Keeping the Tradition Alive: Joanne Barta and the Rebirth of SSTIKS

In this special guest episode of The Dubcast with Dubside, Dubside sits down with longtime SSTIKS organizer and mentor Joanne Barta. Recorded in May 2025 at the TRAQS gathering in Florida, the conversation traces Joanne’s journey from her first awe-filled paddle in Southeast Alaska to becoming a central figure in the South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium (SSTIKS) and Qajaq USA events.

Joanne shares how she discovered Greenland paddles, built her own boats, and grew into a respected instructor—especially known for her work teaching kids to roll. She and Dubside talk about what made SSTIKS unique: its deep commitment to families, a full kids’ program with appropriately sized skin-on-frame kayaks and paddles, and a collaborative organizing culture that kept costs low and community at the center.

They also discuss the challenges of keeping an event alive through COVID, and then sparking a rebirth of SSTIKS in 2025 at Vista Park in Skamokawa, Washington. Along the way, Joanne recalls memorable international adventures, including an early traditional kayaking event in Argentina with improvised kayak builds, unfamiliar local customs, and a mayor-backed exemption just to get kayaks home on car roofs.

It’s a 40-minute tour through the history and future of SSTIKS—and a tribute to the community that keeps traditional kayaking thriving.

LINKS:

SSTIKS 2025

Transcript

DUBSIDE:
Welcome to the Dubcast with Dubside. This is a special guest edition of the Dubcast. I'll be talking to Joanne Barta, who had a long involvement with the South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium, better known as SSTIKS.

We talked about how she got involved with SSTIKS, how she got involved with kayaking, her first kayak, her first paddle, how she teaches kids how to roll. We talked about some of the organizational aspects of the SSTIKS event, as well as its revitalization in 2025, after a bit of a hiatus. And we finished talking about years ago, we both went to an event in Argentina.

This runs a little under 40 minutes. 

All right. So I'm talking to Joanne Barta, who has been, say “Hi”, Joanne.

JOANNE:
Hi.

DUBSIDE:
Welcome to The Dubcast with Dubside.

JOANNE:
Thank you. Thank you for wanting to visit with me.

DUBSIDE:
All right. Yeah. So we are in Florida right now. And we have just gotten through the weekend of…

JOANNE: 
TRAQS, the Traditional Qajaqers of the South. Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
It is right now is the beginning of May.

JOANNE:
May.

DUBSIDE:
May 2025. And so you have quite a history in the various kayak events, especially the Qajaq USA events in the U.S. Right?

JOANNE:
I do. A bit of a history. Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Tell me about it.

JOANNE:
Wow. Well, so I was not at the first SSTIKS by any means. SSTIKS is the South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium that's held, well, has been held in Washington since 2002. It was the first Greenland event held in the United States. I know Delmarva… 

DUBSIDE: 
…tried to stake that claim.

JOANNE: 
Yeah. But they can't because we were in June and they were in October.

DUBSIDE:
So I had always thought that Delmarva sort of inspired all the other events. But I understand now that SSTIKS inspired itself later. 

Later linked up with Delmarva.

JOANNE:
Well, I got involved in kayaking on a vacation with my kids. They said, “Mom, you should try this.” 

And I was like, I don't know much about it.

And they had these rec boats. And I was just awed by it. I was like, I got to I got to learn some more.

So then I went to…

DUBSIDE:
So what was so awesome about it initially? These aren't these aren't sea kayaks and any high performance of just floating on the water, right?

JOANNE:
I was just floating on the water. And we were on a little vacation in southeast Alaska. And the water was so smooth.

And you could, like seeing, seeing the land from the water and seeing down in the water. And it was just like, I just felt so close to the water. And I was like, I want to learn more about this.

And so I took a safety class. And then someone said, “Oh, well, you should you should be involved in OOPS, the Oregon Ocean Paddling Society.”

So I did that.

And then I was involved in that. And I thought, oh, I'm going to make my own kayak. So I made a Pygmy.

