On Tuesday, August 2, through Saturday, August 7, Kalispel and regional tribal members and the River Warrior Society are holding the annual Remember the Water canoe journey [1]. The paddle usually voyages between Qpqpe (Sandpoint, Idaho) and the Qlispe (Kalispel) Tribal Powwow Grounds, during the days before and beginning the yearly Kalispel Powwow and around the time of the Festival at Sandpoint music concerts. Families and friends are again paddling over 35 miles in traditional, dugout, wooden and sturgeon nose canoes, through their home lands and waters in the tributaries, lake, and river of the Pend Oreille watershed. While oil and gas pipeline expansions and fossil fuels pipeline-on-rails infrastructure and transportation impose and risk further harms to indigenous people and places across Turtle Island (North America), Native neighbors continue to revive, uphold, and practice their ancient cultures and sustainable ways, through admirable endeavors like this canoe journey and culminating powwow.
Paddle organizers encourage observers and participants to share this joyful cultural resurgence at various route locations. Like during previous years, and as depicted in linked photos and articles about prior journeys, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists and area groups plan to welcome the paddlers at Sandpoint, during their arrival on Wednesday evening and departure on Thursday morning, August 3 and 4 [2-11]. The canoe journey tentatively begins with a Tuesday evening, August 2, meeting at the Kalispel Powwow Grounds, initially launches on the Pack River on Wednesday, August 4, and re-starts from Sandpoint City Beach Park on Thursday morning, August 5, ultimately reaching its destination of the Kalispel Village on Saturday, August 7. Please see the enclosed itinerary, join WIRT in supporting this adventure, and contact Nathan Piengkham via facebook and/or respond to WIRT, for further information, logistics, and ways to help. Continue reading
July 8-10 annual actions remember the Lac-Mégantic, Mosier, & Custer disasters
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is celebrating three March 31 anniversaries during recent, pandemic years, as a regional, activist collective confronting the root causes and perpetrators of climate change, through direct actions and locally organized solutions, in solidarity with frontline communities and grassroots networks of fossil fuels resistance [1-5]. We invite and welcome everyone of all ages to share this decade-plus milestone at two Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Annual Celebrations of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, held as outdoor, COVID-19-safe gatherings in Sandpoint and Moscow, Idaho. Please join dirty energy resisters for an afternoon voyage on Lake Pend Oreille and two evening celebrations, all full of well-deserved, reinvigorating, shared camaraderie, spirited conversations, good food and drink, and talented performances.