OMAK POW WOW 2023

Thursday August 10th

Large folded table, Colemans stove, pack of Lucky’s, cutlery set, plates, mugs, spices, salt, coffee, tea and tea towels, 6 person tent, folding chairs, salteens, rice crackers, Igloo thermos of ice water, large empty cooler, pillows, blankets, blow up mattresses, first aid kit, tin foil, cooking pots, spatula, coffee percolator, matches, propane, sewing kit, tea tree oil, hemp salve, bear spray, Naloxone kit, umbrella, notebooks, pens, beeswax wraps - and various other bric-a-brac like toiletries, sunglasses and flip flops..

It rained in Vancouver, soaking in to the wooden balcony behind Lynn’s house, and the sky was layered in inky muted greys. We packed and stacked the vehicle as the sun started to burn through the clouds; and then we headed to her sister Chrissy’s house to pick her and her daughter up.

We drove to the border crossing, and when we let the officer know that we were going to Omak, he told us: It’s gonna to be hot down there.

The sky was now clear, and we headed straight for Taco Bell in Blaine; and after we turned off into the Cascades, we stopped at a wonderland of a convenience store with unique and enticing snacks like chili lime Cornuts and Combos.

As we winded through the mountains, we ended up passing by a large firefighters encampment, and we drove right through a wildfire. There were firefighters chilling out by the back of their pick up trucks while fires blazed all around them, and the landscape was blotted with patches of rusty coloured trees that had already been consumed. There were full-on flames devouring brush near the side of the road, and smoke was filling up the landscape.

We turned a sharp corner and saw a car flipped over on to it’s side with it’s belly facing the road; and then we passed through another sprawl that had been entirely ravaged by fire a few years previous, with nothing left but charred spindles. Yet two tidily constructed wooden houses stood proudly amongst the apocalyptic rubble, one of them flying a giant American flag in front of it.

That whole stretch of road felt like a nightmarish video game.

 

We passed through Winthrope and Tolkien-esque rocky mountain ranges, and I wondered aloud how people knew where to blast through the rocky and enveloping landscape. Lynn had an answer: Indian Trails.

The terrain transformed from high snow-capped peaks to stretches of farmland surrounded by sagebrush; and then we drove down into the sprawling foothills of Omak, or Omache, which means “good medicine” in the Salishan language.

The pow wow* (or "Indian Encampment") is part of a larger stampede, and the grounds are right next to the main highway that runs through the small town, which has around 5,000 local residents; though during the stampede weekend, that number goes up to 30,000. There’s a lot going on all day and all night with an amusement park, bull riding, barrel racing, beauty pageant, art shows, beer gardens with dancing, stick games, pow wow dancers, a sprawl of merchants, and a huge variety of food vendors.

We arrived just in time to see the first of the suicide races, and sat on the river bank opposite an extremely steep hill that leads into the Okanagan River. First one man came down on his horse and sat stoic and still in the water with a faint halo of light around him, where he glowed like a spectre. The silence leading up to the racers descent was anxiety inducing, and breathtaking.

 

A gun shot went off, and the riders all came down in unison. Someone fell, and it was horrifying, though thankfully he was still moving, and was quickly taken off of the hill on to a boat that had been waiting in the river.

In the back of my mind I was thinking, Is this animal abuse? Human abuse?

Friday

I couldn’t sleep so I walked over to the bleachers that frame the main pow wow dancing area and wrote in my journal. When I pulled my head up from the pages, all of the stars were gone. The sky was a soft baby blue fading into a sweep of pale pink on the eastern horizon, and I was surrounded by marbled sandy hills peppered with low brush and sparse pine trees. Continuous drumming from the stick games tent faded in and out of the background and had embedded itself into the scenery.

Empty teepees were set up all around, and empty folding chairs were staked out around the dancing circle. As the day went by more friends of ours would come, all of the chairs and teepees would fill up; more tents, trucks and trailers would come, and the Grand Entry would be at 7pm.

A few teenagers that I’m pretty sure said something about being high on mushrooms all night had been hanging out talking nearby me for hours while I wrote. I saw them point over at me out of my periphery, so I looked over at them, and one of them was like, oh shit, she just looked right over at us!

