❖ 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 S.P.H.S.©

Long wooden canoes with seventy-seven natives
Summer 1939
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

"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