A wrong, 205 years old, was righted Saturday along the banks of the Columbia River. Under swaying alder trees and in the smoke of cooking salmon, a private ceremony of forgiveness was held between a nation and a family.
In 1806, members of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery expedition stole a canoe from the Chinook Indian Nation days before the Corps’ return journey up the Columbia River from their winter camp at Fort Clatsop. On Saturday, a replica of that canoe was given back to the tribe by descendants of Captain William Clark.
Lewis and Clark justified the theft as payback for elk meat the tribe had earlier stolen from the expedition. But the tribe already had paid back its debt. More likely, the expedition members knew their crudely constructed canoes couldn’t match the fast and expertly made tribal canoes, or they simply needed an extra one and didn’t have the time to make it.
Fast-forward 200 years to a Virginia river where Clark descendant Carlota “Lotsie” Clark Holton wound up in a canoe with Ray Gardner, chairman of the Chinook Nation, during an American Rivers organization outing.
Holton knew her ancestor had taken the canoe, but it wasn’t until that 2008 chance meeting that she learned from Gardner that a canoe is just more than a means of conveyance to native peoples.
“I never realized that a canoe was a living part of the Chinook. It’s like a wife or child,” Lotsie Holton said.
Canoes were indeed like a member of the family and are sacred, said Kate Elliott, Chinook Tribal councilwoman.
“If you took a house and a car and your kids and put them all into one thing, that would be how important a canoe is to native tribes,” Elliott said.
In a time before roads, canoes were essential to the native way of life. A canoe was the Chinook people’s means for food, protection, trading and funeral practices. Canoe construction took months, and the know-how was passed down through generations.
It was shortly after that meeting on the river that Holton and her husband, Rick, residents of St. Louis, decided to make amends.
And so on Saturday, a sea-worthy 36-foot replica canoe was repatriated to the Chinook people at Fort Columbia State Park.
Meriwether Lewis himself could not plead ignorance of a canoe’s importance. In his journal entry of March 10, 1806, he writes that an Indian canoe “… is an article of the greatest value except a wife with whom it is equal, and generally given in exchange to the father for his daughter.”
“It was clearly a breach of trust,” said Rick Holton. “They (the Corps) truly were in the hands of the Chinook people for their survival that winter.”
The Holtons spearheaded the effort to raise $30,000 in private donations to pay for a new canoe, first asking permission from the tribe if it was agreeable to the gesture.
Lotsie Holton and Gardner noted that they were both the seventh-generation descendants of their ancestors who interacted with each other in 1805-06 – a generation of healing, Gardner said.
On Friday, the tribe hosted Clark family members and took them to points of interest: Dismal Nitch and Fort Clatsop, among others.
“They were really struck that they were standing in the same place where Clark had been,” Gardner said. And the Clark ancestors also were moved by the fact they were with descendants of the Indians who had helped their ancestor through that long and miserable winter, he added.
Saturday’s ceremony began in a grassy circle at the fort. After drumming and songs, 17 descendants of William Clark carried the canoe, made from mahogany and painted black and red, into the circle. Tribal members wearing cedar bark hats and regalia closed the circle behind them.
After the canoe was swept clean with cedar boughs, it was given the name Klmin (moon).
“It’s kind of like naming your child in terms of importance, and relevance and meaning,” Elliot said.
Columbia River tribes in the 19th century mostly likely got theirs in trading with the ancestors of Canadian tribes, Elliott said. The replica was made by Oregon boat maker John McCallum.
The canoe will be used for events, re-enactments, parades and the annual tribal canoe journey up Puget Sound, Gardner said. The canoe can hold 16 paddlers.
“The first thing we need to do is get together and make more paddles,” Elliott said.
Currently, the tribe has one other smaller canoe, Skwakwal (lamprey eel).
Elliott said there has been a revival in the canoe culture in the 21st century. Now the tribe, which is working for federal recognition, needs a trailer.
“We are a very, very poor nation,” Elliott said.
For both the Chinooks and the Clark descendants, the canoe holds much more than the paddlers it was built for.
“(It’s) more than a reparation. It’s the Clark family upholding their word for righting what they view as a wrong. They’ve gone to great lengths to make this happen with the purest of heart and to ensure the Chinook Nation can continue and grow,” said Jeremy Wekell, tribal councilman and Tacoma resident.
For the Clarks: “We can never repay the hurt. This is just a small gesture,” Lotsie Holton said. “It’s never too late to apologize.”
Craig Sailor: 253-597-8541
craig.sailor@thenewstribune.com
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