This piece was originally published in News from Native California (fall 2024 edition , volume 38, issue 1) and is republished here with permission from the author and publication. You can subscribe to News from Native California here.
Ukni. This is a story. This will be told today about yesterdays, and yesterdays are today’s tomorrow.
In the very near past, fire raged through our peoples lands. It moved with a fierce swiftness scorching all in its path. Many families lost their homes, their way, their livelihood. Burning fast due to an unkempt balance and maintenance of all things, it was white-hot with rage and sickness, a concept our relatives from the East have been telling the world, what Jack Forbes wrote about in “Columbus and Other Cannibals” called the Wetiko Disease (symptoms include: greed, gluttony, genocide, arrogance, killing natural resources, slavery, imperialism). I’m not referring to the Slater Fire scorching Karuk-va-araara lands in Northern California and Southern Oregon four years ago. No. We survived much more murder-y fire only four generations ago.
This story is about reigniting our history-and-ways with a little help from our friends, a lot of hope, vision, and a sprinkle of elderly wisdom…This story is about Pa’ah (Karuk-va-araara canoe). Today Pa’ah is being resurrected on Ishkeesh (Klamath River) and this hasn’t been done in quite some time, decades of moons, in fact. Our relative has been waiting patiently to live again, to live free from Wetiko. Floating up from downriver, with one man’s vision, is an honorable mission to pass along knowledge, create community, create solidarity, and work on “Njn stuff” in Karuk Country.
The Old Ones
Pa’ah is a being with soul, body, part of a family. They help us transport goods along Ishkeesh, they are present with us in everyday life and they are integral to ceremony. They move people and families all over the river, even to and around other rivers. They are indeed a part of us, crafted from within, literally and figuratively.
The Old Ones built Pa’ah with rock and stone, fire and bone – an ingenuity that, quite honestly, baffles so many of us who talk about it today. Fire is a part of our daily lives, well before Wetiko thought their way was better. The Old Ones knew not what was better, rather what was fair and dignified in managing their surroundings. Fire was used as a tool, a respected part of life for it gave much, much more than just warming the afup near the fireplace! Being free of a Wetiko economy, there was more time to think and do the traditional practices the way they are supposed to be done. It was a purpose to create Pa’ah and a purpose to operate one and a purpose in the community. The morality of being responsible for this being was an added service to the surrounding community in which you live.
The Old Ones gave us this existence that is being practiced today, except our tools are adze and grinder, chainsaw and timber mill…real-real tradish these days. Humor aside, this is how we are currently making them in today’s-past as so many people involved in this vision have other occupations and needs. This economical adherence is quite unfortunate because all involved in this cultural reunion would rather be with Pa’ah the traditional way.
A Vision Beginning
Adrien Allen is from Red Cap Creek, in Panamnik (Orleans). She is the mother of Grant Gilkenson, whom we’ll discuss next. Adrien grew up with Pa’ah in her life, she remembers “my grandfather used to take us across the river to deliver fruit to my grandmother all the time” and that was the shortest way across Ishkeesh for her family. Pa’ah was a major use for transportation in her family, “my grandfather used to take some of the kids to school in Hoopa with the canoe as it had sails and could move fast.” Please note, for those who don’t know, that also means traveling up the Trinity River as well.
Grant Gilkinson is also from Panamnik and as mentioned above, he’s the son of Adrien Allen. He had a vision, and his vision was tried over and over again until finally, unfortunately after his passing, a group of people made his vision reality. Grant put his medicine into resurrecting Pa’ah through an
intelligent, community-based organizing model: have workshops in Karuk communities all over the river to teach and inspire. These workshops would be a commitment to culture, and the Yurok (Ner-er-ner & Puhlik-lah), would be there to support and teach in solidarity.
