The Peace Walk to Vancouver began with an Interfaith Ceremony at the sacred burial grounds of Chief Seattle on Bainbridge Island WA on the beautiful morning of the 9th June 2006. As the group of 20 International walkers circled Chief Seattle’s burial site to honor a great leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Indian Tribes they listened to the many prayers offered for world peace and a strong walk.

With strong prayers we walked through the beautiful land of Bainbridge Island to end our day at the gates of the Naval Submarine Base Bangor. The Trident Submarine Base at Bangor, 15 miles west of Seattle is the last active nuclear weapons depot on the West Coast and is the place of deployment for approximately 1,760 nuclear warheads. In July 2005 Lockheed-Martin and the US Navy announced a 9.2 million dollar contract to develop a new submarine launched intermediate—range ballistic missile (SLIRBM). The SLIRBM will be capable of delivering a 1,000 pound pay load, 1200 miles within 15 minutes of launch.

The next planned direct action at Bangor will be on August 6th and 7th 2006 in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
For more information: www.gzcentre.org

The Suquamish United Church of Christ supported the walk incredibly with providing two overnight stay places and food for all the walkers. Thank you so very much.

Most of us woke the following morning to the usual prayer drums of Nipponzan Myohoji who lead the interfaith prayers. Its not hard to get back into the routine of the day beginning with prayers, followed by packing, eating, cleaning and saying our goodbyes to the new friends we had made.

Organizing ourselves quickly we gathered at the Dojo of Nipponzan Myohoji before walking to catch the 8:40 am ferry across to Seattle.

We stopped at the Lazarus Day Centre, a homeless shelter for people over the age of 50. After a small history talk Sister Julie offered prayers of thanks and a protected journey.

We walked through downtown Seattle with many people stopping, watching and asking what we were doing. We stopped for “light refreshments” of delicious home baked cinnamon rolls and tea and coffee at the Interfaith Community Church. Taking the back streets and through residential homes we eventually made our walk to the statue of Sadako near the edge of University Bridge. ‘Sadako’ was adorned with 1,000’s of peace cranes and the beautiful colorful gardens made for an impressive sight. We offered prayers, and incense and as we rested on the grass listened to the moving voices of a homeless women “Angel” and Tyler offering their prayers in song.

That night we stayed at St Josephs’ Church and was blessed by a visit from Harold Belmont and his partner. They joined us for dinner and afterwards Harold spoke of the strength of all nations coming together, red, black, yellow and white and the importance of the whole family. He offered a powerful prayer song with his sacred drum and then presented Gilberto-shonin with this drum as an offer of his gratitude for being asked by Gilberto-shonin to support the walk. He called upon the four native walkers, Charlie, Larry, Bob and Daniel to join together in the middle of the circle and each spoke or offered a song of prayer. He then explained their importance and responsibility to the drum during the walk.

From St Joseph’s Church we transported walkers back to Sadako’s Statue and began walking from here to Lake Forest Park. We were on a time schedule to be in Forest Park by 12:00 noon, Utsumi-shonin led the walkers in a relatively moving pace.

As we neared the Shopping Centre the cheering and clapping got louder and louder. Lake Forest Park for Peace welcomed us with such overwhelming excitement and energy gifting us with beautiful peace cranes and providing lunch for us.

Lake Forest Park for Peace, a grassroots anti-war group holds public vigils for peace every Saturday between 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on the corner of Ballinger and Bothell Ways NE by the Lake Forest Park Shopping Centre.

Many of the Peace group members joined us after lunch with their great enthusiasm and energy. We stopped for prayers at Margaret’s house near Lake Park Shopping Centre who has just had many of her homes for children with disabilities closed because of residents complaints. Moved to tears from the stories Margaret shared with us of how the children will now go back into institutions because of the insensitivity from residents—each of the walkers offered their prayers.

Monday 12th June—Lake Park Forest to Everett

Tuesday 13th June— We walked from Everett to Tulalip Indian Nation and was greeted by Lisa from Tulalip Indian Nation who organized our overnight stay places for the next two nights and food for all the walkers. It was great to walk in with her nephew and his 3 boys all playing their drums.

Again we had were greeted with the presence of Harold Belmont and his partner, Joy as we walked into Tulalip Nation. After a delicious snack of homemade cherry pie and cold drinks we had a beautiful ceremony under thearbor by the river. We have been blessed on this journey by the beauty of bald eagles circling near by.

We walked to the Boys & Girls Club, where wewould be staying for 2 nights thanks to Lisa.

Lisa had organized a ‘feast’ and cultural exchange program with the Canoe Family who donated the incredible food prepared for the evening. About 80 of us gathered for a great night of sharing many stories, beautiful songs, drumming and dancing by the young women.