And then another teacher friend said, “Oh, that's nice. But you know, if you really want to make a real kayak, you need to see this…”

DUBSIDE:
Pygmies are the it's like plywood pieces that you cut out and you glue them.

JOANNE:
Yeah, I ordered the kit and it was a stitch-and-glue. It was an Osprey was the model. And so I built it myself with a little help and advice from friends. Right? 

And and then this other teacher friend, she goes, oh, well, if you really want to build a real kayak, you need to meet this guy named Bob Kellim. And I was like, Bob Kellim.

OK. So I looked him up and he said, “Well, really, you need to come to this event called SSTIKS.”

And I said, “What is SSTIKS?”

He goes, “Well, you just come register and come.” 

So I went and I was just like, this was it. It was everything, everything I could have dreamed and hoped for.

I met this guy, Will Bigelow, and he spent like an hour teaching me how to get in and out of a skin-on-frame kayak without falling over in the water. I learned to roll. I met a whole bunch of people.

And I was like, this is just awesome. And so, you know how it is, like if somebody sees someone who's enthusiastic, they said, “Hey, Joanne, do you want to help out with SSTIKS?”

So for quite a few years I helped on the planning committee and then I was a general organizer for a few years.

DUBSIDE:
So jumping into the organizational aspect of it was just kind of a natural flow?

JOANNE:
Yeah, it just kind of happened. Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Nobody had to twist your arm for that?

JOANNE:
Well, no, not really. I was I was really excited about it. And so the more involved I got, then I met a guy named Dan Segal.

And he said, and I was kind of vocal about things, you know, like, I like these skin-on-frames that I love about it, but it's got to be approachable for a variety of people. And the replica kayaks, while extremely beautiful and historic, and I love them, it's not always, it's not an easy sell to somebody just coming into kayaking.

DUBSIDE:
So replica being the exact dimensions of something that's been measured in a museum somewhere.

JOANNE:
Yeah, which is usually for a smaller person. So Dan and I talked a lot about it. And then after a while, he said, you know, there's this organization, there's a committee in Qajaq USA called events committee, would you like to be on the events committee?

And I was like, sure, I think that sounds exciting. And what was cool about the events committee is that somebody from each of— and at the time, there were seven events around the US—we’d get together on phone calls. Now you have Zoom, but back in, I don't know, 2010, or whatever it was, ’12, ’15, I don't know. You'd get together on a phone call, and you'd share information or ideas and recommend some mentors to go to another event. And they'd recommend mentors, we might want to invite to our event. And so it's a real collaboration and sharing of ideas.

DUBSIDE:
Now SSTIKS from way back when, the way I always said that SSTIKS’ uniqueness was SSTIKS had it going on with kids.

JOANNE:
We have had that. That's what we were known for, a family friendly event, where we actually have had a program for kids ages four to sixteen. And it was deeply discounted because we wanted families to be able to come there.

And there would be a couple mentors who were tasked with planning classes, but really, the classes for kids are all about play.

DUBSIDE:
Because normally, there's there's a program doing like, well, you know, this morning, we'll have these rolling instruction, there'll be strokes, instructor, and it's all all laid out. And so you're saying SSTIKS had an entire one just for the kids. It's own program.

JOANNE:
Yes. Yeah. So there were morning sessions and afternoon sessions.

But the difference is when we think of a class, we think of it's kind of regimented, but kids don't learn that way. So everything they learned was through games and play. And, and then the other cool thing about it was kids from ages four through 16 learn together.

So it's kind of like a big family.

DUBSIDE:
You have a background in teaching. You're a professional educator. Is that correct?

JOANNE:
I do. Yeah, I, I taught, I taught middle school. I'm a horticulture teacher by training. And that was my favorite job.

And when districts cut funding for that, then I taught middle school science. And then my last teaching bit was I taught at Pacific University, taught beginning kayaking, and I taught the beginning program in their outdoor leadership program.

