Kake’s Dog Salmon Festival started 30 years ago as a way to celebrate the commercial fishing season. But this year’s festival on Saturday will be the last in the village of 500 people.
Organizers are planning to change the festival going forward to better reflect the community as it is now. They plan to rename the event and emphasize Lingít heritage.
Juneau artist Chloey Cavanaugh has been working with Kelli Jackson with the Kake Tribal Corporation on making this last year of the original festival special.
Listen:
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Chloey Cavanaugh: I am Chloe Kavanaugh. My Lingít name is Tláakw Sháa.
My connection to Kake is it’s my grandfather’s home community. He grew up in Kake, and I was back a few months ago.
So Kelli’s been just really amazing to collaborate with, and kind of dream big about what the future of Dog Salmon Fest looks like. So it’s kind of just started off as us talking at a cabin and being like, “Okay, what can we do for the last year of Dog Salmon Fest?”
I think it mostly started off as a celebration of the fishing season and a time to share that success with the community and celebrate and compete with other communities on different canoe events, of races, of food competitions, and this way to kind of celebrate the fishing season together.
I think there’s an immense amount of kindness in the community that makes it really, really special. The community is so invested in the subsistence there, and to see that wherever you go, just people enjoying the landscape is just, yeah, it makes it a really special place.
At least, like, my understanding about Kake, and what I’ve learned over the years and gone through videotapes that my grandfathers left me is it just it took a really big hit with religion and the community, and a lot of knowledge and access to culture being lost, although that subsistence is really, really there. There was also a lot of damage done, and the relationship between the military and Kake, and bad pipes being put in the schools, and a lot of harm done to the community.
And I think there’s a lot of healing happening in Kake right now with not only culture, but healing centers. Joel Jackson’s putting in a healing center, and there’s a lot of work around, now, this phase of recognizing the harm that’s been done, and the community’s push to recognize how we move forward and working together to make that happen. So I think it’s kind of this beautiful moment to recognize where we’ve been and recognize how to move forward, and the community’s huge role in making that happen and that healing process.
I think it’s one of those things where the community is so invested, and it’s just about finding the connections outside of Kake and people that are willing to invest in the community. And it’s so strange how we’re so close in distance in a lot of ways, but because of a lack of a road system, we also are so disconnected in those ways. So I think in a lot of the ways that we see Juneau thriving — with education, with arts, with investment in youth — is something that Kake is really, has been really good at, and is wanting to expand on.
For the first time in years, a catamaran will bring people to Kake for the festival from Juneau, with about 100 spots. Attendees can also stay at the former cannery bunkhouse for $25 a night. Bookings are through Kake Tribal Corporation.
