The start of a dugout canoe, similar to the one being worked on by Jameson and the Lapwai students.
LAPWAI, IDAHO-How do you help children enjoy a sense of their heritage? Nez Perce Tribe member Julian Matthews thought that enlisting the kids' help in carving a traditional canoe might accomplish the purpose.
Matthews and others first felled a thick fir in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and hauled it down behind Nimiipuu Health. Matthews' friend, carpenter James Jameson, identified the heavy side of the 23-foot log by floating it in water, and then the two men and tribal members from Kalispell, Mont., started the process of shaving the canoe and then carving out the canoe in a traditional fashion.
After Jameson began cutting striations to mark the canoe's midpoints, he and several volunteers met every Wednesday and used adzes to carve out the canoe's interior.
Then came the idea to involve students.
Matthews reached out to the teachers at Lapwai Elementary school and organized an evening carving session to instill a sense of culture in the youngsters. About 30 kids helped bite out chunks of the canoe's interior with shaped axes or shaved off lumber for future paddles.
The kids now look forward to regularly working on the canoe as an after-school project. Though the wood needs to be soaked, shaped and burned to gain its bend before it is water-worthy, Matthews and the students are already dreaming of the next project. "I'd like to see us keep doing it, maybe working with a cedar next time," he says.