DUBSIDE:
In the science of teaching and instruction, I'm assuming you are a good source of information about that. But the there's a difference between, you know, academic brain learning, and then physical learning of actually doing something, some physical task.

JOANNE:
Yeah, yeah, of course.

DUBSIDE:
That's obviously you're talking about rolling a kayak versus studying anything else out of a book. It's just two different things.

JOANNE:
That's true. That's very true. But there's a lot of things about teaching, like if you're a teacher, and you, you've learned how to relate to people.

One of the things the biggest things I learned about teaching is never asking—and it holds true, whether it's an academic class or ask or in kayaking—never ask your student to do more than they can do. And when we see them struggle too much, you can back it off a bit to something they can be successful with.

And then build from there. So it's a lot more positive way of teaching.

DUBSIDE:
Okay. So you, you, I guess, pretty early on in kayaking, when you got involved in the organizational stuff, got into the teaching kayak things?

JOANNE:
Well, you know, I never thought I would be good enough to teach. I just didn't believe but I got encouraged by a guy named Tim Mattson. He encouraged me and he was like, you should take you know, you should take your ACA level three, you should do this.

And I've taken classes from Ginni Callahan, and, and Nigel Foster, you know, I because I wanted to be a good kayaker, and I wanted to be safe, for sure. And in the course of all that I learned to roll. And that was like, just so much fun, you know.

So I learned a handful of rolls. And, and then I went to took my ACA level three, and had to learn to use a Euro paddle.

DUBSIDE:
For when you when you started kayaking, you started with a Greenland paddle? Or with with the rec boats? It probably wasn’t a Greenland paddle.

JOANNE:
No, there wasn't anything.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. And I bought when you got the Pygmy kayak? Was that when you…?

JOANNE:
No, I got a Greenland paddle before that. I was on this one of my very first times paddling with OOPS, there was this tiny little woman and she was out in front of the pack paddling away. And I was really struggling a bit.

And I asked her at lunch, “How do you do it?”

She said, “Oh, it's my Greenland paddle.”

I said, “What?” 

And she handed it to me. She goes, "Oh, you figure it out.”

And it took me honest, about 10 minutes, and I was in love. I mean, it was life changing. And I thought, I'm going to make one of these things.

And so I looked up, I looked up how to how to make one. And, and I tried, and it was a mess. The first one was a mess.

And so then I tried my second one. And I don't know if it was even really passable. But the third one was passable.

And then I made my fourth one. And I felt like I was starting to understand things. And I heard this guy, Don Beal, was teaching how to make Greenland paddles.

And so somebody saved me a spot in one of his classes. And, and that was like, really changing, because I really learned what I should have been doing and how to use the tools to get the design that we wanted. So, yeah, so I've made a few paddles.

Anyway, yeah. So I started with Greenland paddle almost right off the bat, and then had to learn how to use a Euro paddle for my part of my ACA assessment.

But these days, I think, I think the wider community is more open to Greenland paddles, and becoming more aware of the culture.

DUBSIDE:
Have you worked with kids specifically teaching them how to roll?

JOANNE:
Yes. And that's the most fun.

DUBSIDE:
How is that different from teaching an adult how to roll?

JOANNE:
They don't overthink it. 

DUBSIDE:
The kids don't overthink it? 

JOANNE:
Oh, no, they don't.

And they're not afraid. And everything is an adventure to them. So yeah, that's actually the best.

So at SSTIKS. I didn't teach much in the kids track. So mostly I was given, well, I did some strokes and a lot of rolling, teaching.

And then sometime during the weekend, they would have a dedicated time for kids to learn to roll. And so I would often get to do that. And I love that. That was a lot of fun.

DUBSIDE:
Walk me through the progression that you do with it with a kid.

JOANNE:
With a kid?

DUBSIDE:
Like with the adults, we might like, you know, start with a balance brace or do some on land exercise.

JOANNE:
Yeah. So usually they're not afraid. So you don't have to do any of that stuff about you're going to be upside down.

You know, they're like, so yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. And in fact, I had one kid, they wanted me to roll.

