More than 1,000 people gathered in honor of military veterans from the Lummi Nation during the 77th annual Lummi Stommish Water Festival on Saturday, June 24.
The four-day festival takes place every June and features war canoe races, stick games, 3-on-3 basketball tournaments, a veterans parade, food and merchant vendors.
Planning begins in February and the exact date of the festival depends on the tides due to the canoe races, said Henry Cagey, chairman of the Stommish Committee.
The canoe races are what have brought husband and wife Kalvin and A’aliya Warbus to the festival for more than 30 years. They live in the Stó:lō Nation based in Canada and race with the Star Nation Canoe Club.
“The Indigenous culture is growing, the paddling sport is growing and we are really trying to keep our young people healthy and strong,” A’aliya said. “This is our culture and we will keep going strong.”
Others come to the festival to connect with other Indigenous communities in the region like Reuben Twin, program manager for Mother Nation, a nonprofit that offers culturally informed healing services and homeless prevention to Native Americans.
Twin said his organization recognizes tribes without the border between U.S. and Canada so they can provide services to First Nation people. Coming to events like the water festival allows him to inform and connect with people throughout the Pacific Northwest.
“We recognize tribes, bands, clans and villages as opposed to states,” Twin said. “[Indigenous peoples] are all individual nations that recognize each other without borders.”
That sentiment is shared by Kalvin, who grew up in the Lummi Nation but now lives with the Stó:lō. He said traveling from Canada to the U.S. is easy but travel back to Canada is difficult because Canada doesn’t recognize the Jay Treaty, which allows American Indians to freely travel across the international boundary.
“For me to go up there, they took [the Jay Treaty] out of their law,” Kalvin said. “I am basically just a tourist up there.”
During the festival, 20-plus canoe clubs participated in the races and more than half of the clubs were tribes from Canada, said Tim Ballew, former Lummi Nation chairman.
The canoe races were the favorite activity for Anthony Langfald, who was attending his first Stommish Water Festival. Langfald learned about the festival from his girlfriend Jasmine Cuellar, who grew up in Bellingham but now lives in Iowa with Langfald.
“She had a wonderful experience here as a kid; it’s an annual event that we just so happened to be in town for so we came,” Lanfald said.
Cuellar hasn’t attended the festival in eight years and noticed there are many more tribes that come to visit. She remembers the festival in the past had a much smaller crowd and featured mainly Lummi Nation members.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival saw an average attendance size of 10,000, Cagey said. He expects this year’s festival will be close to that number.
The festival runs from June 22–25. For more information, visit lummistommish.org.
