Tribal Journey (5 page)

I continued to watch the men work on the massive tree. Something about it drew my attention. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Mr. Franks must've noticed.

“Jason, do you want to come back and join the circle now?” he asked. “Or would you rather go outside to watch them carve?”

I was so focused on the canoe I guess I didn't hear him. He knelt down beside my wheelchair and looked down at the carvers.

“Jason, you've just given me an idea.” He turned back to the class. “We're all going to go with Jason down to the canoe to continue our class. Who wants to help him with his chair?”

When we all got down to the carving site, Mr. Franks spoke privately to the carver for a few minutes. Then he turned to us.

“This is Billy James. He's a master carver who's come down from Canada to carve a canoe that can go on the ocean. It will be used for our tribe so we can participate in the tribal canoe journey this year. He's going to explain a little about what he's doing. Then we can watch him work.”

The carver told us that Native people of this area used red cedar trees that were more than three hundred years old to make canoes. He also explained about the traditional tools used for carving.

“Today, carvers use chain saws and steel tools for creating canoes and totem poles. Our
ancestors would've used those too if they'd been available.”

He fired up the chain saw and finished shaping the front of the canoe. He roughed out a fairly sharp point that tilted upward. He said the front was called the bow.

His two assistants moved back to the sides of the log. They began removing more wood from the inside center of the log with their hand tools. They chipped away at the cedar one little piece at a time. It looked like it would take a year to finish.

As we watched them work, Mr. Franks said, “They'll be finished with this canoe within a month.”

A month? How was that possible?

“Until it's completed, we've borrowed another canoe to practice with,” he continued.

“Practice what?” I asked.

“Practice pulling, so we'll be ready for the Tribal Journey in July,” one of the older kids said.

“Pulling? What's pulling?”

“Paddling the canoe,” the boy answered. “But it's called pulling because you pull the paddle through the water to make the canoe go forward.”

“How come you guys know so much about this?” I asked.

“Because we're all part of the canoe family, and we'll all be pulling this year,” another kid replied.

“You have got to be joking,” I said in disbelief. “Your parents are going to let you paddle to Canada?”

“That's why we're learning the language and the songs,” one of the girls in the class added. “It's all part of learning the ancient canoe culture.”

Billy James picked up one of the hand tools near the canoe. He brought it with him as he walked toward me. He held it out to me, and I took it from him.

“This is called an adze,” he said.

I looked at it closely. It had a flat, wide metal blade with a short wooden handle.

“Traditionally, our carvers used ones made from stone,” he went on. “This one's made of steel. If you'd like, you can come over and see how it feels to carve a canoe.”

He couldn't be serious, could he?

“No thanks,” I said holding the adze out for him to take. “I really can't do much of anything anymore.”

“Mr. Franks said you could do almost anything if you really want to,” Billy replied. “But that's all right. You think about it.” He left the tool with me. I felt the weight of the adze in my hands for a moment before putting it down.

The next day I went to the physical therapy clinic to work with Mrs. Anderson. As in every session, she had me up out of my chair. I was holding on to two parallel bars as I struggled to sort of walk. It was more like a shuffle really. I wasn't very good at it, but she said it was important for me to make the effort.

“You must never give up,” she said.

Next she showed me a new way to use my crutch to pull myself out of the wheelchair and onto a bed. She pointed out that this was one of the reasons I needed to be doing exercises. I had to build my upper body strength.

I decided to tell her about my experience with the tribal culture class and the canoe carver's offer.

“Do you really think I could actually work on carving that canoe?” I asked.

She thought for a moment.

“It sounds like the ideal exercise to build your arm and shoulder muscles,” she said. “Especially if you switch off every fifteen minutes or so. Chop with the adze using your right arm for a while. Then turn around so you can chop with your left arm for a while.”

And that's what I did. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I worked with Mrs. Anderson. And on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I worked with Billy carving the canoe.

Billy taught me a lot about the canoes and the people who made them. The Duwamish
tribe was one of many Salish tribes in the area who shared an ancient canoe culture. He said the water was their highway. They made several different kinds of canoes for different jobs.

One day, when we had taken a break from carving, Billy looked at me and got all serious. He said, “Jason, this canoe is part of who you are. When we talk about what your ancestors did, it would be normal for you to say ‘we' instead of ‘they,' and ‘our' instead of ‘their.'”

I didn't get what he was saying. He noticed my puzzled look.

“The water was
our
highway, not
their
highway.
We
made different kinds of canoes for traveling and hauling and fishing. Do you understand the difference? You need to own this. You need to claim it. Then it will truly become a part of you and give you strength.”

It was like a light turned on in my head. I got it. It meant I belonged here to these people. This was a part of my life. It meant I could no longer pretend I wasn't Indian. And when I
accepted that, a new feeling flooded into me. It was a feeling of pride. A feeling of ease.

I began right then to accept myself for who I am. I stepped across the line between
me
and
them
and became part of the
we.

