We know it today as the Penn Cove Water Festival, an annual event that brings canoe racers to Coupeville on beautiful Whidbey Island to celebrate an important cultural intersection between tribal and non-tribal communities: life on the waters of the Puget Sound and Salish Sea. The event began in 1930 as a bit of local hucksterism that was billed as the "Indian Water Carnival." In this Beaver Tales podcast episode, I talk with the executive director of the Island County Historical Museum in Coupeville about the event's evolution into so much more than a racing competition, and about how it was that two Coast Salish chiefs once donned war bonnets to call attention to the plight of their tribal communities. We also honor the memory of a native artist and teacher whose creations gave the Penn Cove Water Festival a graphic identity: Roger Purdue.