So I showed him a roll. And this kid goes, that is so cool. I'm going to do it.

And he turned over right there. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, and he popped out. He goes, “Why didn't I come up?”

I was like, “Well, you know, there's a little bit more to it. And I can show you.”
 
So I learned how to teach from Will Bigelow, Dan Segal, and Henry Romer. And so that's how I teach. You begin with the end in mind. So I'd start with, and I teach usually a layback roll as a starting roll, most people do. So we start by laying on the back deck and then balance brace. If they don't have the balance brace, I can support them.

And then we practice tucking forward and then coming back onto the back deck. And with kids, sometimes you don't put a paddle in their hands. They can just learn a hand roll, you know, because they're just so flexible and easy.

They don't worry about stuff.

DUBSIDE:
One or two times I've had, not at an event, but somebody who I knew had a child or something like that and wanted me to teach them. And the immediate obstacle I ran into is that the kayak we were using was way too big for the kid.

JOANNE:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
But I know that SSTIKS has addressed that problem quite effectively.

JOANNE:
Thank you for bringing that up. Yes. And so we have lots of kids boats.

Those kayaks have been made by, usually it's one of the dads has made a kayak for their kid and then their kid grows. So they pass that on to somebody else. So like Bob Kellim built a boat for Noah, Tim’s son.

DUBSIDE:
This is like a genuine skin-on-frame kayak, but it's what, like maybe 10 feet long or something?

JOANNE:
Yeah. And it's small, you know, it fits a child, but when the child grows, then that Noah's boat went on to another kid. And then when they out grew it, it went on to another kid.

And so that's kind of how that's always how that's gone. Mike Hanks built quite a few kayaks for kids. And then as his kids grew, he shared them.

Nerus Micunas built for Chelsea and Julia and their boats had gone on to the other kids.

DUBSIDE:
So SSTIKS has a collection of appropriately-sized kids kayaks to choose from.

JOANNE:
Uh, yeah, they're all farmed out because it's better to not, um, they don't, they don't do good spending a year in the barn, right? Farm them out and let people use them. And then pass them around.

DUBSIDE:
And so then there must be a selection of kid-sized paddles to go with that selection of kayaks.

JOANNE:
Yeah, there, yeah, there are. And, uh, various people have made them. Mark Whitaker made a few, Nerus built a few, and then Don Beal built a couple.

So there's a, yeah, a lot of paddles for kids. And then Qajaq USA has some smaller tuiliqs. And so usually what we would do is, we would ask for the small tuiliqs and we might get a couple bigger ones to use, but they'd mail them out to us in a box and we'd use them all weekend, rinse them off, pack them back in the box and mail them off to the Hudson River Greenland Festival, because they were the event that followed us two weeks later. So, uh, yeah. And the tuiliqs make it really nice.

They're so, um, give you a lot of flexibility and ability to move around. And then the kid size, they just fit kids. So it makes it more accessible, having the right size gear.

DUBSIDE:
So in, in the years you've been involved with, with SSTIKS— you know, I'm so happy that it's reviving itself and will happen again this year—but looking back on all those times, can you think of any major highlights or things that you're really proud of achieving?

JOANNE:
Things I'm really proud of achieving. Well, I think, yeah, a couple of things. One, I'm really heartened by how people have come together to make that event happen, and how much it means to everybody. It really is an event of, well, a love, love for the culture and the sport. Right? And then really big highlights have been our ability to bring a Greenlander to SSTIKS.

So over the years, um, Adam Hansen has come, John Peterson has come, a lovely woman named Idun. And, uh, and we brought a kid, Nikolai, who came and taught us.

DUBSIDE:
John Peterson's son came one time.

JOANNE:
Yeah. So having those over the years…

DUBSIDE:
Way back when I can remember Pavia Lumholt had SSTIKS.

JOANNE:
I think so. That was before I got involved.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

JOANNE:
And he's credited with teaching the rescue that we call “Hand of Pavia.”