That's when the dream started. Every night for a week I'd see the same thing in my sleep.

I was walking through a forest near a clear running stream. Tall, majestic cedar trees stood all around me. A woodpecker in one nearby tree was tap-tap-tapping on the tree's trunk. He tapped so hard the tree fell over and landed in the stream. I walked over to look at the fallen tree.

A large black bird, a raven, flew down and landed on the tree. That's when he spoke to me. And that's when I always woke up. But I never could remember what the raven said. Finally I told my mom about the dream. She said she'd speak to Mr. Franks about it.

“Why Mr. Franks?” I asked.

“Because he's a wise man,” she said. “He knows about such things.”

The following Saturday a large crowd of people of all ages gathered at the canoe. The class members were there, but I didn't know the rest of them. Everyone seemed to know who I was though.

“Who are all these people?” I asked Billy, who stood near the canoe.

“The canoe family,” he answered. “You'll find out in a minute what this is about. Stay up here with me.”

Mr. Franks stepped up to the canoe's bow. He began singing a prayer song. The crowd grew quiet. The song was similar to the one he sang the first day I met him.

When he finished he said, “I've called this meeting of our canoe family for a couple of reasons. Billy, you go first.”

“I've been watching for a sign that would tell me what name this canoe would go by,” Billy said. “You know, every Salish canoe has a spirit. That spirit speaks to those who create the canoe and use it. I'm happy to say we have the name.”

Then Mr. Franks spoke again.

“I want you all to meet Jason Morgan,” he said as he put a hand on my shoulder. “You've no doubt heard about him, his terrible accident, and the contribution he's been making as a carver.”

People in the crowd nodded. Some spoke a few words in their—our—native language.

“Jason is the one who has given us the name for our canoe,” he added.

No one was more shocked to hear that than me. What was he talking about?

“Jason dreamed the dream given by the cedar tree spirit guide, the woodpecker,” he continued.

“In his dream, the raven flew down and landed on the cedar tree. Thus the spirit of Raven gave his permission and his blessing on the canoe. So from this moment forward our canoe is the Raven Canoe. And we are the Raven Canoe Family. We'll have a canoe-naming ceremony when the carving is complete.”

I certainly wasn't expecting this. They gathered around me and congratulated me.

Everyone in the group raised their hands, palms up, moving them up and down. This was the traditional Salish gesture of thanks that I'd seen as a child.

They were all so happy. I was surprised and happy too. I wasn't sure what it all meant, but I realized it was still good to go with the flow.

“And there's more,” Mr. Franks said. We all quieted down. “I've spoken to Jason's mother and his physical therapist.”

Mr. Franks knew my physical therapist? How'd that happen? What's been going on behind my back?

“Jason, we are formally inviting you to join our Tribal Journey this year. We want you to pull with us next month when we paddle to the shores of the Cowichan people in Canada.”

“I—I don't know what to say,” I stammered. “This is all so sudden.”

The image of my wheelchair flashed in my mind.

“How could that even work?” I asked. “I mostly live in a wheelchair.”

“Our practice canoe is over at the river's edge,” Mr. Franks responded. “We'll show you just how that will work.”

He nodded to Billy. The master carver grabbed my wheelchair handles and pushed me toward the river. Everyone followed. When we reached the shoreline, two of the adults stood knee-deep in the water and steadied the canoe.

Billy picked me up in his arms and carried me. He waded into the water beside the canoe. Then he gently set me down on one of the canoe's crossbeam seats. There was already a cushion on the seat waiting for me.

Six kids and young adults climbed in next, filling the canoe's middle section. They picked up the paddles that had been stowed in the canoe. As they passed them out, the young man closest to me handed me one. There was an image of a raven on the widest part of the paddle.

“I'm Jessy,” the young man said. He had a scraggly mustache and a long dark ponytail down to the middle of his back. We shook hands.

Next, Billy climbed into the back seat in the canoe's stern. He steered the canoe around so the bow nudged the shore. To my surprise, Mr. Franks climbed in the canoe's front seat and picked up the last paddle.

“What's Mr. Franks doing in the canoe?” I asked.

“You didn't know?” Jessy said. “He's the head of this whole canoe family and our main skipper.”

“Is there anything he
doesn't
do?” I asked.

“He's a terrible cook,” Jessy said, and laughed as the canoe moved out into the river.

And so it began. I switched from carving to pulling. I was on the water again. Not in it, but the next best thing. I could tell that my muscles had grown stronger from the carving.
Now they'd grow even stronger from using that raven paddle.

At one of the practices, Mr. Franks presented me with a traditional Salish hat made of woven strips of cedar bark. He told me it was a gift from the canoe family. He said that it would come in handy to keep the sun out of my face out on the open water. I'd seen others wearing such a hat. Having my own made me feel an even stronger sense of pride.

It all felt so right. Why had I avoided my Nativeness all this time? Because it didn't seem cool? This was by far the coolest thing I'd ever been involved in.