Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Haines master carver Wayne Price fulfilled a 20-year dream of participating in a multi-day journey on the Washington coast in a hand-carved dugout canoe with hundreds of Indigenous carvers earlier this this summer, and ended the trip with a once-in-a-lifetime honor of being carried on the shoulders of other participants in his dugout.

"That was the highest honor for dugout builders," said Price in a phone interview from Juneau, where he's teaching a carving class.

Price was hoisted on the shoulders of about 60 people who recognized his decades of contribution to promoting Tlingit carving as he was carried up from the beach at the last stop on his 10-day journey.

Price and a crew of paddlers took a canoe he had carved to Vancouver Island to take part in the Muckleshoot Canoe Journey. The annual event is an inter-tribal gathering that starts off the coast of British Columbia. Hundreds of paddlers travel from community to community, entering a new one each day to ceremonies, Native foods and a celebration of

Indigenous craftsmanship in villages beginning in Lady Smith, B.C., and ending in Muckleshoot, Washington.

The 2023 journey was the first held since 2019 after the COVID pandemic caused cancellations. Price, a master carver who has promoted Tlingit carving for decades and currently teaches carving at the University of Alaska Southeast, said he'd been hoping to travel there for years.

"I'd heard about them but never been able to make it down there," he said.

Earlier this year, he decided that there was no sense in waiting, even though he didn't know exactly how to go about organizing participation He reached out to a few former students, including Skaydu.û Jules, who is Tlingit from the Dakhl'awèdi Eagle/Killer whale clan from Teslin in the Yukon Territories and a language student at UAS. Skaydu.û. He had helped Price carve a 28-foot canoe a few years earlier in Angoon, and jumped at the opportunity, along with another apprentice, Sarah Muehleck.

"I thought about how sacred that time was," she said. "Because we'd worked so much and put that time in, he invited us to be part of it."

Skaydu.û, Price, and Muehleck called themselves Yaakw Ḵwáan, or North Tide.

The crew sent letters to several groups involved with cultural development, and got some donations from organizations including the Council of Yukon First Nations, TakingITGlobal and the Assembly of First Nations Yukon. Price said the donations helped, but there was also a sense the group was just making something happen.

"We didn't have the support, we just did it," he said.

The three got in a truck and set forth on the nearly thousand-mile drive towing the 400-pound canoe, called the Jibba canoe. The canoe has traveled more than 1,000 nautical miles, Skaydu.û said.

The three added Chookenshaa Patricia Allen-Dick and the crew took off on their route, paddling as much as 26 miles per day from village to village. The four flew a flag in honor of the bones of lost children found at residential schools. At each stop, Skaydu.û, the appointed spokesperson, would come disembark and ask permission to come ashore as part of the protocol. On shore, the group shared music, dancing and traditional foods.

"It was an incredible event to behold," said Price.

As the "canoe family" traveled along, more and more canoe families started to join. Skaydu.û explained that in Tlingit culture, everything has a spirit, and said the North Tide bonded with their own canoe as they went along. But they were also increasingly awed by other boats they saw around them which had come from Hawai'i, Canada and New Zealand.

"Some were fiberglass, some were carved, some were old growth," she said, "It was so amazing to be able to see the mastery of Indigenous woodwork and canoe building come into fruition."

The crew started to grow as well. Chookenshaa, a 12-time veteran of the journey and Skaydu.û, put out the word, and soon four other women joined the crew, including Noelani Auguston, Kiera (Nangkaajuss), Deena Watson, and Taleetha Taith.

The work was physically exhausting, Skaydu.û said. They paddled through blistered fingers, scorching sun and crashing waves for hours each day.

"It was really, really hard, especially the first couple days," she said about dealing with the waves. "Once we grew and once our family grew, we sang together, we laughed - that really empowered us and energized us."

After nine stops in nine days, the team came to the final stop on the Alki Beach on traditional Duwamish Muckleshoot territory. Skaydu.û asked for permission to come ashore. She whispered to her boatmates not to let Price leave the boat. She asked Price to move to the back of the canoe and turn his body around.

"He didn't really know what to expect," Skaydu.û said.

About 20 people lifted him up, first on their hips, but as more people joined, they hoisted him even higher on their shoulders and carried him on shore.

"I didn't have to put my feet on the ground," Price said. "It was a great honor for me."

The idea came from others who had been bestowed a similar honor, including Chief Frank Nelson, one of the founders of the canoe journey. To Skaydu.û, Price was worthy of the same honor for his years of work carving, teaching, and keeping Tlingit art culture alive. She said she thinks other participants understood what he had done as well.

"Every one on Canoe Journeys knows what it takes to become a canoe builder. You earn being called a master by years of dedication," said Skaydu.û.

She said for the rest of the trip as the crews traveled to Muckleshoot for the final gathering, people approached Price differently.

"He had that famous star quality," she said.

Skaydu.û said the experience marked her - and everyone else on the journey - profoundly, even more than a month after the trip.

"It was one of the most special moments of my life so far. Wayne is such a special person to so many of us."