Indians 101: Dugout canoes of the Upper Columbia River (museum tour)

by Ojibwa for Native American Netroots

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Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2022 Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2022 at 7:18:03am PDT

For the tribes living along the Columbia River, the river was a superhighway and canoes were an important part of their cultures. A special exhibit in the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC) in Spokane entitled Awakenings: Canoes and Calling the Salmon Home highlighted the economic, cultural, and spiritual importance of canoes to the indigenous peoples of the Upper Columbia River.

According to the Museum:

“The MAC, in collaboration with the United Tribes of the Upper Columbia (UCUT) tells the story of the annual Columbia River Canoe Journey – from the purchase of old growth cedar logs and carving the dugouts to the annual launch and landing at Kettle Falls - through contemporary and historic canoes supported by the words of those who have experienced it.”

P1250988 — An old growth cedar log is shown above.

According to MAC:

“This log cross section is saved from the original cedar dugout carvings—each ring from this tree represents one year. The tree’s first year of life was 1324 AD and it was logged in 2014. There are 690 rings, making the trees that these canoes are carved from almost 700 years old!”

P1260007 — The map shows some of the village locations.

For the tribes living along the Upper Columbia River, salmon made up about 70% of the diet. The fish were dried and stored for sustenance between harvests. It has been estimated that each person consumed more than two pounds of salmon per day.

Spokane

The Spokane Indians (also spelled Spokan) are a Salish-speaking people. With regard to the overall Spokan territory, William Lewis, in his 1917 book The Case of Spokane Garry, writes:

“Generally speaking the Spokanes claimed as their own all the territory extending from the head waters of the Chimokaine to the mouth of the Spokane River; down the south side of the Columbia as far as the mouth of the Okanogan; south to the head of the Snake River water shed; east to about the line of the present towns of Post Falls and Rathdrum.”

The ancestors of the Spokane Tribe of Indians lived in family groups along the Spokane River between Coeur d’Alene Lake and Little Falls. There were three bands named for the kind of salmon or habits of the fish.

The 2016 cedar dugout canoe of the Spokane Tribe Canoe Family is named “Many Backs.”

Colville

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant issued an executive order establishing the Colville Reservation for the Salish-speaking Indian nations in north central Washington. These tribes had traditionally occupied the tributaries of the upper half of the Columbia River. The people spoke closely related Interior Salish languages, with the Lakes, Colviles, Sanpoils, Nespelems, southern Okanogans, and Met-hows forming on dialect chain and the Chelans, Entiats, Peskwaws (Wenatchis), and Columbians forming a second dialect chain. Today these tribes plus the Joseph Band of Nez Perce and the Palus form the 12 bands of the Confederated tribes of the Colville Reservation.

With regard to the spiritual importance of the canoe, John Sirois of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville of the Colville Reservation says:

“When you’re in that canoe, you all have to be in balance, literally and figuratively, because if you tip one way or the other you’re going to be in the water. You try to make sure that your body is in balance so that you’re not going in the water but you’re going straight, and you have a purpose.

There’s a lot of life lessons in that, how you can achieve things by working together and pulling together.”