After 40 years, Albany declares Kahnawake day

Forty years ago, some of Kahnawake’s finest took a rag-tag group of around 75 paddlers under their wing, guiding them through a paddling journey re-enacting the route to Albany that would’ve been used as part of the historic fur trade.

That group included 12 rambunctious Boy Scouts, excited to be a part of a trip that marked 300 years since the founding of Albany’s city charter.

Roger Downs was 15 at the time, and felt a big responsibility on his shoulders. The oldest of his Boy Scout troop from an Albany suburb, he wanted to make sure everything was well coordinated and the younger boys in his group were safe and fed.

But, at 15, he’d never taken a more than 200-mile paddling trip before. Luckily, there were friends to be made in the Kahnawa’kehró:non who had joined the group to help steer them on their way.

“I think pretty early on, Kenneth Deer and Wendell Beauvais recognized we needed some help,” Downs said. “In the beginning, they’d take one of the scouts out of our canoe and put one of us in theirs, and take one of their paddlers and put them in ours. They would teach us everything, and we learned.”

Downs remembers carefully studying the techniques of the Mohawk paddlers who helped the group, and the songs they sung as they travelled through the water.

“The songs were burned into our brains. I’m not kidding you, I sing those songs to myself at least once a week in my head, I’ve done that for 40 years,” Downs said.

After four decades of humming those songs alone, Downs was finally able to sing with his old paddling friends again, at a reunion in Kahnawake last week supported by Kahnawà:ke Shakotiia’takéhnhas Community Services (KSCS), which marked the anniversary of the trip.

There, Downs, his former Boy Scout friends, and the men who guided them on their paddling journey, joined in song again, led by Ahonwakerane Stacey, whose father Danny Stacey had been a part of the original trip.

“With some coaxing from the others I sang what we’d learned, and after 40 years it was still the same, word for word,” Downs said. “We’d paddled to those songs eight hours a day for two weeks, and now 40 years on we’re singing together, it really was electric.”

The paddlers who had embarked on that re-enactment trip had never forgotten the kindness of the Kahnawa’kehró:non who shared their knowledge. Along with Beauvais, Deer, and Stacey, the group had been guided by John Canoe, Joe Curotte, Russell Curotte, Harley Delaronde, Thomas Deom, and Brian Jacobs, and supported by Rosie Beauvais and Presida Stacey, who made up the ground crew.

Many of those present for the 1986 trip came together at the Kanatahkwèn:ke, Kahnawake’s Cultural Arts Centre last weekend.

“Nobody was young anymore, the youngest of those Boy Scouts are in their early 50s now,” said Deer, who was at last weekend’s reunion. “We have fond, fond memories of that trip. That’s the most important part.”

At the reunion, Downs presented Kahnawake with a proclamation from Dorcey Applyrs, the mayor of Albany, declaring July 5 “Kahnawake Mohawk Friendship Day,” an acknowledgement that Deer said was “the icing on the cake.”

“It was so unexpected, it shows how friendships can endure,” he said. “That really goes to show that you never know, when you help people paddle 221 miles from Kahnawake to Albany, what it can produce.”

For Deer, the entire trip was a special cultural exchange. He remembers one evening in the middle of the first week, when the group landed on Crown Point at the end of Lake Champlain, and he and Joe Curotte made the paddlers a cornbread dinner.

“We fed them, and that’s when we really, really came closer together, and it just grew from there,” he said.

Delaronde also remembers that night, and telling the young paddlers that cornbread is ready when it floats to the top during boiling.

“We had a big pot of it cooking and they’re all waiting, all standing, all watching, and one just popped to the top and they all cheered,” he said.

“We really carried those positive feelings. There were all types of connections that happened, and they haven’t forgotten us.”

Last week’s reunion included a trip to the 207 Longhouse, a presentation about Kahnawake’s history and culture, and a tour of the community - as well as a special visit to Onake Paddling Club.

“We threw them in a dragon boat, and out we went for a little spin,” Delaronde said.

The Boy Scouts became known as the “Man Scouts” throughout the reunion, and Delaronde said he was especially moved when they presented Kahnawake with gifts, including a carving of a canoe featuring turtles, wolves, and bears paddling, with the body of the canoe decorated with photographs from the original 1986 trip.

“They really stepped up, they really blew us away,” Delaronde said.

As the sun set on the reunion, Delaronde thought of the memories he had of paddling that route himself, 40 years ago.

“I remember when I was paddling looking out, and thinking, wow, some of my ancestors, maybe my great-great-great-great grandfather might have paddled this way,” He said. “Maybe he looked up at the same mountains, saw the same things. It had an impact on me.”

For Downs, he hopes the relationships built all those years ago will continue to grow, and that the city of Albany’s recognition of the trip will continue to spark conversation.

“It’s taken a long time for our own city and government to recognize First Nations, and I hope we can see the need to look at our history over again, and extend that into our future, that we have the obligation to re-examine our history,” he said.

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