Two Row on the Grand trip to Lake Erie one-of-a-kind event’
10-day paddle organized in honour of the Haudenosaunee Two Row Wampum Belt
On Wednesday rowers participating in the Two Row on the Grand set out on the ninth annual, 10-day canoe trip out to Lake Erie to honour the Two Row Wampum Belt or Kaswentha.
The Two Row Wampum Belt represented an agreement of mutual respect made between the Haudenosaunee peoples and European settlers in 1613.
The belt has two rows of parallel purple beads on a background of white. The purple is meant to represent a Haudenosaunee canoe and European ship sailing side-by-side to show that the two groups could peacefully coexist without interfering with one another.
The Two Row on the Grand is organized by Ellie Joseph, a Mohawk Turtle woman from the Six Nations of the Grand River, and Jay Bailey, a nonIndigenous man, who was born near the headwaters of the Grand River.
Both are retired teachers in their 70s and consider each other “paddle siblings.”
The Haudenosaunee are also often referred to as the Iroquois or Six Nations and are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
The confederacy used to only represent five nations — the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk), but the with the Tuscarora joining the confederacy in the early 1722, Six Nations become one of the common names.
The Two Row on the Grand will replicate the Wampum belt, with Indigenous rowers paddling in one line, and nonIndigenous allies, including students from the University of Guelph and McMaster University, in a separate parallel line.
“Over the years the treaty was forgotten, and so people were not living in peace, friendship and respect,” explained Joseph. “This journey that we have is to remind each other that we can still respect each other’s cultures, religions, and languages without having one take over the other.”
In 2013, Bailey and Joseph participated in the Two Row Renewal Campaign on the Hudson River through New York, where the Two Row Wampum Belt treaty is believed to have been signed, in celebration of its 400-year anniversary.
Joseph said it was such a “lifechanging” experience for them both that they and two others decided to bring the row home to the Grand River.
“This committee of grassroots people were able to put together what we thought was going to be a (one-time only) paddle from Paris to Port Maitland,” said Joseph. “And now this year coming up is year nine.”
Bailey and Joseph decided the row should be a reoccurring event after the sharing circle they had with other paddlers once they had reached Port Maitland at the end of the first row.
“We heard what an impact it had on people, what a difference it made to them,” said Bailey.
After that, said Bailey, “We turned to each other, and one of us said, ‘how can we not do this again?’”
The paddlers were to launch their canoes into the Grand River in Cambridge after an opening ceremony .
Along their way to Lake Erie, they’ll make stops in Brant County, Brantford and attend the Six Nations Powwow before continuing to Cayuga and Byng Conservation Area.
At each stop, the group will have dinner and hear from Haudenosaunee community members.
Depending on where they are on the river, the paddlers will average between around 11 and 26 kilometres a day, which gives everyone plenty of time to take in their surroundings and get to know each other, a key component of the trip.
“To both of our hearts and to all the people who are on the paddle it’s become a really transformational event,” said Joseph. “And as many, many people have said to us, it’s a one-of-a-kind event.”
People of all ages and backgrounds have participated in the Two Row on the Grand, and some people have returned to do the row multiple times.
The two row has had such an impact that it is now part of the University of Guelph’s co-curricular experiential learning offerings, and a course for credit at McMaster University.