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‘Welcome to our homeland’: More than 100 paddlers arrive in Juneau for Celebration
- Jasz Garrett
- 11 hours ago
- 8 min read
‘Everybody’s ready for you, to see you, to greet you.’
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Darlene McKinley said she was looking forward to the Deisheetaan canoe arriving from Angoon at the Huna Totem Corp. lot downtown on Tuesday afternoon. She joined a circle of drummers from a variety of dance groups waiting to welcome three canoes carrying paddlers from across Southeast Alaska to Juneau.
Hundreds of others gathered to celebrate their arrival. A total of 13 canoes landed in Juneau, with one group arriving downtown and the other at Auke Recreation Area.
McKinley, who is of the Deisheetan clan and with the Juneau Tlingit and Haida Elders Group, said she has attended almost every Celebration since the dance-and-culture festival began in 1982.
“We’re welcoming our ancestors ashore to Juneau,” she said. “It’s very important to our interspirits and our entire being. Celebration is how we connect to our ancestors here today.”
For many, the canoe landings signal the start of Celebration, a four-day biennial event organized by Sealaska Heritage Institute that officially begins Wednesday.
The event celebrates cultural revitalization and the yaakw (canoe) journey is a part of that, said Doug Chilton, the president of the One People Canoe Society.
“For me it’s incredible, it’s a dream come true for me because I was the one who started it,” he said about the journey to Celebration, which began more than two decades ago. “My son, my dream when we first started this was to bring this to life back in Southeast Alaska and, with the other landing and this landing, I believe we’ve accomplished our dream.”
He said there have been other dreams fulfilled along the way, like bringing clan hats back to shore. Chilton held Teeł’ S'aaxhw (Dog Salmon Hat), the one made to replace the clan hat Angoon lost in the U.S. Navy’s 1882 bombardment of Angoon. He said the Deisheetan clan leader asked him to speak on his behalf since he was unable to attend.
His son, Michael Chilton, the skipper of the Eagle canoe, said he first became involved with the One People Canoe Society at 9 years old through races, before his first journey in Washington five years later.
Both the Eagle and Raven One People Canoe Society canoes represent Angoon. The Raven canoe was nearly full of veteran pullers. Michael Chilton said the two canoes departed from Juneau last Monday and left Angoon last Wednesday. Then the groups made their way back for Tuesday's canoe landing, picking up more people along the way.
“The way that we understand the water between here and Angoon where we traveled from, timing was everything,” he said. “Every day, getting up at 4 o'clock a.m. to get out on the water by 5 or 6 a.m. and then paddling all day. That way we're following the tide, tide pushes us, the wind pushes us, and if we're ever fighting it, we hook up and we make sure that everybody's safe, and we tow to a good point, pop back in, and go home.”
While Michael Chilton said they couldn’t have asked for better weather for their landing, the journey was a different story. He said there was rain, wind and even hail.
“Today and yesterday were the best days of it and, honestly, today even better because we landed,” he said. “You come around and, before you see the crowd, you know you’re going to be hit with a wave of just that energy coming at you. Everybody’s ready for you, to see you, to greet you. And we’re bringing people from their hometowns to here.”
It was Megan Hawkins’ first journey. She pulled in with the veterans on the Raven canoe, as a former signal support system specialist for the U.S. Army.
“I wanted the experience and just to see what it felt like because I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said. “It was definitely difficult at times. It made me realize what I can do.”
Veterans will also be honored at 11 a.m. Wednesday with a totem pole raising at the Veterans Memorial Park.
“This special gathering recognizes the strength, service, and dedication of our Native veterans and community,” an announcement for the event by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska states.
The Áak’w Kwáan welcomed the Tluu Kustí canoe with paddlers from Yakutat, Petersburg, and Kake, the Hoonah canoe, and the North Tide canoe representing Haines and Haines Junction. Petersburg’s first canoe in over a century was also among the ten canoes landing at the Auke Recreation Area.
Celebration’s Grand Entrance is scheduled at 5 p.m. Wednesday, beginning at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall and proceeding along Willoughby Avenue to Centennial Hall. More than 1,800 dancers from 34 dance groups are expected to participate in Celebration this year.
Sheeshan Colin Rose, the song and dance leader for the Douglas Indian Association, said a group he is a part of, the Anáx Akawdigán Yé Al'éixi, will dance for its second Celebration.
“I’m looking forward to this again; we’ve been working hard,” he said. “We just had a performance in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the last gathering of All Nations in April and had three performances there, and four the next day.”
Rose was one of many who greeted paddlers with a song on Tuesday.
Ooskan.T’aak Kwa’an Ben Coronell, the Yanyeidi clan leader for the Juneau area, landed on the Eagle canoe.
“It’s good to see my relatives, my grandfather’s people,” Coronell said upon arrival. “I’m happy to be back home. My heart beats with the drums. I love you. I love my people.”
The Tʼaaḵu Ḵwáan held a cultural ceremony downtown celebrating the arrival of the One People Canoe Society Eagle and Raven canoe and a brand-new SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium canoe from Sitka. Clan leaders aboard the canoes request permission from the local clan to come ashore.
“Welcome to our homeland,” the paddlers were told before the boats were lifted and carried up the beach.
The Sitka canoe, named “Ancestral Echoes,” was designed by Tlingit artist Weidaaka Yoodooha (Bill Pfeifer Jr.) of the Chookaneidí clan, and is a depiction of a visual timeline of identity and healing in three sections, according to a SEARHC social media post.
“The stern honors the guidance of past masters in red,” the post states. “The mid-section, in teal, moves through the Quiet Period — a time of colonial suppression — where wave-like forms carry the spirit faces of ancestors who kept culture alive in silence. The bow, in black, belongs to the living generation: forward-leaning, reclaiming, driving the canoe ahead.”
Amy Skeek welcomed her relatives to Juneau after their five-day journey on the SEARHC canoe, roughly 130 nautical miles.
“I’ve just been crying since I’ve heard the drums, so beautiful,” she said. “I’ve had goosebumps all day. Seriously so happy.”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
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