canoe | building intro | firs cuts | digging | steaming
moving | painting | into water | naming ceremony

1999-2000 The Circle of Eagles Lodge Society receives a grant from the Urban Multi-purpose Aboriginal Youth Centres Initiative (UMAYC) to build a sea-going canoe. The project would hire eight Urban Aboriginal Youth from Vancouver, BC Canada and an experienced Canoe Builder. The project would be carried out in two phases. The first phase would see the building of a new canoe and the second phase would see the youth and the canoe participating in a healing journey.

Canoe carving and the canoe itself demands great respect. The peoples of the Northwest Coast culture valued the canoe as a sacred vessel. These vessels are probably the most important aspect of Northwest Coast culture.

  

The following words quoted from the book written by David Neel, "The Great Canoes", shows the significance of the canoe culture:

"The canoe is today, as it always has been, much more than just a
boat. The Legends of the Pacific Coast First Nations tell of the time
of the great flood, when the people tied their canoes together side
by side. As the waters rose, the people took a stout cedar rope and attached their canoes to a mountaintop. Here they waited until the waters receded, and they were saved. Today, in its renaissance, the canoe carries the knowledge of a millennia-old culture as well as the dreams and aspirations of a younger generation. It is a vessel of knowledge, symbolizing the cultural regeneration of many nations
as they struggle to retain and rebuild following a period of systematic oppression and of rapid social and technological change. The great canoe has come back from the abyss a vital symbol for First Nations. Once a mode of transport, allowing our people to fish, gather food,
trade and travel, it has evolved today into a healing vessel, deeply affecting all those who come into contact with it. Young people particularly benefit from learning the way of the canoe."

How true these words are as the youth, the skipper, the coordinator, and all the people who came into contact with the Circle of Eagles Lodge's Canoe Carving Project would attest to.

This is a story about building Kwa Kwen Tn and how she carried her crew on their healing journey.

The following pages will show how the youth were brought together by Merv Thomas, the Community Developer at The Circle of Eagles Lodge. It will tell the story of the exhaustive search for a log big enough to carve a sea-going canoe led to the eventual donation of a log by the Huu-Ay-Aht First Nations. The pages will show the actual carving, the shaping, the adzing, steaming and the healing journey.

There will be an actual documentary about the ups and downs of the Canoe Carving project. The carving and the journey is being documented by a camera crew from Daystar Entertainment, showing all the drama and struggles the youth did not back down from. When the documentary is done it will then be aired on various television stations and put to video to be sent to schools.