Five canoes arrived at Jamestown Beach on June 21 to be hosted by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe for dinner, singing and dancing and to camp for the night before taking off for Elwha landing at Hollywood Beach. This was the Jamestown landing of the Paddle to Bella Bella.
About 130 people attended the dinner at the Red Cedar Hall in the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center in Blyn including pullers, from left, Melissa Smith, Cliff Scott, Vicki Lowe, Mary Snodgrass, Cathy MacGregor, JD Aldrich, Andrea Bryans-MacGregor, Scott MacGregor, and Skipper Paul Bowlby, in background.
The dinner “went very well,” said Vickie Carrol, cultural coordinator for Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The night was full of singing, dancing and some storytelling.
This year the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe only has one canoe and nine pullers participating in the Tribal Canoe Journey. Because of the limited amount of pullers and the time commitment, the tribe decided to participate in the shorter journey — pulling from Port Townsend to Jamestown and then to Elwha and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Esquimalt reserve west of Victoria.
However, some of the tribe’s “Canoe Family” will also be involved the weeklong protocol ceremony in Bella Bella, which begins when all of the canoes arrive there on July 13-19. The Heiltsuk people of Bella Bella call it the Qatuwas Festival.
