The Alcatraz Canoe Journey Committee is an Oakland-based collective guided by Indigenous values and dedicated to environmental justice, education, arts and culture, and community building. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2019, the group organized an Indigenous canoe journey (and corresponding speaker series and magazine) to Alcatraz Island to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 occupation by Indians of All Tribes, an activist collective advocating for Native rights and sovereignty. Eighteen canoes representing communities from as far north as Canada and as far west as Hawaii participated.

For its 2021 Open Space residency, the committee is represented by youth worker, producer, and singer Manny Lieras; Eloy Martinez, Alcatraz veteran, firekeeper, and social justice worker; artist, activist, and puller Ed Archie NoiseCat; and Alexandra Roddy, business leader, social justice worker and advocate for indigenous rights and values.

Photo: Paddles carved and painted with the Alcatraz Canoe Journey emblem by Ed Archie NoiseCat were gifted to the Squaxin Island Canoe Family for their generous support of the committee. Photo Credit: Julian Brave NoiseCat