HOONAH — On a recent Tuesday in Hoonah, community members and carvers stood near the canoe carving shelter Yaakw Kahidi, arranging large black, porous rocks beneath huge, burning logs. In front of them lay the dugout canoe four Haines carvers — lead carver Wayne Price, along with apprentices James Hart, Zack James, and son Steven Price — had been working on for months.
The night before, they’d paddled the canoe out on the water. Then they’d turned it over and sunk it, soaking it overnight. At six that morning, they’d pulled it out and hauled it to its space between Yaakw Kahidi and the Hoonah Indian Association building.
This day was the day the canoe would transform, expanding from around 37 inches at its widest point to, carvers hoped, between 66 and 72 inches.
It wasn’t without its challenges. During a few cold days over the winter, wind had hit the side of the canoe as they were carving, and the canoe cracked along that side. They’d fixed those cracks with the wooden equivalent of butterfly bandages — figure-8 shaped pieces of wood which intersect the closed crack at its narrowest point, ensuring that when the canoe flexes outwards, the crack won’t open up.
At six in the morning, when they brought the canoe back on shore, there was “no shortage of manpower,” said Wooshkeetaan clan leader Dennis Gray Sr.
“It’s amazing the interest it’s created within our community,” he said. “It’s pulling our community together. We’ve been a pretty divided community for the number of years. All the Hoonah kaawu (Hoonah people) — it’s so heartwarming to see all this happening.”
“We could see the silhouettes of all the people up on the shore when we were bringing it out,” said carver Zack James. Some of those silhouettes were students, waking up early before going to school; some were community members, waking up early before going to work. “Everything we’ve done so far has been for this day. The canoe is shaped by the steaming. Every part of the canoe will change… this is the day where it goes from being a log to the dugout.”
By eight in the morning, the canoe was filled with a several inches of sea water, the fire was blazing, and the rocks were getting extremely hot. Someone reached into the canoe and pulled out a strand of seaweed.
“It’s feeling quite a bit more real,” said carver James Hart. “We’re in Wayne’s world.”
Everyone directly involved with the expansion of the canoe had fasted; the carvers began fasting at 6 a.m. the day before. (Traditionally, people would fast as long as three or four days, Zack James said.)
Community members hauled out tarps to cover the canoe and trap the steam, once the water heated up. And then it was underway; Zack James and Owen James, a carver on the Xunaa Shuká Hít, the Glacier Bay tribal house, began moving the first rocks out of the fire with lengthened metal rakes and arranging them on a metal rack. They carried them over to the canoe and lowered the rack into the water, under Wayne Price’s direction. Community members immediately covered the canoe with the tarp.
Then, more people brought another load over, and another. Price wedged a piece of wood across the top of the canoe, to encourage the wood to expand. They switched out cooled rocks for heated ones, and raked the cool ones back into the fire. People tilted their ears toward the canoe, and the sound of the water beginning to sizzle, the canoe beginning to expand. “Can you hear it?” one asked. “I can feel it,” another answered.
“It’s like breathing life back into the tree,” said Chookaneidi clan leader Jack Lee.
Come August, the tree being transformed into a dugout will be one of the two forty foot spruce canoes Hoonah community members will paddle to Bartlett Cove for the Huna Tlingits’ ceremonial return to Glacier Bay, and the dedication of Xunaa Shuká Hít, the Bartlett Cove tribal house currently under construction.
Lee remembers back when discussions about the clan house began in 1990. It was the same time he quit drinking, he said.
Lead carver Wayne Price went through his own struggles with alcohol. Communal healing from alcohol, drugs, and other forms of trauma, including sexual abuse and loss of culture, has become a central theme throughout the carving process.
Price spoke about the need both for recovery and unity among different peoples.
“In a time in Indian country when so much was taken away — this belongs to us,” Price said. “Helping to bring our culture back, in this modern day today. It’s so rare, and it’s so precious, and it’s so beautiful.”
People began to sing, and to drum.
As the water heated enough that the rocks could stay in for a longer period of time, people gathered around a bowl carved out of the burl of a tree. It was full of chips with names written on them. Each chip represented someone negatively affected by some form of trauma.
Bill Gray Sr. said a prayer in Tlingit, and then people began taking handfuls of the chips — some with names they’d written themselves — and throwing them on the fire in a symbolic cleansing.
