Daily Sitka Sentinel

Koo.eex' to Celebrate Return of Herring

By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer

In honor of the herring’s return to Sitka Sound to spawn, Sitkans - from activists to artists - plan to gather this Saturday at Totem Square.

For event coordinator Rachel Moreno, it’s a chance to celebrate the herring and come together as a community after a year of isolation.

“We want to focus this event on the celebration of the herring spawn… We’d love to see people show up at the event. It’s almost one of the first public cultural events to happen since COVID shut everybody down,” Moreno told the Sentinel.

To begin the event, the Herring Protectors will arrive in the SEARHC canoe at the Totem Square dock, Moreno said. “They’ll sing a coming-in song, be greeted on shore by another group singing a welcome song, possibly.”

Herring scatter as humpback whales surface through a bubble net Saturday near Sitka National Historical Park. As of this morning, the shore of the park is now covered in herring spawn. A celebration of herring will take place Saturday. (Sentinel Photo by Lucy Poulson)

Activities, including music, form line art, gift-giving and complimentary bowls of seafood chowder made by Our Town Catering, will start at 1 p.m. A special reveal is scheduled at 3 p.m.

For Louise Brady, events like these are a chance to celebrate relationships.

“A Koo.eex’ is how we celebrate our relationships with each other, I’m Raven Kiks.ádi, and we celebrate our clan relationships, our relationships to our ancestors, our relationships to the land and the water and all of the environment,” Brady said. “And the reason it was appropriate that I acted as one of the hosts is because my clan, the Kiks.ádi women, have a special relationship to the herring through the Herring Rock.”

This rock, located near the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi, is central in a story about the herring spawn, Brady said. In the story, a Kiks.ádi woman falls asleep on the rock and wakes to find her hair covered in herring eggs, Brady recounted.

She referred to the gathering of people to share gifts, food, and more to celebrate the herring as a Koo.eex’.

“It would be what people call a potlatch; basically it’s a feast. It’s really hard to explain – they used to last three to four days. Like the 1904 potlatch that people refer to was a big one, and they call that the Last Potlatch. So when I asked, especially the elders, they weren’t quite sure what we were doing, but for us it was a way to celebrate,” she said.

The herring Koo.eex’ originated from local solidarity with the Standing Rock protesters who opposed the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, Brady said.

“A group of us - actually quite a few people - got together and we had a rally for Standing Rock, and probably, maybe there were 100, 150 people who showed up at Totem Square,” Brady recalled. “And later that year we had a fundraiser for Standing Rock and I think we raised between $80,000 and $90,000… We felt so inspired by the work that we decided that we wanted to work on a local issue, and I suggested herring.”

“We made a lot of gifts, it was open to the public, and there was a lot of interest. And a lot of the non-Native, non-Tlingit community did show up – I think it was probably the first time a lot of people had attended a Tlingit ceremony,” she said. While the idea hatched in 2016, the first herring Koo.eex’ took place in the spring of 2018.

The event was popular, she said. 

“It was so well received and we made gifts, miniature drums and wove cedar headbands,” she said.

In the chaos of the pandemic, such events weren’t held in 2020.

Now, with the controversial commercial sac roe herring fishery underway, Brady said, the event offers a way to view the herring as more than a source of money.

“I think most important was having the Koo.eex’ brought back a way to look at herring other than just financial... More and more people are willing to get involved and it’s been a way for people to come together in a really positive way,” she said.

At the celebration in 2019, Brady said, the presentation of a new herring robe was a centerpiece of the festivities.

“When we brought the robe out we could hear an audible gasp from everybody… There’s something about a celebration of spring, and something that is so meaningful to Sitka as the herring, that people want to be involved,” she said.

Moreno highlighted the importance of herring in her upbringing as well.

“When I was a child I lived in Anchorage and we flew down here during herring season. And for as far as you could see on the approach into Sitka there was spawn. And I’m not just talking about a thin line of spawn along the beach, it was a very big spawn that extended way out front of the shore and colored the waters, the beautiful sea foam green. And it was a sign of spring. It was a time for gathering and sharing this customary traditional food, not just with family but with friends all over the state,” Moreno remembered. “And to see it shrink down to what it has become now is alarming, and it’s heartbreaking to even think that something my great-grandchildren might not have the experience of harvesting and eating and sharing one of our most important food sources.”

Though she was raised up north, Moreno is Tlingit of the Raven moiety.

To Chandler O’Connell, of Sitka Mutual Aid, Saturday’s event is a chance to remember the connections between people and place.

“It’s going to be a great opportunity for community building, relationship building, and a chance to honor the herring and reflect on the relationship between people and place,” O’Connell said.

She, too, noted the significance of herring to people in Sitka.

“The eggs of the herring have been a staple food that historically fed thousands of people every spring as they were sustainably harvested on branches. And they are the base of so much of what makes Sitka and Southeast Alaska globally unique. They feed the salmon, the birds, the whales, they are an integral part of the way of life here,” O’Connell said.

She highlighted the special reveal scheduled for 3 p.m., describing it as “some incredible art collaboration that has happened in our community.”

In a separate event on the same day, Sitkans will have a chance to don their running shoes for a 5k race at Whale Park at 10 a.m. Registration opens at 9 a.m. and is free, though O’Connell said donations to the Herring Protectors are welcome. The first 20 runners to register will receive a free mask. Like the run, all other events on Saturday are free. Limited seating will be available for elders at the gathering.

“Taking part in art and ceremony will hopefully be healing… It feels really good to bring the community back together again around the herring. We really missed that last year we really missed the Koo.eex’ last year,” O’Connell said.