This image of Elliott Bay faces east with spectators lining the docks and streets of downtown Seattle visible in the background. Two Indigenous wooden dugout canoes with 11 men each are racing south along the shoreline in front of Belltown. The event likely took place during one of the Golden Potlatch celebrations staged in the summers of 1911, 1912, and 1913.
The Pacific Coast Company's Orient Dock, built around 1905, is seen here running parallel to the shoreline rather than at the usual northeast-southwest angle. The dock was replaced around 1920 by the Lenora Street Piers (Piers 64 and 65), and then in the mid-1990s by the Port of Seattle's Bell Street Pier and Bell Harbor complex, or Pier 66. The two "skyscrapers" on the horizon are the New Washington Hotel at Second Avenue and Stewart Street, and the Schoenfeld's Standard Furniture store at the northwest corner of Second Avenue and Pine Street.
Handwritten on negative: Indian Canoe Race. Romans Photo. Co. Photographer's number: 10581
Caption information source: The Seattle Sunday Times, May 10, 1908, page 77 Caption information source: https://pauldorpat.com/2010/10/page/6
Physical Description: 1 photographic postcard mounted on paper : b&w ; 3.5 x 5.5 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
