❖ CANOES AT COUPEVILLE (Updated)

Canoe Races in Fifth Annual Water Festival
Coupeville, Wa. August 1934.
Eleven paddlers from Saanich, BC
were winners this year.
Original photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People HIstorical Society©

Long wooden canoes
with seventy-seven natives
Summer 1939
Original photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Bronzed backs bending to their work, over seventy-five paddlers set out in seven war canoes on a gruelling three and one half mile race up and down Penn Cove, during Coupeville's Indian Water Festival and International War Canoe Races, fighting for top rung in the ladder of sport their Indian forefathers practiced by the hour when not hunting or fishing.
      Despite the handicap of a ferry strike that reduced water transportation almost to nothing, the Island city was host to thousands of visitors who drove over the Deception Pass Bridge at the northern end of the island to see the program that included parades, Indian games, dances and canoe races with people from twenty tribes, band concerts, street dances and carnival attractions that transformed the main street into a gay midway."
The Seattle Times 20 August 1939

❖ NOOKSACK Tribe Wins the INTERNATIONAL CUP ❖ 1935.

Ten tribes of the Pacific Northwest
 start for the International Cup Race.

Coupeville, Whidbey Island, WA.
Dated 12 August 1935.
From the archives of the 

Saltwater People Historical Society.

On this Log we have included the University of Washington crew winning their 1936 Olympic race in Berlin, here. 
      The two photos today depict the racing scene in Washington State, the previous year.
       Husky paddlers representing ten Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest vied for the International War Canoe Championship at Coupeville, Whidby Island, WA. The eleven man boat QUESTION MARK representing the Nooksack tribe won the three mile race. 

A large waterfront gallery cheers 

Coupeville's two-man canoe race, August 1935.

Thousands lined the racing course in Penn's Cove
for the Water Festival canoe events.
The TACOMA looms large among the many small craft;
she was packed with an excursion crowd from Seattle.

Click image to enlarge
Photographer unknown.
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.

Below text from the Anacortes American, 10 July 1890

"The canoe race by Indians in the afternoon over a two-mile course was the exciting and interesting feature of the aquatic sports and witnessed by nearly the entire population. 
      Each boat contained eleven oarsmen and as the light canoes flew through the water and bounded over the waves like things of life, the excitement increased, which was only subdued when the race was won and the swarthy braves who occupied the winning boat jumped out on the gravelly beach to receive the caresses of their faithful klootchmen, some of whom were so overjoyed that they fell upon the necks of their warriors and wept for joy."

Klootchmen––Chinook term for woman or women. 
As listed in Almost Out of the World by James G. Swan; Washington State Historical Society, 1971.