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

JOANNE:
Yeah. That's his thing. And that we teach, uh, as a great way to rescue an upside down kayak.

DUBSIDE:
What always impressed me that SSTIKS had such a working committee and a real organizational structure there. And you had like, there would be meetings throughout the year where you get together and plan things. And you had that, it was always in June back then. And you would have like, was it Labor Day weekend?All at somebody's house for the weekend. And you all discuss things and plan things.

JOANNE:
Yeah. So after SSTIKS in June, people would be busy in the summer, but Labor Day weekend, the organizers—and there was a pretty large group, sometimes as many as like 16 people involved, usually more like eight or 10—but we would get together at, John and Tess Doornick’s house and camp for the weekend, chat about what we wanted to do, make a plan, delegate, decide who was going to be the general organizer for the next year, and who was going to be responsible for all the different things.

DUBSIDE:
I recall at Delmarva one time, it had gotten so big and so popular that somebody had suggested, Delmarva occurring every October, that maybe they should have a second Delmarva, a smaller Delmarva in the spring at some time. It never quite panned out. But you had your own organizers, second SSTIKS every year to plan the next one.

JOANNE:
We did, yeah.

DUBSIDE:
And when you're camping out for a weekend at somebody's house, that's an event.

JOANNE:
That is an event. It was a lot of fun. You know, we'd go for night paddles and paddle during the day.

DUBSIDE:
That's right, with the bioluminescence if you got lucky.

JOANNE:
Yeah, it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. And then the SSTIKS committee, we would meet every month or two, get together, and every meeting we always would paddle as well, go for a paddle together.

DUBSIDE:
Can you think of any of the stickier or thornier issues that had to be sorted through sometimes, the obstacles?

JOANNE:
I guess we try to forget about those things, don't we?

DUBSIDE:
I suppose.

JOANNE:
Thorny issues, I don't know. I don't know. I think I just remember all the really great times.

DUBSIDE:
The early SSTIKS…

JOANNE:
Stuffed things, you mean like oyster shells?

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, anything. That was always one thing about the site that SSTIKS had, the oyster shells on the beach.

JOANNE:
Where we met. We met at Twanoh State Park for a lot of years until COVID.

DUBSIDE:
And you always had to pick the date according to the tides, because it's quite a range there, and you don't want it all the way down to the bottom in the middle of the day when people will have to drag the kayaks over all that.

JOANNE:
You can't have a minus tide, or even just a low tide. So yeah, we always picked in June. And the wonderful thing about Qajaq USA events is we all try to plan our events not to conflict with somebody else's event.

Because many mentors, yourself included, you travel around to the different events, and how hard is it when you have to choose between two? So yeah, oyster shells are a tough thing.

DUBSIDE:
And over the years, working with the ranger at that particular park, you were on very good terms with him.

JOANNE:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
He could make special arrangements. 

JOANNE: 
Charlie. 

DUBSIDE: 
So early times, that road that you drive to get there goes right through, the waterfront is on one side, and then the camping area is on the other side…

JOANNE:
…of the road.

DUBSIDE:
So the whole, yeah. And the traffic is not super frequent, but it's fast coming down the road.

JOANNE:
Yeah, not safe.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, so you're crossing that all the time.

JOANNE:
And now that you mention it, we did have a, we kind of would move in and take over the whole park. You know, like you're only supposed to have two tents to a site, but there'd be so many of us. And they weren't too happy, and so they suggested one year a group site. Would we consider parking and holding our event on the other side of the road so people aren't crossing back and forth? And that worked for tent camping.

So yeah, we would have, we did that. But that solved the problem, and that solved that problem, yeah. 

The ranger, Charlie, he was wonderful. Very supportive, very encouraging, and advocated for us. And before him was a ranger, Stacy, who was similarly enthusiastic about us.

DUBSIDE:
And you had, initially there was that picnic pavilion, semi-indoor area with shelter anyway. But you fairly early on outgrew that because there was too many people. So then you were renting a tent. A big tent.

