Gathering of the Eagles: Indigenous leaders from around the world to converge on the San Juan Islands
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 13, 2026
When Freddy Lane, known by his traditional name Sul ka dub, speaks about the Gathering of the Eagles, he does not speak merely about a canoe journey. He speaks about medicine.
“It’s not what you get out of coming to the gathering of eagles,” Lane says. “It’s what you walk away with — that smile, that tenderness in your heart. It helps people understand how we come together and build our fires and share food and share stories. That’s the gathering of the eagles.”
Now in its sixth year, the annual canoe encampment through the San Juan Islands — traditional Clackamas homelands in the Salish Sea — returns May 16-22. All events are free and open to the public.
Jacob Johns, executive director of the Wisdom Keepers Delegation — an international collective of Indigenous wisdom keepers and activists who advance Indigenous climate policy at the United Nations — has traveled with the Gathering for several years and knows its power firsthand. Johns is from the Gila River Nation in Arizona — the Akimel Oʼodham, the river people — a nation whose traditional waterways and canoe culture were lost when Phoenix was built and the rivers were dammed. Bearing witness to the journey along the ancestral highways of the Salish Sea carries profound meaning for him. Last year, he brought his niece to the Sunrise Ceremony atop Mount Constitution for the first time. “It really melted her heart,” he says. For Johns, the Gathering is nothing less than a global healing force. “This is all medicine and we’re working together to create a community to help each other heal — something that the world is so desperately in need of right now.”
Lane, a Lummi-enrolled citizen who identifies as Clackamas, co-founded the Gathering in 2021. His grandmother, Dora William Solomon, was born on Orcas Island in 1891, making these waters a personal pilgrimage. “When I come through the San Juan Islands, for me personally, I’m visiting my ancestors. My sacred relationship, our coming back out into the islands isn’t just by chance. It’s by the grace of all of us coming together.”
This year’s theme — Celebrating as Neighbors, Village to Village — carries urgency in a divided time. “We need more hope in our communities,” Lane says. “What the gathering does is set us aside and say, we’re gonna come together as a family.” Johns frames the same challenge sharply: “Algorithms try to convince us that we are separate from each other and that our enemy is our neighbor.”
The journey: Dates, islands and how to join
Canoes launch May 16 from Washington Park, landing at 1 p.m. at Spencer Spit on Lopez Island. May 18 brings the fleet to Jackson Beach on San Juan Island, May 20 to Olga Dock on Orcas Island — each with a 1 p.m. landing and 5 p.m. community potluck. May 21 opens with the sacred Swalex Sunrise Ceremony at Mount Constitution, departing at 4:30 a.m. for the 5:23 a.m. sunrise — what Johns calls the Gathering’s most powerful moment: “Chanting the clouds away — that unified thought, that way for us to become a chorus and sing our intention out into the universe.” The journey concludes May 22 at the Lummi Nation’s Stommish Grounds with a 1 p.m. canoe landing and closing potlatch.
To get involved, contact Robin Reid, Lopez Island, 970-215-5883; Stephanie Buffum, San Juan Island, 360-472-0404; Sharon Abreau, Orcas Island, 917-626-5781; or Lane at 360-391-7560. Donations through Friends for Life (nonprofit), P.O. Box 1124, Ferndale, WA 98248. Bring your own chair, plates and a favorite dish. Alcohol- and drug-free, rain or shine.
The potlatch and the ancient Hawaiian story
At the heart of the Gathering lies the potlatch — the ancient practice of communal feasting and cultural exchange. “As told by Jewell James from the House of Tears Carvers, the potlatch is considered the bloodless war from our elders back in the day,” Lane explains. “When we hold our paddles up, we come in peace — the traditional custom of how we allowed relatives and visitors to pass through the territory.”
Woven into that tradition is a remarkable oral story linking the Clackamas people to Hawaii — one Lane says exists nowhere in history books. Long before colonization, a Hawaiian double-hulled canoe was blown ashore into Clackamas territory, its mast broken. “Our Clackamas people dug out a canoe and helped them rebuild their canoe in their double hull style,” Lane recounts. “And then the tribe put up their big mast and helped them get back on the water.” That story is why Kanaka Bay on San Juan Island carries the name it does. “That’s how we know our relatives just didn’t come to Clackamas territory by chance.”
Grief, medicine and a global gathering
This year’s journey carries deep remembrance. The Gathering lost beloved elder Hutch ak whilton — Richard Solomon, a proud member of the Lummi Nation’s Kwelengsen (Eagle) Clan, beloved across the San Juan Islands. Before his passing, Hutch ak whilton spoke words that Lane holds close: “You can’t take time off. We gotta keep gathering the people. What you’re doing is a good thing. It’s the medicine for all of us.” He also made a promise that still carries weight: “I’ll be there. Don’t worry, I’ll be there for you guys.”
“All of us might have tender hearts,” Lane says. “But the important thing is to continue to gather. That’s the medicine that we all need.”
Participants this year travel from South Africa, Hawaii, and the Hopi and Navajo nations. Johns sees the return to the water as deeply healing. “Seeing people coming back to the canoe as a way to rebirth and connect to the lineage of their ancestors — it’s transformative and it’s powerful,” he says. “I’m proud to say that the Gathering of the Eagles is one of the energies that helps us to blossom as humanity.”
Lane’s invitation is as simple as the Gathering itself: “Come stand with us. Come witness the canoes, because that is the medicine. That is the gift that we share with one another.”
For more information, contact Sul ka dub-Freddie Lane, co-founder and director, 360-391-7560 or phreddielane@gmail.com.
