Be a part of the Inaugural launch of the Canoe (Wisdom) on Sat. June 24 at the Cultural Center

Please plan to be a part of the Inaugural launch of the Canoe called "Wisdom" on Saturday, June 24 at the Lumbee Tribe Cultural Center. The celebration kicks off at 10 am and there will lots of fun for the family till 3 pm. The Launch will be at 1 pm. There will be kids crafts, games, food trucks, and kayaking. Celebrate this wonderful occasion with UNC Pembroke's Museum of the Southeast American Indian and the Lumbee Tribe. The event is FREE.

Our very own Kevin Melvin (Lumbee Tribal Historic Preservation Officer) and the “Life by the River” Project team sank the canoe “called Wisdom” at the Lumbee Tribe Cultural Center in January. The 18 feet long dugout canoe took 8 months to finish and was created using the burnout method our ancestors would have used hundreds of years ago. "Life by the River" is a program by the Museum of the Southeast American Indian that focuses on North Carolina's Native People's connection in relationship with their ancestral waters. The canoe project was one of the components of the project led by Kevin Melvin. The project was a community collaborative as people were invited to help build the canoe.

Eventually the canoe will travel across the state. The goal is to put the canoe in each NC tribes' ancestral waters, whether that is a river, stream, lake or Carolina bay. The tree was cut, moved to the Lumbee Tribe Cultural Center, where it was burned and dug out by teams of volunteers each week since last May. After some final sanding, they set it on fire one more time. The fire helps with the sanding and seals up the inside of the canoe. The vessel was then sunk into the lake where it has remained since January. Since the canoe had been sitting out in the elements for months, it had begun to crack. The water submersion will help preserve it. Lumbee ancestors would have used this type of canoe for fishing, transportation and maneuvering the river systems.