Until recently, 24-year-old YaKunda.ein Avery Herrman Sakamoto hadn’t spent much time in a canoe. Then she signed up to paddle more than 100 miles through Southeast Alaska’s inside waters from Petersburg to Juneau. She joined dozens of paddlers heading north to Celebration, the largest gathering of Tlingít , Haida, and Tsimshian peoples in the world. Some of the paddlers started in Ketchikan, others were from Prince of Wales Island, or Wrangell. A few came up from the Lower 48 to make the trip.
After the journey, Herrman-Sakamoto sat down with KFSK’s Hannah Flor to talk about what the experience was like. She says it wasn’t quite what she expected. Many of the paddlers caught a stomach bug, and heavy rain and wind made paddling, or “pulling” as they call it, difficult.
That was YaKunda.ein Avery Herrman Sakamoto talking with KFSK’s Hannah Flor about her canoe journey to Celebration in Juneau.