I decided that I’d walk by them and see if they were friendly, and right away one of them was like “Hiiiiiii!”, so I was like “Hiiiiiii!”, and I went over to talk to them. They were all middle school age and had some very cool styles: beat up sneakers, bright sweaters, puffy jackets, facial piercings - and one guy had the sides of his head shaved 90’s style and was like, “I’m in big trouble with the cops”. After hearing the details of his encounter, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, and he told me that he was mostly “squashing the beef”, which sounded like a sexual innuendo to me, but actually means 'diffusing a tense situation'. I asked them where they were all from, and it was far and wide: Texas, Florida, Seattle x2, Montana, and one local. Two of them met on Tik Tok and decided to come to the pow wow together so they could meet up in person. One of them was too shy to answer me when I first asked where they all travelled from, and then finally blurted “Seattle!” out from the folds of her big jacket and started laughing nervously. Another person started asking me questions about spellcasting.

I wanted to talk to them more, but then I started to feel shy, and I was mega tired and mega hungry; but I thought that they were all totally awesome, and it’s times like those that I wish I had social media so I could keep up with people that I meet when I’m travelling.

After we had breakfast, we drove out to Omak Lake, and we were stopped by officers from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, who reluctantly collected our park fee for the day. We chatted one of them up, and I asked him about the horseback rider who fell the previous evening. He said that the guy was in the hospital but doing fine, and he proudly told us that he had raced in the suicide races in the past. He had a bit of a drawl and old fashioned good manners, and took his time talking with us like there was no rush in the world.

Omak Lake was glowing an iridescent turquoise colour that almost seemed alien, and the water was rippled and sparkling. We all went for a swim and then relaxed on the sandy beach front under the blazing sun.

On the way back, when we came out of the mountains into marshlands and farmlands, we passed by a creepy abandoned house on the side of the road.

 

**

We got back to the encampment and checked out the market, where wafts of weed and sage and artificially buttered popcorn filled the air. There were vendors selling animal skins, skulls, 7 foot tall dream catchers framed with arrows, bone earrings, shells, horns, sage, sweetgrass, leather lace, peace pipes, mini axes, ceremonial daggers, hand made silver jewelry, alpaca shalls from Ecuador, beaded earrings, and more..

After we browsed for a while, we headed to the first Grand Entry, and the dancing area was now surrounded by onlookers. There were children sprawled out on the grass doing colouring books, and several drumming groups were set up in circles, seated around large skin drums. We sat on the metal bleachers that framed the large wooden dome and ate warm popcorn.

All of the competitors were called in to the centre circle by the MC, and the lead dancers carried an eagle staff and several flags, including one for the Colville Tribes and an American flag. An elder gave a prayer and welcomed all nations, and the host drum team sang and played a song, with the beats radiating out in rhythmic pulses.

The male dancers entered in the order of: Traditional, Fancy, Grass, and Chicken; and the women followed with Traditional, Fancy, and Jingle. Each person's regalia was handmade and unique, and many of the pieces were handed down from generation to generation.

The men's traditional regalia includes one large fan of feathers (or "bustle") coming out from the lower back, and they carry an eagle feather fan. Fancy dancers have two bustles. Grass dancers have a feather head crest and no bustle. And the chicken dancers have a feather head crest and one lower back bustle.

The women's traditional regalia is long, draping and intricately beaded; and they also carry a feather fan. The fancy dancers have brightly coloured shawls. And the jingle dancers wear hundreds of metal cones that make a soft jingling sound when the dancers move.

Once everyone was gathered and the entry song was finished, the MC closed the ceremony and the dancers left single file in vibrant colours that caught the light.

 

Afterwards, I headed down towards the river to get away from the crowd; and I heard the Star Spangled Banner being sung enthusiastically over a loud speaker in the main stampede enclosure. Shiny shirted, and sparkle bedecked women paraded down the walkway along the river on immaculately manicured horses, wearing cowboy hats and beauty queen sashes – each vying for the coveted “Miss Omak Stampede” title. Two of the girls at the front of the convoy had wavy blonde hair spilling out from their hats, and their style was reminiscent of 80's American teen movies.

