Munu Canoe Journeys - Keeping Culture Alive

Tribal Canoe Journeys is an annual event that revives the cultural practices of Coastal Indigenous Nations nearly lost as a direct result of colonization. It has become an important act of cultural revitalization for First Nations peoples, community healing, and youth empowerment. Families and teams from various Nations paddle canoes, traditional painted and carved from a single log or cedar strip, along the Pacific Northwest Coast to a destination where everyone gathers and participates in days-long potlatching; feasting, dancing, drumming and sharing of protocol. From as far north as Bella Bella, as far west as Ahousat, and south as Oregon, paddlers overnight at various homelands along the journey route to a destination that changes each year. Members of some nations restore traditional techniques for timber harvesting, ocean-going canoe building, and the teaching of canoe and paddling skills to new generations.

The journeys have been revived this year for the first time since the pandemic (2019) and take place over three weeks in July and August. The Munu Family, led by Snuneymuxw First Nation Elder Gary Manson, seek your financial contributions to support the costs of re-embarking on this magnificent experience. Costs include: Canoe maintenance ; Safety Boat maintenance ; Fuel for safety boat and support vehicles ; food for 40 paddlers and support team ; ferry costs for vehicles ; safety gear.

My traditional name is Xulsimalt, and I’m the child of Thu’kii’qaluct and Tlimta’naat, connected to the villages of Chemainus, Shell Beach, Victoria and Sechelt, through the lineage of my grandparents. My borrowed name is Gary Manson.

I initially went with my niece on Tribal Journeys in 1998, because she was grieving the death of her father. My part in Tribal Journeys that year was to be on the escort boat. In 2008 VIU asked me to take faculty, members of VIU and students on a canoe journey from Pt. Hardy to Duncan, to the celebration of the Indigenous Games in Duncan. This was my first introduction to canoeing with Tribal Journeys.

I’ve been involved with different aspects of Tribal Journeys. For a couple of years I was an elder with Kw’umut Lelum Childrens’ Society, an organization that supports Indigenous youth in care to reconnect with their cultures. When the youth went on Tribal Journeys my job was to talk about culture and teach them some language. I actually taught them some language at that time, and the importance of culture.

I’ve been on eleven Tribal Journeys, each time with a different group. Often it was with students from VIU, First Nation students, and some faculty members. And with First Nations students it is always about embracing culture. For many of the students culture was lost in their communities, and it was a chance to embrace some culture, even though it may not have been from their territory. It was still something they found medicine in, even though they were singing Coast Salish songs with me and dancing with me. I was willing to share my culture, as much as I was allowed to share. There were some things I wasn’t allowed to share because they were sacred to our Long House, but it was an opportunity to have young people sitting with an elder for a period of two weeks.

My primary role is around culture, encouragement, mostly to encourage young people to understand the history and to understand there is going to be a resurgence in our culture and they’re the ones who are going to revive it. And I tell them it’s not going to be the same as our ancestors but not to be ashamed to step forward and embrace it. I think that has been my role.

I was involved heavily with my own culture, with our Long House for many years, so I have a good cultural background, and I see the value in that and in being willing to share it with young people, no matter where they’re from. Because First Nations, no matter where they’re from, are connected to their surroundings in a spiritual way, and it’s not much different whether it’s canoeing or powwow Dancing, whatever they do in their territories.

Tribal Journeys has had a huge success since it started. I believe it started in Bella Bella during EXPO 86, and no one understood where it was going to grow from that event. An idea was born somewhere, it was born there, and I’ve witnessed over the years villages that are stagnant and not dancing or singing, and I think the influence of Tribal Journeys has brought many communities to come together and share songs. I know there were people that were going into villages and saying, Hey I will help you. I will help you to stand up again. You could see this influence from the Kwakiutl to the Coast Salish, you can see the influence in the songs now.

But I think it’s something we’re all willing to embrace and have an understanding that we all come from the same place, we all come from the same suppressive history, and the willingness on Tribal Journeys to share each others songs is awesome and beautiful. So with hearing that, even for me, it hasn’t come to its full fruition yet. Tribal Journeys is going to keep growing and where it ends up is not visible yet.

I acquired Munu canoe from my brother-in-law who was a canoe builder. Munu means my blood child. Munu is a cedar strip canoe, and my first idea was to get involved in eco tourism. However I kept getting called to Tribal Journeys, so I had no time for eco tourism. I enjoy watching especially people who come on Tribal Journeys for the first time, how it affects them both spiritually and culturally, both Indigenous and nonindigenous participants. The camaraderie of it, the discipline that is born in a canoe family, whether on the canoe or in the escort boat or among the escort crew. If you don’t have the right leader things can fall apart really quickly. You have to think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Tribal Journeys has been, and will continue to be, a beautiful thing.