A hand-carved dugout canoe that found its way to the adventurous Betty Lowman Carey in the early 1930s — then was used for her legendary solo journey to Alaska — returned to Anacortes last week for permanent display at the museum.
“It’s coming home. This is where it started,” said Anacortes Museum Director Steve Oakley.
Betty, now 94, and her husband Neil Carey accompanied the boat to Anacortes Sept. 8, following her appearance at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend over the weekend. She appeared on stage with women rowers Dale McKinnon and Robin Clark, who also rowed the Inside Passage. They spoke about the challenges they faced during their rowing trips and how the people and communities have changed over the course of 70 years.
Betty’s canoe was found floating in the area by the Coast Guard when Betty was 17. It was displayed at the Lowman family’s cannery, but no one knew who owned it. After a year Ray Lowman gave it to his daughter for her 18th birthday. She dubbed the craft Bijaboji (pronounced bee-ja-bow-gee), for her brothers, Bill, Jack, Bob and Jimmy.
She wanted to make the trip to Alaska, but her father opposed the canoe trip and put obstacles in her path, such as a requirement that she graduate from college first. Meanwhile, she proved her seaworthiness to him by swimming 10 miles from Cypress Island to Anacortes as he accompanied her in a rowboat. She swam across Guemes Channel almost routinely.
In June of 1937, Ray was in Alaska when 21-year-old Betty set out from Guemes Island in the 13-foot dugout canoe determined to row 1,300 miles to reach him. She arrived in Ketchikan 66 days later, cementing her status as a local legend. She later did a lecture tour around the country to talk her trip and chronicled the journey in her 2004 book “Bijaboji: North to Alaska by Oar,” an adventure story that is still in print.
Her achievement has rarely been matched.
“Her trip was not duplicated by another woman until 2004,” McKinnon said.
In the late 1950s, the Careys learned that Bijaboji had been crafted by First Nations carver George Gibbs of Nitinat Lake on Vancouver Island. Blind and nearly 100 years old, he recognized the craft by touch as a woman’s canoe he made for his niece.
Neil said he and Betty contacted the niece, who was by then an old woman. She did not want the canoe back. For the past 25 years it has been displayed at the Sandspit Airport near the Careys’ home in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Oakley said Bijaboji will temporarily be displayed in the Carnegie Library gallery, where Betty is currently featured as part of the Colorful Characters and Local Lore exhibit.
Neil Carey said family members were in agreement about donating the canoe to the Anacortes Museum.
Oakley is also pleased with their decision. As well as its relevance to local lore, the canoe is a fine example of traditional native craftsmanship, he said.
After its temporary display at the main museum, Bijaboji will probably be installed in a permanent display at the Snagboat Heritage Center, Oakley said.
