May 18, 2024
March 9 - Billy Frank Jr. Day
Please join the Western Washington treaty tribes in remembering this legendary man and his lifelong battle for salmon and treaty fishing rights. In 2021, the Washington legislature passed a bill to commemorate Billy Frank Jr. with a statue in the U.S. Capitol. Click HERE for more information on the statue.
For more information and videos about Billy Frank Jr. and his life's work please click HERE.
As a prelude to the Penn Cove Water Festival on May 18, 2024, Lou LaBombard will tell stories around the campfire.
Lou is a retired tenured professor of Anthropology at Skagit Valley College, Whidbey Campus, where had taught for 5 years. He is a Seneca-Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederacy, a Viet Nam Vet and served as an airborne paramedic. Lou has lectured around the United States on subjects ranging from incorporation of Native American materials into the general teaching curriculum and the use of Native American storytelling and oral traditions, to various subjects relating to the archaeology and history of the West, Southwest and Pacific Northwest coast. He has also studied the techniques for retention of traditional cultures of select Native American groups compared with the Maori of New Zealand. His stories from Native American oral traditions will keep the entire family enthralled.
The Island County Museum, located at the foot of the historic Coupeville Wharf, will be open (admission by donation) during the Water Festival. The museum interprets 120,000 years of Island County History: from an Ice Age tree trunk, Wooly Mammoth remains, to a section devoted to the original inhabitants,, to the first car on Whidbey Island.
In addition, the Museum will be showcasing another special exhibit: Fiber art in collaboration with Coupeville's Northwest Art School.
(Please note: Museum restrooms are closed during the festival.)
Russell Morton
We call him "The Beadman." He has brought his work to the Water Festival for many years, always there continuing his work and explain the project and the technique of beading.
In 2019 Russell donated his completed work to the Island County Museum where it is on permanent display in the Native People Exhibit.
We thank Russell for his generous gift.
Russell once posted that "the Four Seasons of Waters" constructed will have passed 8 years and continues to be more interesting.
It is an ultimate form of intense, slow art. Intense remains revenant in our modern world, but slow is gone with the horse and buggy for regular travel."
Suva
The Penn Cove Water Festival hopes to see the Schooner Suva back at the Wharf for the May 18, 2024 Festival. Visit Schooner Suva for pricing and additional information.
For more information contact Jim at 360-320-4337 or info@schoonersuva.org.
Pacific Rim Institute
Lowland Prairie was managed and utilized by the Native Americans for thousands of years. Today, native prairie is Washington State's fastest disappearing ecosystem. Come and tour a remnant of this prairie at the Pacific Rim Institute. The prairie will be in full bloom and we can't wait to share it with you. Naturalists will take you off trail into the heart of the prairie and tell you about the natural history, the present state and the future plans for native lowland prairie here at the Pacific Rim Institute for Environmental Stewardship. Click here for Directions to Pacific Rim Institute.
May 19 to 27: Gathering of the Eagles
Summer 2024 begins with the six-island canoe journey of the Gathering of the Eagles with five canoes from Hawaii and the Salish Sea -- traveling the ancestral highways with potluck potlatch style gatherings of food, arts & crafts, gift-making and intergenerational cultural exchanges with our visiting indigenous nations and islanders from around the world. For more information, click here.