nine canoes filled with anywhere between 13-17 paddlers from Ketchikan, Sitka, Kake, Angoon, Hoonah, Yakutat and the Taku River in Canada, who each paddled their way into the harbor from their hometowns. It was the unofficial start to this year\u2019s Celebration, the four-day biennial festival celebrating Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures.<\/p>\n<p>Clan leaders welcomed the canoes as they arrived from their several day journey. As the boats came to the dock, paddlers in the canoes would then asked if they had permission to come on land in front of a crowd of hundreds of people.<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/slideshow\/2018-06-05\/canoes-arrive-celebration\" target=\"_blank\">PHOTOS: Canoes arrive for Celebration<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Once on land, the paddlers and those greeting them shared nothing but smiles, hugs and kisses.<\/p>\n<p>Miguel Contreras, of Hoonah, said the journey is a cultural celebration of physical and mental strength.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the culture, it is a great thing because it brings everyone together,\u201d Contreras, who paddled on the Yakutat canoe, said. \u201cWhen you are on the canoe, you work together as a team. You push through bad weather and everything else you have to make it through the end. It is very spiritual and very powerful. Everybody enjoys every second of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the younger paddlers, Sidney Austin, 12, of Kake, was proud of his achievement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt means a lot to me that I got to go on that journey at my age and that I made it through,\u201d Austin said.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Sixbey, who is an education specialist from Sitka, did more than paddle for the journey \u2014 he also helped make the paddles. Sixbey said he was approached by Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium which asked if he would help make paddles for the journey. After several Saturday workshops, Sixbey and others crafted the paddles for the journey. While the weather conditions went from one extreme to the next, Sixbey said it was worth all the effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has been amazing,\u201d Sixbey said. \u201cWe set off six days ago when we paddled, ate breakfast, paddled, ate lunch, paddled some more until we would set up camp. It has been that routine. We would wake up, break down camp and do it all again. It was hot the first couple of days and yesterday everybody got rained on. Spirits were high for a while before the cold set in. But, being here is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The paddlers from all over Southeast Alaska and Canada have been making this journey every two years in correlation with Celebration since 2002.<\/p>\n<p>One of the Taku River canoe greeters, Caitlin O\u2019Shea of Atlin, British Columbia, Canada, said being a part of this tradition is special.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, bringing everybody together for Celebration is coming together to celebrate our culture and reviving it,\u201d O\u2019Shea said. \u201cIt\u2019s about celebrating being with each other and celebrating life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott also joined in on the last leg of the journey. Mallott said the event is more than bringing Alaska Native cultures together, but about bringing Alaskans together in general.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a continuation of the development and the strengthening of cultures throughout all of Southeast Alaska,\u201d Mallott said. \u201cIt is a celebration, it is a reaffirmation of who we are. Hopefully, it is bringing Alaskans, whoever they are, together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taku River Wolf Clan leader James Williams said the event is a reminder of the importance of time. Williams said his mother used to remind him that they would travel days in canoes to celebrate a family member\u2019s first moose kill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a great gathering of our people coming from all over like they used to travel in the old days in a canoe,\u201d Williams said. \u201cFor me, it means a lot. It is not often that we do this. \u2018We have got no time,\u2019 we always say. We have got to learn how to manage time. Gatherings like this will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>\u2022 Contact reporter Gregory Philson at gphilson@juneauempire.com or call at 523-2265. Follow him on Twitter at @GTPhilson.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drums and traditional songs filled the air at Douglas Harbor on Tuesday afternoon as Alaska Natives from all over Southeast Alaska made their way into the boating dock. One People Canoe Society gathered together nine canoes filled with anywhere between 13-17 paddlers from Ketchikan, Sitka, Kake, Angoon, Hoonah, Yakutat and the Taku River in Canada, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":431,"featured_media":33831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33830","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\/431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33830"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}