The phone rang; it was about 8:30. At first I couldn’t what she was saying, or even who it was. “My daddy is dead,” I heard her say it again and again, “ he’s drowned.” My wife and I rushed to the hospital to meet the daughter and her husband, members of our congregation. There were already a large number of people there, paddlers, from the 2006 canoe journeys of the West Coast natives of North America. Several of the paddlers, if not all, were hospitalized with hypothermia. One person, however, a chief from Canada, did not survive. A series of family meetings ensued. It was an honor that the family chose to have two meetings in our home. We were privileged to watch, to listen, to cry with the family, and to feed them.

Protocol and planning

At the first of these meetings there were representatives from at least three tribes of the Olympic Peninsula, including the paddlers of the Hummingbird canoe. This was the crew of the capsized canoe, which the life of the chief was lost in. Makah, Quileute, and Sklallam tribes were there. One man from the Quileute tribe and his wife came to sit with the family. They had lost a son in the only other accidental death since the inception of the journeys, fifteen years earlier. The message was brought to the family that, at their request, the journey would be ended out of respect for the chief and his family. The family decided unanimously, that their father, the chief, would have wanted our people to finish the journey. They asked that the paddle he used be put in the bow of the canoe that it might finish the journey. The body would be shipped to Canada, after an autopsy. The tribes would care for the family, here locally, until they could follow their father to his final resting place in Canada.

The Life

He wept as he told the family, this young warrior, this young paddler, your father said, “ I can’t hold on. I’m not going to make it, you’ll have to go on without me. Quickly, save the little ones.” And the young warrior did. We lost a great chief that day, he was the Keeper of the beach, second only to the Maquinna, the high chief. He laid down his life. In that final moment of the most stark awareness of our mortality, his thoughts and actions were for those people in his care. I was reminded of the words Jesus spoke, “ No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” He had spent a lifetime laying down his life for his people. He was thrown in jail for fishing in his traditional territory. A court battle ensued and it was the first court case won for Aboriginal Title and Right. It was a battle to obtain the right to manage the resources of our traditional territories. He went to Denmark and again was thrown in jail struggling to stand with the Sami peoples of Norway, for their rights as the original people of the land. He was a survivor of the residential school system. Like so many of our people he was subjected to every kind of abuse in these institutions. Not only had our people lost our land base and the ability to manage resources so as to care for our families, but in these institutions the family unit was shattered as the children were taken from their homes in an attempt to assimilate. In these schools the language, culture, traditions, and ways our people governed their lives, were all denied, forbidden. Tenaciously, the chief clung to the traditional values of our people. His life was a journey, to lead his people back. To give all that he was, to insure the posterity, the identity, the reality of who Creator God had created our people to be.

The Legacy

“ I never realized how much I depended on him for support.” the brother said. He continued, “ Now I must become the one that others can count on for support.” “ I’ve been in law enforcement all my life,” the son said, “ Now I must take my fathers place as our chief and lead our people.” With tears streaming down her face she said, “ I’ve always obeyed my father. He never had anything but all my love and respect. I lived my life to bring him the honor that he deserved.” As I listened, there was story after story of the journey that this chief had lived, the healing journeys of peoples he had walked with, laughed and cried with. People from all over the world whose lives had been touched with the message of hope and life, of God given culture and identity.

The Message

As I sat with family, friends, tribal elders, and their chiefs, there was an overwhelming sense of creative order. I was reminded of the words of our Lord, “ unless an ear of corn dies and is buried it stands alone, but if it die and is buried it brings forth much fruit.” His life force was not diminished in his passing but was now becoming exponentially greater in the lives of our people. I witnessed the ceremony of the chiefs as they passed on to the son the history, culture, and authority, surrounding him, clothing him in his fathers blanket and putting white down feathers on his head. All of this was a very vivid picture of our great high chief Jesus Christ. The force of his testament, his will that came to us in his death. This would be the message, “ I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me will live even though he dies.” Through the work of our high chief we have received the forgiveness of sins and have obtained eternal life and the resurrected life of the son of God now lives on through us as we journey the road, everyday pitching our tents one day closer to eternity.

David Sternbeck