By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
As days grow longer and herring return to Sitka Sound, marking the arrival of spring, Sitkans are preparing for what’s become a tradition in recent years – the Yaaw Koo.eex’, or Herring Ceremony.
For event organizer Kh’aachtlaa Louise Brady, who is Kiks.adi of the Point House, the Koo.eex’ celebrates not only the herring, but also the social significance of sharing their eggs.
“For me, and I think for any Tlingit people that have ever been in Southeast Alaska, it’s like that taste of spring; it’s that taste of home,” she said in an interview at the ANB Founders Hall Thursday. “And in fact, the Sitka Tribe did a survey a couple of years ago for harvesters asking where the eggs were sent. And they were sent as far away as Hawaii and Florida.”
This year, herring spawn began at Shoals Point on the south end of Kruzof Island and eventually encompassed most of the shoreline of the sound, including spots along the road system and around Crow Pass and Promisla Bay, which are traditional locations for gathering roe.
“I’ve been getting reports from the harvesters saying it was an excellent year,” Brady said.
Saturday’s Koo.eex’ begins at 1 p.m. at Harrigan Centennial Hall and will last until 1 a.m. Sunday, with the Kiks.adi and the Herring Protectors as hosts. The Koo.eex’ has been an annual celebration since 2018 except for the pandemic year 2020. Song, dance, food and gift-giving are all part of it.
Gifts for Saturday’s Koo.eex and Spring Celebration are set out on a table at ANB Founders Hall today. (Sentinel Photo)
As Brady spoke with the Sentinel, dozens of people, Sitkans and folks from out of town, were busy at work making a wide range of handicrafts, from miniature drums to baskets. Her brother, Ralph Brady, instructed people in drum making, while Ed Peel taught bark weaving, and Rachel Moreno guided people in the making of tinaas and ceremonial robes.
For this year’s Koo.eex’, Brady said, new herring dance robes are in the works.
“We were able through the grant offer to women who have never had a dance robe (a chance) to learn how to make their own robes,” she said. “So we are probably adding, I think, an additional four adult women’s herring robes and two children’s herring robes.”
The Koo.eex’ is attracting visitors from other parts of Alaska, the lower states, and Canada, she said.
“We have some folks from Canada, from Teslin (Yukon Territory), here. So we’ll be able to send them back up river with herring eggs,” said Brady. “What they’re facing too, is the salmon quit going up the stream, their salmon have disappeared from the rivers. We also have guests coming from the Tanana-Yukon rivers, who have been advocating for salmon, and we’re going to establish a formal alliance with them, through ceremony, to commit ourselves to help them.”
For Brady, the herring signal an important shift between seasons in Sitka each year. She recalled a scene several years ago in which the entirety of the natural world came alive in concert with the arrival of the herring.
“It’s joyful, it’s just this amazing, beautiful, abundant time of year,” she said. “I think it’s been three years ago now, I went out to the flats out by Shis’gi Noow (the site of the Battle of 1804), the park, and it was low tide, and the beach was just filled with seagulls and eagles and ravens, different species of ducks, blue heron. And then off the shore were the sea lions and whales… For me, it’s like a cacophony of joy of the return of the herring for everybody.”
The Herring Protectors have received about 350 RSVP messages, more than double the number from 2018, and people can RSVP online at herringprotectors@gmail.com.
Over the years Brady has seen a degree of respect for Native values by the policy makers and managers of the commercial roe fishery. Brady has testified regularly at the Alaska Board of Fish for protection of the subsistence harvest. She recalled the first Koo.eex’, in 2018, which was attended by a number of state Board of Fish members.
“And instead of taking them out to dinner, it was like, ‘Come here and listen to our people.’” she said. “And they stayed for quite a while and it was a chance for our people to go and meet them here in our territory on our terms… Our elders and our culture bearers and our harvesters were able to talk as long as they wanted, as much as they wanted about the importance of herring to Tlingit society.”
Brady thinks Saturday’s celebration is not only a community gathering, but a chance at healing from the stresses caused by the pandemic years.
“People need joy; people need healing,” she said. “And I feel like this is what the Koo.eex’ has to offer, a place for people to come together and celebrate each other and community.”
