Students from Angoon led a parade of regalia-clad residents along The village’s Front Street on Monday. Family members and elders watched at the crowd as they played and sang Lingit songs during the afternoon sun. They then engaged in dances -the killer whale song and the dog salmon tune along with the Haida “tired paddler” song. Kids played on playground equipment in the sparkling waters in Chatham Strait, and visitors took videos with their smartphones.
The event was an occasion to celebrate to celebrate the enduring tradition — the students were in the process of naming the dugout sloop canoe they’d designed in collaboration with expert carver Wayne Price. When a canoe, also known as the yaakw or Lingit is first able to enter the water and gets its name, it’s at.oow an object of worship. The canoe of the students is one of the very first constructed to be launched Angoon following when the U.S. Navy shelled the village and destroyed the village’s winter canoes and war canoes in 1882. In 1882, the U.S. Navy has never publicly apologized for the incident.
Kyle Johnson Jr., the Angoon high School student sang the songs and dances together with Cheyenne Kookesh and Gabbi George-Frank who played drums. Johnson Jr. addressed the crowd, saying “In his grandfather’s words”Your presence here means all things,” he said, using his grandfather’s words. Albert Kookesh, an Alaska Federation of Natives leader and former state senator who passed away in 2021.
Cedar to at.oow
The canoe was originally an old red cedar log within the Angoon High School parking lot. It was there due to Jonathan Wunrow, then the interim president of Kootznoowoo Inc. Angoon’s village council was informed by shareholders that a canoe could be beneficial to the community.
Peter as well as Mary Jane Duncan, as and Donald Frank, told Wunrow that they’d like to collaborate together with Wayne Price. Wunrow and Kootznoowoo Inc. collected around $165,000 to fund the project, including Sealaska Corporation, the Crossett Fund, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Association, Sealaska Heritage Institute, the Rasmuson Foundation, Hecla Greens Creek Mine and The Juneau Community Foundation.
Students assisted Price daily, Wunrow said. It took just under an year to finish the project. Following the ceremony of steamingin which participants fast and put hot rocks into the canoe to release the wood Kootznoowoo, Inc. dedicated and donated the canoe to students of the school as well as Angoon students.
“This is about kids It’s about the community It’s about healing. It’s about resiliency,” the man said. He also used the words of Daniel Johnson Jr., the current leader of the Basket Bay House: “As Dan Johnson declared, “We’re still here. It’s true the community, and the residents of Angoon remain there.”
The ripple effect that the event had on the local community was apparent on Monday. Mayor Albert Kookesh III – son of former AFN governor and senator from the state – along with teacher Chenara Johnson encouraged the students as well as the crowd to the celebration.
“We’re there”
Visitors and residents crowded Front Street, including the crew of the Polynesian Hokule’a, a voyaging canoe that were in Angoon for a four-year transpacific journey.
Members of the community Frances as well as Jesse Daniels waited with Floyd Jim along with their grandchildren and children at an area at Front Street to watch the parade and dance.
“I’m happy for the children, of the things they achieved and of how they carry on the traditions and songs of our country,” said Jim. While he watched the children perform their dances by the 40-foot canoe his memory of the flurry of bullets was in his mind.
“We have to do things like this because back in the 1980s, my mom and dad visited D.C. to ask for an apology,” he said. “But there was no apology.”
The incident isn’t in the school’s curriculum “yet,” said Emma Demmert who is the director. The principal just completed her first year as the principal and returned to her home town.
“But it’s not”I mean, everyone is aware of this,” she said. “The children are aware of it. They are aware of that history.”
It’s a brutal moment in the history of American colonialism and the repression of the Lingit culture and language, and one that Angoon residents continue to grapple with.
Peter Frank was in the crowd during the ceremony to name the city. He was born in Angoon and said that when as a young person that the Lingit culture was not something which could be proudly displayed at Front Street.
“They instructed us to and hide,” he said. It was a time “when there were no white eyes looking.” He claimed that it changed when he grew older after attending boarding school at Mt. Edgumbe High School, in Sitka. The language and culture of Sitka are celebrated openly.
Launch
The students contacted three adults to help with the ceremony of naming.
Frank Jack III, a board member of Kootznoowoo Inc., wore an wolf-themed hat with his voice brimming filled with emotion when he spoke to the students as well as the crowd.
“This is something we’ve not seen before in our lifetimes. It’s an incredible privilege to be here today,” he said. “When it came time to hear the music being played at the time, I had a moment when I was crying because I’m satisfied. I’m proud of them for the work they’re accomplishing.”
A few impromptu shouts of “Gunalcheesh” were heard from the crowd “thank for your time,” and “thank you” in Lingit.
The two Daniel Johnson Jr. explained the ceremony of naming and recited the story of struggle and survival which heightened the significance of the canoe.
“Your grandfathers are in front of us today to announce that with the name you have chosen, we are at peace knowing that you’re prepared to move further,” Johnson said.
He had the Chilkat dress featuring a beaver pattern that was made around 1920. His uncles named him Lingit in honor of the prow piece of the only remaining canoe following his capture in the Angoon bombardment, which was carved in the shape of a bear.
“Our lifestyle and our way of life will live on as long as you hold onto the things in your soul that prompted you to join the creation of this canoe” he said to the students. “And we wish you keep that passion throughout your adulthood to ensure it’s possible that your way of living as well as our culture continue to flourish.”
He then repeated the names that the students had chosen to name the canoe 3 times Ch’a Tleix Ti Ch’a Tleix Ti Ch’a Tleix Ti.
Unity
Chenara Johnson has been the Lingit language instructor She’s also an instructor to many students since she was the director of the early school programme, Head Start. She was the project’s coordinator and assisted the students in choosing the name they would use for it.
“The students decided to join forces due to the fact that they’ve witnessed how divided our community can become,” she explained to the crowd on Monday. “The hopes are that we name the canoe Unity Ch’a Tleix Ti and that we will all eventually join forces to collaborate to be the community we would like to be.”
It took around a dozen individuals to ferry the canoe across Chatham Strait, including some members of the Hokule’a team. But most of them were students, who wore American-flag-printed life vests and carried hand-carved wooden paddles.
As guests, parents and other community members watched from the shore and pushed off. The canoe shook a bit but then settled and the youngsters started to paddle towards the mountains that were white-capped on Baranof Island. Gabbi George-Frank from the Aangoon Yatx’i dance group was standing at the bow of the vessel with a drum.
Johnson was tearful when she recalled the launch after the launch.
“As when I first observed the canoe move around and back and then stop I knew the canoe was there” the woman said. “And I knew they were safe. And I knew they were about to depart.”
She was discussing their development into adults She said that they were it was also about something else -as a basis that will support an Angoon Lingit community and its culture in Angoon.
“They’re prepared to share their knowledge to the younger generations,” the woman said.
“That is always an important thing is to ensure the kids understood who they are and what they were from. It’s all about making sure they know and feel comfortable. They are now. Now they are. And they’re now prepared to make sure that the coming generation will be okay.”
The story was originally published in Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.
