We sat down with Nigel Lawrence to learn more about canoe journeys, from history to current processes and significance. We would like to thank Nigel immensely for sharing his time and knowledge with us, and for the phenomenal work he is doing to assist the UW Canoe Family. 

Prior to European colonization, canoeing was a significant part of life in the Pacific Northwest.

“We traveled from place to place to see each other, to visit each other, to go to weddings, to go to funerals, name-giving ceremonies... etc."

Canoeing was a practical transportation method, as much as it was culturally important.

"It's easier to go across the Sound… to Seattle by water, by canoe, than it is to… walk down to the bottom of Puget Sound and back up to Seattle, right? Everything's just across the sound on a canoe."

When traveling to places a several day canoe journey away "we would stop each night at another village, at another tribe along the way and they would host us... there'd be a cool feast and we'd share… gifts… thanking them for letting us be there and the host would… gift us to show how awesome they are... And we would continue on doing this at every stop along the way."

White settlement not only disrupted, but actively worked to keep traditions like this from persisting.

"Our culture was outlawed, was banned, was prohibited… At some point, they found it was cheaper to educate us..., kidnapped our children, put them in boarding schools to brainwash, assimilate them, give them… good white names and prohibit them from speaking their language.”

Annual canoe journeys as they exist today began in 1989, the first being the Paddle to Seattle founded by Emmet Oliver (Quinalt). Since then, the canoe journey has been a distinct force of cultural revitalization and celebration each year.

“To relearn, to reteach our culture, canoe journeys have become the way we do that. I like to say the canoe is literally and figuratively carrying our culture; that it's a vessel that brings our people together to learn about our culture, to learn how these things were done…. we go on the journey to paddl[e] the same Puget Sound that our ancestors did;... our ancestors' highway.”

“I always say culture is cure."

Lawrence discussed the high rates of drug and alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency, suicide, and other somber statistics exhibited in Native American populations throughout the country.

"All of these things are symptoms of assimilation, symptoms of colonization; the boarding schools, our culture being taken from us. And so I've always said the cure is getting our culture back…. learning our culture, giving a strong sense of identity is a protective factor,... [it] give[s] you something to work on, to look forward to.”

Among the numerous avenues that the center supports, the UW Canoe Family came up for Dennison as a proud representation of the work that CAIIS is doing and the values it holds.

“It breaks down the barriers between Native faculty, staff, and students, where students—especially ones who've actively participated in canoe families and other places—can offer different insight than faculty."

The nature of a canoe family based in an educational institution also means "it breaks down a lot of the barriers between departments or divisions, and we can think across whatever discipline somebody might be involved in and come together in these powerful ways.”