Saturday:

I came out of our tent quietly early in morning, and when I looked around at the baseball field we were camped in, I realized that there were now 3-4 times as many tents pitched as there had been when we first arrived.

I headed over to the porta potties, and when I was walking back I saw a woman called Butterfly who was camped near us, and she gave me a big hug and asked me how my night was.

It was a very windy morning, which was annoying as heck for cooking, but it felt so good to be out in the desert watching the sun rise, and we found a praying mantis chilling out under our food table.

As we were eating, a small helicopter descended upon us, navigating the swirls of wind in the sky; and the driver landed without warning in the field adjacent to where we were, sending one of the nearby tents into a tree. One of the occupants stood dumbfounded where their tent once perched as the helicopter slowed it’s propellers and came to a stop. Later on that day, rides were being offered.

There was another Grand Entry at noon, and we checked that out - and then we drove to Omak Lake again. Lynn and I hiked up to one of the cliffs that looked out over the lake, and we swooned over the surreally beautiful water. We found an injured bird and we tried to help them but they were still able to fly somewhat and were too scared to let us near them. A few minutes later we saw a falcon flying over our heads, and it seemed ominous, though we left some water in a plastic bottle we folded into a makeshift cup. 

 

There was a burnt out tree on the ridge and we grabbed some chunks of it for art and magic, giving hair and saying thanks.

On our way back to the camp, went to the local Wal-Mart to refill our water and buy groceries, and above the water fountains there were 16 images of missing young people between the ages of 6-22 up on the wall. 10 out of 16 of them were Black or Hispanic.

We drove through the reservation that lies on the other side on the highway from where we were camped, and my friends had a word for the vibe that they were feeling: segregation.

 

After we got back to camp and ate lunch, Lynn and I decided to head downtown and watch a documentary called Eagle Boy about the suicide races. Cowboy culture was everywhere as we headed into town: a little girl with a bright yellow sunflower skirt and cowboy boots, a teenager wearing a long white dress and cowboy boots; and a sun stained man walking over the bridge that crosses over the Okanogan River with a cowboy hat, long grey beard, a t-shirt with a giant bottle of Tabasco on it, and a big bag of cat food slung over his shoulder.

Eagle Boy was being screened for free at one of the art deco theatres along the main street, and it gave a lot of insights into the races and the town dynamics:

'The story of Eagle Boy is a contemporary western, filmed in 2017 and set in rugged Omak, Washington. The town is sliced in half by the Okanogan River; one side is on the Colville Reservation, the other side isn’t. The annual Suicide Race is a conglomeration of these two realities of the West- an event deeply rooted in tribal tradition, and now deeply connected to a modern commercial rodeo.

Before the Grand Coulee Dam flooded the site of the original event, which the Suicide Race is based upon, and blocked the passage of the salmon, which the race celebrated, the Columbia River played an especially critical role in the lives of the Colville people. The people, the river, and the race all still exist, but in different forms. Tradition is a measure of not just how things stay the same, but how they change.'

The documentary followed Scott Abrahamsson and his horse Eagle Boy as they competed in the races under the direction of his mentor, George Marchand, who stepped in as a father figure for Scott after his dad passed away. The film was really well put together with a mix of raw bleached out video, Go-pro, shots taken from a screen inside the rodeo enclosure; and intimate shots taken at Scott's home, at the ranch where he trained, and behind the scenes at the races.

Scott wore glowing red devil horns that could be seen from a distance in the dark when the rides took place, and he become a hero in his community.

After we watched the film we explored the town and checked out some thrift stores and yard sales - and then we decided to drive up to the top of the hill where the races take place. There were large houses overlooking the river with “PRIVATE PROPERTY” signs in their front yards, big pick up trucks out front, lushly green lawns - and many of the homes had large American flags flying outside of them.

The hill leading down to the river was embedded with deep hoof prints.

 

We drove back down to the pow wow and their were people doing burn outs in the parking lot creating plumes plumes of dust. Trap rap oozed out of a pick up truck, and there was a long line up to use the two bathroom stalls that had showers in them.

