NEWBURYPORT – Visitors to the Merrimack River waterfront last weekend thought they had stumbled onto a barbecue behind the Custom House Maritime Museum.
But instead of a roasting pig, walkers on the Clipper City Rail Trail instead found Aquinnah Wampanoag master canoe builder Johnathan James Perry and his cousin Jared James burning out a tall white pine tree to make a mishoon, a dugout canoe, that will be launched in the river on Oct. 11, Indigenous People’s Day.
It is Perry’s 53rd canoe, which he built by hand to demonstrate how native American tribes like his created vessels for battle, diplomacy, recreation and transport.
“It’s fun,” James Perry said. But it is also hard work, chiseling out the charcoal the fire leaves behind. Called the Merrimack Mishoon project, which received a $30,000 grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the canoe takes eight to 10 days to build. The pair will be working on the canoe this weekend and preparing it for launch.
“We have to be good,” James Perry said. If not, when the 600-pound canoe is launched in the river, carrying four or more passengers, it could sink.
The Merrimack Mishoon Project is a collaborative initiative aimed at the reviving traditional Indigenous practice of making dugout canoes. Led by master mishoon makers Darius Coombs, a Mashpee Wampanoag, and James Perry, an Aquinnah Wampanoag, the project is a partnership of Imagine Studios, the Custom House and Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury.
This project seeks to honor indigenous maritime traditions engaging indigenous apprentices in the process.
While the firewood burned the inside of the tree, James Perry answered questions from curious visitors. He explained to one couple that stopped to watch that they burn the tree to cut down on the hard labor of chipping out the charcoal. But the fire also hardens the wood, keeps out insects and makes the canoe last many years.
When two men came following the fire smells that wafted over the Rail Trail, he told a story of cooking a chicken overnight in the burning charcoal. He ate the chicken the next morning. “Best breakfast I ever tasted,” James Perry said.
On Friday, Oct. 4, the Custom House is hosting a seafood fundraising dinner with Mashpee Wampanoag chef Sherry Pocknett, the first native American woman to be named the best chef in the Northeast by the James Beard Foundation.
Tickets for the Merrimack Mishoon Celebration and Fundraising Feast from 3 to 7 p.m. at the museum are on sale today. Last week, only 11 tickets remained. The price of a ticket is $125 and includes a membership to the Custom House. ♦