As the biggest of the canoes Wayne Price has carved, “this one is very special,” said Steven Price, who’s been present for the majority of the canoes his father has steamed open. This is Steven Price’s sixth. “The chips around the canoe — that was my playground growing up.”
For most of the other people there, the event was a new one.
“I’ve never seen one of these before,” said elder Genevieve Cook, who was born in Excursion Inlet and raised in Hoonah, as her grandson, Bill Dalton Sr., arranged her in a chair near the fire, beneath blankets and a rainbow umbrella. “It’s exciting… the spirits are happy.”
Kids began arriving from school, taking measurements — the canoe had expanded to 45 inches at its widest point — and notes for English class.
Bill Wilson, the clan leader of the Kach-adi, said if a steaming has happened in Hoonah, it was before his time.
“This is really exciting,” he said. “The guys doing the work are really great artists.” He gestured to the 40-foot log destined to become the second of the two canoes. “Just a few months ago, it was another tree like this,” he said.
“To come from a real log to this is really amazing,” echoed elder Melvin Williams.
As the wood heated, Price replaced the wedges of wood, cutting them longer and longer. By a little before noon, the canoe was more than 55 inches at its widest point. Water was dripping through some of the pre-existing cracks, but the butterflies were holding fast.
Then, around 12:10 p.m. and 59 inches across, a new crack developed — near the pre-existing ones — and the water began to leave the canoe more quickly. They rolled back the tarp, took out the rocks, wound rope onto wood laid across the top and bottom of the canoe to help cinch the crack shut, and began clean out the ash that had settled to the bottom of the canoe.
To have developed a new crack during the steaming process “stings,” Price said, but it’s by no means the end of the story. They only have seven to 12 more inches to expand the canoe. Though a crack is disappointing, it’s not uncommon. Cherri Price, Wayne’s wife, said she’s seen cracks the entire length of a canoe — and that after it’s repaired, you can’t tell at all.
“It’s a bit of a blow, but if it’s made out of wood, we can fix it,” Price said. “We’ll figure out how to fix it so it doesn’t happen again.”
The next day, Wayne and Steven Price, Hart, and James began both mending the crack and carving the second of the two 40-foot spruce canoes that the Huna Tlingit will paddle to Glacier Bay.
Even after the steaming is complete, there will be more work to do, Hart said. They’ll paint it, and put in seats.
The carving of the two canoes, along with the tribal house in Glacier Bay and the ceremonial return of the Huna Tlingit on August 26, is “a history-making event for our community,” Gray said. “It’s bringing out our cultural pride for all our people.”
“Our ancestors did this for 10,000 years,” Price told people throughout the event. “We’ll figure it out.”
• Read previous stories on the events surrounding the ceremonial return of the Huna Tlingit to Glacier Bay here: http://bit.ly/20w8E7g. And here: http://bit.ly/1Q3rpY2.
• Contact Capital City Weekly managing editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com.
James Hart and Zack James carry heated rocks from the fire to the canoe.
Zack James, James Hart and Herb Sheakley rake heated rocks out of the fire to place in the canoe.
Melvin Williams measures the canoe. It expanded from around 37 inches at its widest point to around 59 inches before it developed a crack. Carvers are repairing the crack before they resume steaming. At his right are James Hart, Cherri Price, Wayne Price and Ted Hart. At the bottom of the canoe is ash from the heated rocks, which community members later washed out.
Ted and Adze Hart, who is seven months old, watch as the canoe is steamed. Ted is brother to apprentice James Hart, and came down from Haines with Meghan Elliott to participate in the final week of carving and the steaming. Adze danced and offered moral support as community members and carvers drummed.
Owen James, who is carving panels and poles for the tribal house in Glacier Bay, holds a handful of wood chips with names on them, all of which were removed from the canoe being steamed open. Community members wrote the names of friends and family members affected by drugs, alcohol, abuse, or other forms of trauma and burned those chips as a symbolic cleansing as the canoe was being steamed open.
Don Bolton, left, and James Hart carry fire-heated rocks to the canoe for steaming as lead carver Wayne Price evaluates the expansion’s progress.
In the foreground, from left, carvers Zack James, Ted Hart and James Hart dance as Ted Hart drums. Zack James and James Hart are in Hoonah from Haines for several months to carve two forty-foot spruce canoes for the ceremonial return of the Huna Tlingit to Glacier Bay; Ted Hart came down with his family for the week to help out. In the foreground is the fire on which they’re heating the rocks to steam the canoe, covered with a tarp in the background.