The story goes Grant met a group of young Yurok men from Ancestral Guard at a mutual friend’s place while organizing around the Un-Dam The Klamath campaign. Talking about this-and-that, the conversation molded into having Ancestral Guard bring some canoes to the Panamnik area and take children and community for some rides and help resurrect that which was stolen. “The excitement really came about in Panamnik when Grant and the downriver boys made a float for the Fathers Day Parade in 2018, where Grant and Ancestral Guard put Chris Peters’s canoes on a float and ended up winning 1st prize” recalls Nat Pennington, long-time water protector and community organizer. From organizing together around the UnDamn The Klamath campaign to the Father’s Day parade in Panamnik, solidarity was formed and Grant had a vision to do more than just borrow canoes from a canoe maker, he wanted Karuk canoes made by Karuks in Karuk Country.
From there, an event in Panamnik was created and formed by Grant and Ancestral Guard where canoes would be used to take people for rides, listen to story and song. Canoes were needed to make this happen and the young men from Ancestral Guard knew a well known canoe maker named Chris Peters (Puhlik-lah, Karuk), President of Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples (SGF), well enough to borrow his canoes, again. Peters lent some of his downriver canoes to make this happen and the Panamnik community responded to the event with over 30 children and many adults wanting rides and many more community members attending.
At that event, Amber Shelton, Executive Director of Nature Rights Council (NRC), recalls people talking about Pa’ah not being seen on the river like that for some time. People came out to participate and be a part of this event with ginormous values and aspirations. Grant stepped up to do something great about what happened that day. Working with NRC as a fiscal sponsor, Gilkinson was awarded $10,000 from the Native Cultures Fund to begin his vision of building Pa’ah in Karuk-va-araara country again, but to do it with the community from Yurok Country as well.
Unfortunately there were some setbacks, with the setbacks having some setbacks. From the beginning in 2020 there were major issues delaying the workshop series: health issues, scheduling conflicts, and lo and behold, which you may or may not have heard, there was a pandemic. However, after many years of the monies being awarded, the vision was there and the money was promised and held, but this endeavor needed more push from the community involved in this project as Grant had transitioned into the spirit realm.
Old Ones Making New
The Old Ones did not have the luxurious 70” chainsaw bar with a 60” timber mill, countless sharpening devices, and endless chainsaw blades at their disposal. No. They had fire. Considered to us today a luxury in constructing Pa’ah, to be honest. For, it wasn’t necessarily just fire that was used to maintain an even cut down the center of a fallen tree, as Crispin McAllister of Karuk Reconstruction Project (KRP) stated, “it was an effort shared, people worked together to split a tree for a long time, sometimes it could take weeks.”
The fire had to be made and tended to, the coals will be put on the marks down the middle of the log, burning it slowly, then scraping the burnt off and repeating the cycle once again. The Usiip (Port Orford Cedar) or Kupriip (Sugar Pine) must be attended to in a great delicate fashion, yet a forceful endeavor all the same. A line was marked on the fallen tree right down the center, demarcating the two Pa’ah to be made, as one tree would yield two Pa’ah, a testament to better forestry management.
As mentioned, the process was in part communal. Shared labor throughout the day and night made the endeavor more rapid than if one person managed it over time. Our efforts to rebuild canoes are also a shared journey to a birth of Pa’ah, and also to form community through The Old Ones example.
The Vision’s Sunrise
Nature Rights Council, Ancestral Guard, Karuk Reconstruction Project, Seventh Generation Fund and the Karuk Tribe were all organized to make this vision a reality in honor of Grant Gilkinson. Organizing all the organizations took place in 2023, but that came a little late as ceremony was needed for those involved, then winter came and no one thought it enough time to take shape. The Spring of 2024, however, the organizations worked together rapidly, brought in more money and resources, more time, and agreed to a schedule that was a good starting point.
Grants vision of having workshops on Ishkeesh in Karuk Country happened in May at Panamnik, Happy Camp and Yreka. The Panamnik and Yreka workshops had very large gatherings with youth and elders involved and many productive conversations happened on building Pa’ah and building community. At all three workshops, Chris Peters of SGF taught all of us Karuks on how to see Pa’ah in the log, what to expect, and how to work with the Kupriip.
