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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2011)
Smoke Signals 7 MARCH 1,2011 Chinuk Wawa classes offered The Tribal Cultural Education Department offers adult Chinuk Wawa language classes from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday in Room 207 of the Tribal Education Building. Language classes can be taken for college credit or for fun. For more information, contact Kathy Cole at 503-879-2249 or 503-437-4599. D Elder's bingo changes days Bingo at the Elders' Activity Center has been moved to the sec ond and fourth Fridays of the month instead of the first and third Fridays. Potluck starts at 6 p.m. and bingo starts at 6:30 p.m. P TiroIbaD CoiairaciiD pirwiidledl $1Q)C(ffir project!: CANOE continued from front page and Grand Ronde's Cultural Re sources Manager David Lewis, also a Tribal member, led to the idea of a Native canoe exhibit now under way. The river canoe seemed like a good idea, Lewis said, not only because it has not been seen in the Northwest in so long, but also because once the exhibit ends, the Tribe will have a canoe suitable for traveling the smaller waterways on the reservation. Tribal Council supported the ex hibit last year, Lewis said, and this year the Council provided $10,000 for the $30,000 project. "We're building a canoe and a tradition that the Tribe will use in the years ahead," said Lewis. Not only will the canoe be a stationary exhibit at the Salem museum, but the group plans to leave the texturing at the end of the process for a live demonstration. The river canoe is being built in the Kalapuya or Willamette River style, said Tribal member Bobby Mercier, Language and Cultural specialist for the Tribe. "Similar style canoes were found all the way down to northern Cali fornia," he said. The design for this canoe comes from drawings of this style of ca noe last seen at Willamette Falls in 1831. "They used horses after that," said Mercier. In January, Tribal Elder and Site Protection Specialist Don Day selected the cedar log for the river canoe. The maintenance crew, in cluding Tribal members Marcus Gibbons and Gregg Leno along with community member Kyle Towner (Siletz), brought it over to the shed on Hebo Road. They . L ft Photos by Michelle Alaimo Brian Krehbiel, Tribal Cultural Education Specialist and Tribal mimbtr, checks tha fitting of a plug ha's making for a crack in tha cadar rivar canoa as ha works on it In a staal shad behind tha Tribe's Recovery House In Grand Ronde on Tuesday, Fab. 22. handled the heavy lifting with their equipment. Day then brought in the wedges and the expertise with which the group divided the log in two. Tribal members Jeff Mercier, David Har relson, Krehbiel and Lewis all helped with the splitting. Among others who have helped with the project are Tribal Elder Bob Watson, an accomplished tra ditional woodworker whose oars hang in the Tribal Housing Author itybuilding. His work is shown widely and well regarded. Community member Darrell Pepper, another accomplished woodworker, said he "turned some plugs" to fill in knot holes in the canoe body. "If I could do something worth while," he joked, "I would." Tribal member Travis Mercier, Richard Sohappy (Yakama) and Tribal Elder Dolores Parmenter also pitched in on the carving. Contributors brought their own tools, lent their tools to the project and the group purchased some very authentic and rare tools from a source they are keeping secret for the time being. Among those are a shipwright adze and big chisels called slicks. Grand opening for the exhibit is Friday, April 8. Jonathan King, Ph.D., Keeper of the Department of Africa, Indian Ocean and Americas at the British Museum, is expected to speak on his work about Ameri can Northwest coast peoples, ac cording to Lewis. On the following Tuesday, April 12, the texturing demonstrations are slated to begin. D Bobby Mercier, Tribal Language and Cultural Specialist and Tribal member, uses a curved draw knife to carve the cedar river canoe on Tuesday, Feb. 22. Some tools, including shipwright adzes and draw knives, that have been used to carve the cedar river canoe lay on it in the steel shed that it's being carved in. Photo courtesy of the Cultural Resources Department "IT , 1' 4fV r nt - ,l