JOANNE:
Yes. So that little picnic shelter was great until the year that it rained a whole lot. And so there were some frantic efforts by Don Beal and Mike Hanks to try to stretch tarps up, and we were all crowded in there. And that's when…

DUBSIDE:
I mean, this not being like a kid's summer camp, there's no indoor big giant dining hall or anything. It's just you're outside.

JOANNE:
Yeah, we're outside. We're outside.

So that's when we started renting a tent that had three sides.

DUBSIDE:
And the walls would come all the way down.

JOANNE:
Yep. They came all the way down. And then we could set the ropes rig up there.

DUBSIDE:
And so another way that kept the cost reasonable, to make it a family-friendly event, you don't want something really expensive. So the pricing, as I understand it, was you register for the event. And then if you want to camp in the camping area, you deal with that and talk to the campsite.

So you don't sort of see that part of the price initially. And then the food, there was this salmon dinner on Saturday night.

JOANNE:
Yeah, Bob Killim did that, yeah. And a potluck.

DUBSIDE:
But the rest of it, like you were providing your own breakfast and things like that.

JOANNE:
We provided our own breakfast, each individual person. And then for many years, Tess Doornick arranged lunches. And she and their five kids, I think, all helped make that happen. And then, yeah, and then we had the salmon dinner. And then we would have pizza on the last day. Because I'm sure by then, Tess was tired and everybody was tired.

DUBSIDE:
So an event like Delmarva or even here at TRAQS, they're paying the campsite for the, you know, serving the meals in the dining hall every time. Which really adds to the registration price.

JOANNE:
It does. So we worked really hard. And I shouldn't say “we”.

I mean, it was the whole committee. Many people worked hard to try to keep our costs low because we wanted as many people who were interested and families to be able to come and afford to come. 

And then, of course, we had an auction, like many do. And that raised money to bring a couple out-of-town guests, such as yourself. And, oh, gosh, we had different, well, our Greenland guests, for sure. And then we'd bring a couple mentors from other events out.

DUBSIDE:
You had Eichi Ito from Japan.

JOANNE:
We did, yeah. One year we had. That's right, yeah.

Eichi Ito. And that was a wonderful experience because Qajaq Japan is part of Qaannat Kattuffiat as well as Qajaq USA. We're both members.

DUBSIDE:
And so tell me about the, I don't know if I'm going to call it the “New SSTIKS”. You now have a new location.

JOANNE:
We do. Okay, so COVID happened. So 2020 was going to be canceled. But before COVID actually hit, we had already put our money down for our food, for the tent, for the park. And when COVID hit and we had to cancel, they said they would extend it for one year. But we were not, for a variety of reasons, able to have SSTIKS in 2021 either. So we lost those deposits.

DUBSIDE:
Sounds like me and Air Greenland, the flight I bought to go to Greenland in 2020.

JOANNE:
Oh, yeah.

DUBSIDE:
I waited too long, never got refunded on that. So I hear you.

JOANNE:
So, yeah, it was a bit of a struggle. And by then, you know, people move on to other things. Foster, Newfer, and Louisa. Louisa had been married and they had moved to Salt Lake. Sean Baker had moved up to Montana. And so, you know, people's lives go on. And so finding a new group of people who were interested in doing the real work.

DUBSIDE:
The organizing, yeah.

JOANNE:
And we hadn't been very successful. But a man named Alan Bennett and Sam Shogren approached us and said, we think you should have SSTIKS at Vista Park in Skamokawa. 

And I said, “Really? Let's talk about it.” 

So Henry Romer and Don Beal and I talked with them about it. And at the same time, Shannon from Skamokawa Resort said, “You know, I think this is really fascinating and I would be happy to help out with this.”

DUBSIDE:
Explain where is Skamokawa exactly.

JOANNE:
Oh, it is west of Cathlamet, Washington. So it's about two hours drive from Portland, west, on the Columbia River.

DUBSIDE:
From the original SSTIKS site, this is several hours south.

