Eastern Oregon diocese backs Indigenous group preserving culture with canoe carving project

Caretakers of the Land takes its hand-carved dugout canoe for a test paddle near the Diocese of Eastern Oregon’s Ascension School Camp and Conference Center. Photo: Caretakers of the Land

[Episcopal News Service] This is no ordinary canoe.

The boat, formerly a large cottonwood tree, is known as a “dugout,” and over the past year its carving has been the project of the Indigenous cultural organization Naknuwithlama Tiichamna, or Caretakers of the Land, with financial support from the Diocese of Eastern Oregon.

Caretakers of the Land’s laborers turned the tree into a hand-carved dugout canoe to raise awareness of ongoing threats to Indigenous cultural knowledge while preserving some of the traditional ways of the region’s Native American tribes and promoting intergenerational healing.

Over the summer, Caretakers of the Land tested the newly carved dugout on the Lower Snake River and Wallowa Lake, near where the original cottonwood was felled. In a project update shared last week by the Diocese of Eastern Oregon, Bobby Fossek, co-director of Caretakers of the Land, said the canoe had been given the name Sapalaxsimithla, which translates to “One Who Causes Oneness/Togetherness.”

“This is an effort that began many generations before us, and the ripple it makes will be felt many generations from now,” Fossek said. “Displacement, violence, manipulation of waterways, declining fish runs and the forced assimilation into extractive and industrialized ways of living nearly severed our ties to much of our land base, waterways [and] each other.”

Caretakers of the Land’s partnership with the diocese goes beyond the canoe project. The organization also manages a habitat restoration project at the diocese’s Ascension School Camp and Conference Center and advises the diocese on anti-racism and environmental stewardship issues.

The camp hosts cultural immersion camps organized by Caretakers of the Land, and the diocese gives about $20,000 a year to the organization and provides additional support with administrative and financial management, the Rev. Amy Jayne, Ascension School executive director, told Episcopal News Service by email.

“Our repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery is central to our work with Caretakers of the Land,” Jayne said. She referred to a 2022 diocesan resolution that lamented the church’s historic complicity with colonial-era doctrines that assumed European superiority while justifying white domination over Native Americans in the spread of Christianity.

The Episcopal Church has grappled with the legacy of that doctrine for decades. In 2009, General Convention approved a resolution saying it “repudiates and renounces the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God.”

The canoe was carved by hand from a cottonwood tree felled at Wallowa Lake State Park. Photo: Caretakers of the Land

For the dugout canoe project, Caretakers of the Land also received funding from the Wildhorse Foundation, the Ataw First Foods Fund and the Bisbee Foundation. That support allowed the organization to form a team of experienced carvers and volunteers, who spent last winter carving the tree into “a work of art” and a canoe that “navigates the water very well,” Fossek said.

“Throughout the carving process, many synchronistic and long-lasting friendships were formed and strengthened with regional leaders, inspired individuals, and organizations that we feel are part of this current transition to a more relationship-based and holistic socio-economic system,” he said.

Tribes that call the region home include the Umatilla, Palus, Cayuse, Walla Walla and Nez Perce. Fossek, a member of the Walla Walla band, said his dugout team already has taken several tribal groups out on the water “for connection and team building,” as well as hosting non-Indigenous groups.

Fossek told the news website Wallowa County Chieftain in March that he got the idea for the project from his grandmother, who wanted to preserve ancestral crafts for future generations. The funding from the diocese and other backers allowed Fossek and fellow co-director Brosnan Spencer to buy tools for the project and to pay the experienced carvers who worked on the dugout.

The project has helped Caretakers of the Land develop the knowledge that will enable additional programs connected to the water and tribal customs. “We are now in the position to help expose people to the dugouts, build them with and for other tribes, and offer wholesome experiences including the cultural arts we have been learning and teaching over the years, the habitat management and the canoes,” Fossek said.

The diocese continues to raise money to support Caretakers of the Land as it pursues its vision of Indigenous cultural education.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.