The first in the workshop series was in Panamnik at the Karuk Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources parking lot. Chris Peters and Sammy Gensaw of Ancestral Guard worked together teaching us about the log and how to see the top and the bottom of the canoe, the front and the back, where to position it before cutting, how to make the cuts, and all the things. The first workshop was a blessing as many in the community came out to watch and talk, and Julian Lang (Karuk/Wiyot) spoke to us about our relationship with Pa’ah and even participated.
Happy Camp was the second workshop and more people came out of interest and also wondering what all that noise was! In speaking with an elder at the event, he stated he couldn’t remember a time when this was being done, let alone in such a fashion. When community is formed around resurrecting culture and people, a lot of things will be said and a lot of things will be done. This vision of Grant has surpassed my comprehension of what could be at the start of all of our work, yet as I think and type and rub hands on the first Pa’ah being built, my comprehension is understood and present.
Yreka had a massive showing of people coming out to work on another Pa’ah and the Karuk Tribe offered the parking lot of the Katishraam Wellness Center for conducting the third event in the workshop series. Youth and adults of many ages from all around joined in the event with many high school age youth jumping in to work, something I’m sure Grant hoped would happen.
A group of new people stepped up to start working on the third canoe and one of them, Greg Arteche, was excited to be a part of it. When asked what it meant for him to be there on that weekend he expressed, “I felt my ancestors were with us, and I wanted to be a better person doing this work with my community.”
The desire has always been there for our people and cultural leaders to have Pa’ah with us, but getting to build one was another story. Until very recently, there were no resources available and in many ways, with the Wetiko economy demanding so much sacrifice, traditional canoe making was figuratively stolen via social-economical factors, i.e. colonialism.
The Vision’s Legacy
What was started all those moons ago, we now strive to walk in sustaining this gift of Pa’ah. A gift that has lay dormant for far, far too long. In today’s-future, in three Karuk-va-araara communities – Panamnik, Happy Camp and Yreka – the Old Ones are inside of us and guiding us to something dignified, something fair.
Growing up with a Karuk cultural leader, David Arwood II, Director of the Karuk Tribe’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), remembers seeing traditional canoes at a Hoopa ceremony in the 80’s. “I don’t remember seeing a canoe in the water prior to that” he said, in fact, “the first Karuk boat dance I saw was when I was teenager, and that was done with an aluminum boat.” The importance of rebuilding Pa’ah in our communities again is of great ceremonial purpose and community vitality. Arwood states “at the canoe workshop, I saw kids there, they were seeing what we were doing and I imagined the impact this event had on them, on our people. This is intergenerational learning providing resilience to intergenerational trauma.”
Some time ago Grant stood in Crispen McCallister’s living room, staring out the window, and just blurted out to him, “I think we should build a canoe. I’m going to build a canoe.” All those moons ago he said this, and all these moons later we are blessed by those words and his actions. It wasn’t an easy ride for anyone involved to make this happen. With Grant physically no longer with us, we embrace his words, we embrace his vision, we embrace all involved who made his vision reality.
This whole experience for the Karuk-va-araara communities is, quite literally, a rebirth. From the first workshop of bringing Pa’ah back into our lives, to all of our relatives who’ve been inspired by Grant’s vision and the many workshops we conducted, Ishkeesh will once again have Karuk Pa’ah with Karuk-va-araara in Karuk Country.
Three members of the Karuk Reconstruction Project, Tyler Conrad, Crispin McAllister and Wayne Huddleston, all shared Tyler’s words about reuniting/building with Pa’ah when Tyler said, “I was always learning and wondering what was going to come next. I encourage everyone to dig deep, find out what our ancestors used to do and do it, even if it seems unachievable. It will bring us all back together.” Ceremonial revitalization through community-based organizing is what made this possible. Yootva Grant.