JOANNE:
South, very south. So we're still the south, south sounds.

DUBSIDE:
Okay, yeah.

JOANNE:
Yeah. And so Shannon said she would be happy to help and she was really interested. And she's an event organizer and a liaison with Vista Park.

So these pieces started coming together. And last year we thought, well, we're going to give it one good go and see if we can get enough people who are interested.

People want to come, right? But it's about doing the work that an event takes. And so Paul Steinberg had a couple great ideas. And so Henry, Paul, Don, and I, and Shannon decided we were going to give it a go. This is going to be our go. And so Don started leading second Saturday of the month paddles and he said, you don't need a Greenland paddle, I'll bring plenty. And so he did that.

DUBSIDE:
So this is building up the enthusiasm.

JOANNE:
Building up to this year. We thought we're going to give it a big go. And then Paul Steinberg created a wonderful, informative slide PowerPoint presentation about traditional kayaking and the roots of our sport that we all love.

And he and I shared that with OOPS. And then he presented it up in Seattle. And then another woman came on the scene.

Her name is Noy Davis. And she said, I think I'd like to help out with this. And so she and Paul went to San Francisco and presented it at BASK.

And we decided we had enough groundswell of support. And Noy brought a great handful of solid paddlers along who have interest and some with a lot of experience, or some experience with traditional paddling, but definitely a lot of interest. And so they are new. We're in that transition. This is the transition year or the rebirth year of SSTIKS, this year, at Vista Park in Skamokawa, Washington.

DUBSIDE:
Right. And that's taking place?

JOANNE:
June 6th through 9th.

DUBSIDE:
Right.

JOANNE:
And which, incidentally, so 25 years ago is, so the first SSTIKS was in 2002, right? So we're 23 years later, right? And it is happening on the same June 6th to 9th.

Isn't that something?

DUBSIDE:
Wow.

JOANNE:
Yeah.
DUBSIDE:
All right. Well, by the time this airs on my podcast…


JOANNE: 
It’ll be past. That's okay.

DUBSIDE:
But introductory remarks, I'll say it was awesome or whatever. So you have gone to kayak events in other places, in other countries.

JOANNE:
Yes.

DUBSIDE:
I'm thinking of Argentina.

JOANNE:
Yes.

DUBSIDE:
I was there, too. What do you remember about that?

JOANNE:
That was an amazing event. That was the first traditional arctic kayak event in South America. Oh, yeah.

And I learned about it, a man named Ronnie Mayer had come up to take, he participated in Jenny Callahan's event, Local Roundup. And he was excited about traditional paddling. And he said he's going to have an event in his community.

DUBSIDE:
His community being Argentina.

JOANNE:
Yeah. Yeah. Which is many hours away from any big city.

So he had this event, and he invited Eichi Ito to come build, have a kayak build, a skin-on-frame kayak build. And Eichi said, well, if we're going to build kayaks, you should ask Don Beal to come build paddles. And it happened to be over my spring vacation, and I wanted to go so badly, so I wrote to Ronnie and said, "You know, I'll do anything. Anything at all. I'm good at cleaning. I can wash dishes. Whatever. Could I please come? And I'm happy to pay for it and everything. Just please, please, please.”

And he's like, “Yeah, okay, come. You can come.”

So, yeah, it was amazing. I think you were there. There were like 25 of us for the week.

And Eichi’s group was building kayaks, and then there was a group working on an ACA training. Because we camped with their group. Wonderful people. They were very kind.

DUBSIDE:
So we flew into like Buenos Aires. They had to go like a couple hours up the river to the site.

JOANNE:
Yeah. A lot of hours. In fact, we got there. I got there, and it was like 10 o'clock at night. And I'm like, nobody talked about dinner. I was not very well educated on what happens in Argentina.

And so we get there, and they're like, oh, good, you're here. We'll have dinner in a little bit. And here it is like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night.

And we all sit down at one long table, 25 of us, to dinner. It was pretty amazing. Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
There was some issue with the kayaks. The fabric wasn't long enough or something?