We walked through the strip of food vendors again and there were people selling corn dogs, snow cones, cotton candy, bannock with huckleberry butter - and I found a place that was able to do a vegan Indian taco. As we when headed back to watch the traditional women's dancing competition, drumming from the stick games and drumming from the pow wow meshed together, and there were coloured streamers on the top of the teepee poles blowing in the wind.

The dancers went around the circle in the direction of the sun, and one woman wore a shall that was made entirely out of fine bead work.

 

From Deanne Hupfield:

'Pow wow dancing is a contemporary way Indigenous communities come together to practice their traditions. We have always had song and dance as part of our way of life. This is where we pass down traditional knowledge to our children. There are ceremonies and healing that happen at the event. It's a safe place where we can fully be in our community and practice our sacred songs and dances. This is so important because so many people have had their culture taken from them through Indian residential schools and Sixties Scoop.'

After watching the dancers we made our way over to the stampede area and we hung around outside of the rodeo enclosure, where we were surrounded by people wearing boots with spurs, shimmery dress shirts, cowboy hats and tassels. A booming voice from inside of the arena flooded the surrounding area with details of the bull wrangling event taking place inside. We also checked out the huge amusement park, which had more food vendors, and a selection of rides that included the Zipper and the Tilt-a-Whirl.

 

On our way back to our camp, we watched people playing the stick games (or "Slahal"), where rows of people were facing each other, drumming and singing, and entirely engulfed in what they were doing. The game is a Coast Salish tradition that's practiced throughout the Pacific Northwest, and was sometimes played in lieu of fighting wars, and to settle disputes. Sticks or bones (some marked and some not) are passed back and forth between team members and then concealed. The other team tries to guess which hand the marked stick is in, and gets points when they choose the right stick. The game can last many hours and winners get prize money.

We decided to head to the river early to watch the suicide races again, with an added layer of excitement after seeing behind the scenes. People were crowded all around, many with cameras at the ready, and tension was building up for over an hour before the gunshot finally went off and the racers descended. We recognized the glowing red horns of Scott Abrahamsson, and knew that he was still competing.

This year the river was low, so the horses were able to cross over easily. Sometimes they don’t make it. Sometimes they drown, or die from other injuries - and animal rights groups have protested against the event. Yet those associated with the races see the horses as living and dying with honour and reverence; and the racers, most of whom are Indigenous, see the event as a rite of passage.

We went back to Omak Lake at midnight to watch a meteor shower, and saw dozens of shooting stars, and the arm of the milky way was a brightly pixelated streak over our heads.

We got back to camp and I was tossing and turning as the drum beats and yelping of the stick games filled up the night sky. I decided to wander around and soak in the last of the atmosphere around me, knowing what an awesome and memorable experience it was to be attending such an event. Little kids were running around in the baseball field; and when I walked over to the pow wow area I heard more drumming, and watched grass dancers moving around the dancing circle. A thin slice of moon hung in the sky, creeping up from the eastern horizon over the highway.

Sunday:

I finally slipped into a deep sleep at around 5:00 am or so, and then the alarm went off at 7 for us to get ready to leave. The sky was clear and the sun was burning off the morning coolness. Drumming from the stick games filled the air, and the bright yellow regalia of a traditional dancer was hanging from the frame of a nearby tent canopy, blowing in the wind.

Despite buying and extra canopy, innertubes, extra mattress, stuffies, souvenirs, and several bags of food - including 3 giant bags of tortilla chips; we managed to tetris everything back into the vehicle, though we were all encased in accoutrements.

As we left Omak, we saw tumbleweeds dancing down the highway and passed by fields of sage brush. We drove through a small community and saw a young family at the front of their gated home hoisting a large American flag up to mast.

Unsurprisingly, the route we took on the way there was now blocked off by forest fires, so we headed to the Okanagan border. We drove through Osoyoos and saw the aftermath of a recent forest fire with destroyed homes along the lake front; and in Keremeos we saw the beginnings of a new fire, which would soon devastate large swaths of wilderness.

There are pow wows happening all over these lands, and all nations are welcome in attendance.