JOANNE:
So that was, I think Paul Diener brought, he ordered the fabric for us.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

JOANNE:
Not for us, but for Eichi, right?

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

JOANNE:
And so the frames are all built already, and they open up the fabric, and it doesn't, it's not long enough.

DUBSIDE:
Like a foot short or something?

JOANNE:
Yes, yeah. And so there's like, well, shoot, what do you do? So there was some creative stuff.

I'm sure none of it is like really correct, but trying to make it work.

DUBSIDE:
Oh, it's improvised to make it work. That's correct. That's Inuit for sure.

JOANNE:
So one of the guys thought he would cut a piece off another and stitch that together to make it longer.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

JOANNE:
And then another guy, and I'm no expert at all, but by then I'd built two skin-on-frames, and I like to sew. So that part I do okay at. And so he was like, well, what if we turn it a little bit diagonal? Will it reach?

DUBSIDE:
Oh, so the corners would be stretched to the ends.

JOANNE:
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so we gave that a go and finished them up.

So that was an amazing event.

DUBSIDE:
As I recall, like Eichi had a plane to catch, so he just sort of said goodbye, good luck with his kayaks, and they had to…

JOANNE:
Yeah, yeah, and it's very different. So I've been to Japan before, and I know things are organized differently than they are in Argentina, where the most important thing there is everybody's happy and you relax. And that's not conducive to getting a kayak built in a week.

So Eichi left, and I enjoyed the opportunity to help figure out how to skin these kayaks. Yeah, that was something. And then the end of the week, you remember that the end of the week culminated with a big celebration, and there was a proclamation by the mayor about this event.

And there was over 100 people. You did demonstrations on ropes, and somebody was doing water demonstrations, and it was pretty neat. And then I remember that 100 people there, and we all sat down at one very, very long table to eat together, because that's what was important to them.

And then we were going to watch this amazing video you had to present, a presentation.

DUBSIDE:
It was probably one of my Greenland montages.

JOANNE:
Yes. Yeah. However, there was some problem with the projector and the screen.

And you said, well, what if we put a chair up on the table, kind of like this, and then we'll put the laptop up on top of the chair.

DUBSIDE:
Did I say that, or did somebody else? I don't know.

JOANNE:
That's what happened. That's what happened. It was up there.

DUBSIDE:
We had 100 people looking at a laptop-sized screen. They made it work.

JOANNE:
Oh, yeah. It was wonderful, and it was just like the best time there. People were very kind. There were five different languages spoken there.

It was just in the common interest, of course, was kayaking. It was all about kayaking.

DUBSIDE:
I remember they told us that in Argentina, it's interesting to see different places just have different things they have to confront, different restrictions and regulations. And as I recall, the regulation there was you could not put something on the roof of a car that projected past the end of the car.

JOANNE:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Which means you could not carry your kayak. It kind of ruins the sport if you can't carry a kayak. You could put it on a trailer or something like that.

If I recall correctly, the mayor was there, and they had a special exemption from the law for this event so you could take your skin-on-frame home on the top of your car.

JOANNE:
Yeah. Wasn't that something?

DUBSIDE:
They had to get the law amended to do that. Well, we don't have to worry about it in this country.

JOANNE:
No, we don’t. We don't. Yeah. Yeah, that was a really incredible event.

DUBSIDE:
Well.

JOANNE:
Wow.

DUBSIDE:
Those are some good memories.

JOANNE:
They are, yeah. There's lots of good memories.

DUBSIDE:
Well, I'll be coming to SSTIKS this year, this June. I'll be flying out there in just a couple weeks.

JOANNE:
We're really excited to have you.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, we should have a great time.

JOANNE:
Yeah. Thank you.

DUBSIDE:
Thank you for being on The Dubcast with Dubside. 

And that is Joanne Barta. Interviewed May 4th, 2025 at Lake Placid, Florida.

Thank you for listening to the Dubcast with Dubside.