After a few of the walkers shared their experiences of the walk and offering some inspiration to the youth that had come to listen, a local women got up and spoke . She began by saying “I have had a hard day, I have struggled today…...I have breast cancer, and my husband has thyroid cancer from living out near Yucca Mountain from the uranium, the nuclear industry”. Everyone in the room went silent, and I am sure was moved to tears as she continued her story. I really felt that the night was more than a cultural ex-change it was a healing circle. A gathering for people to offer prayers, and stories to share, and this is why it is so important to continue these walks. It brings so many people together to share, to become family and to support each other. She said that by coming tonight she felt so much better to see people praying and walking for peace. Of course these are the stories that we remember when we are walking to continue offering prayers to this women and her family.

We stayed 2 nights at the Tulalip Boys & Girls Club, so from here we walked to Stanwood and then transported the walkers by car back to Tulalip. This was a gorgeous walk over the mountains and through forest to occasionally get glimpses of the water. It’s a great time of year to be walking as there are so many wildflowers bursting with color.

The walkers again give a huge thanks to Lisa and the Tulalip Nation for giving us so much support and energy. We hope to return one day.

From Stanwood we walked onto our next stay place through another beautiful part of the country towards Swinomish Nation. Today it was Bob’s Birthday—Thursday 15th June so the morning began with many birthday wishes and excitement. Also through-out the walk we were treated with many surprises. First we rested in a place with homemade Japanese food which we all feasted on. Some local people came out with a donation of fresh strawberries, another person came out with some water, and a local man donated some money to the walk. We had a great lunch place with plenty of green grass to laze about on and beautiful colorful hanging baskets…..with the grocery store donating free coffee to the Aussies!!

We arrived at the Assumption Parish after a huge 20 miles and was greeted by the Tribal Council President, Father Dennis and local members. It wasn’t long before the women who prepared another feast for us told us to gather for dinner.

We offered prayers and thanks and sat down to an incredible dinner of salmon, crab, salad and bread. It was a great treat, especially as we had a beautiful birthday cake for Bob to finish off a fantastic day.

Happy Birthday Bob!!

And a huge thanks to the Swinomish Nation for all their support and energy.

Today we rest.


We wake up with the familiar sound of the drums and the sounds of Morning Prayer. Yesterday was a rest day everyone doing laundry and trying to catch up on emails and even having a little afternoon nap. The greeting here at Swinomish Indian Nation has been wonderful. On top of the fantastic food and conversation (including a discussion between Jim and Father Denis about the Cincinnati Pittsburgh play-off game last year) we were also invited to visit their Long House and got the tour and history with the caretakers of the Long House.
Today we are off to the small town of Bow WA we are staying at the Chuckanut Alpaca Ranch. The day was beautiful the sky was blue and you could see the mountains to the right of us and the bay on the left. Walter and Lois Schulter owner and caretakers of the ranch warmly greeted us. They invited us to relax and enjoy the ranch we were able to go into the fields and enjoy the Alpacas, enjoy the comfort of the guess house and also go for a swim in their solar heated pool! Most of us went out to the fields and enjoyed our visit with the Alpacas. They are very timid creatures but also very curious. They had a group of very young ones that were the most curious. After our visit with the Alpacas we all started rotating in and out of the pool taking a break for dinner. The pool was perfect for a bunch of us with sour feet, legs ect.



Today we are off to Bellingham WA we have to go over the mountain. I have to say that being from the mid west I am always amazed at the diversity and the beauty of the west coast. We are going over the mountain on Chuckanut drive this road is surrounded by forest, animals and views of the islands. We stopped often to view and appreciate all different animals we saw along the way Eagles, Raccoons and deer small and large. I would like to thank Larry, Bob, Charlie and Alice for their great effort in flagging to keep everyone safe today. As well as everyone who flagged during the walk but today had a very narrow shoulder with many curves up and down the mountain so there were a lot of blind spots.

In town we were greeted by the Raging Grannies. They were singing and dancing and ready to walk the rest of the way with us through town to our next overnight. After we got settled into where we were staying for the night we walked and shuttled to where we were going to meet with the community share dinner and stories of the walk.

We were also entertained with some great songs accompanied by the gazoo, cybles and a ukulele. If you have never had the pleasure of a visit with the raging grannies I would recommend it. Check out their web site: http://www.raginggrannies.com

June 19th Bellingham to Lummi Island

Today we walk to the Lummi Indian Reservation. We actually made it to the overnight by noon and had lunch. While we were eating we were joined by a few locals who sang us some songs and a local reporter who joined us for lunch and then did some interviews with individual walkers. We still had a few more miles to walk and then we are going to take a short tour of Lummi Island (of course by foot). As we waited for the fairy it gave us a chance to visit with more people from the community. There was a group of kids from the high school all carrying musical instruments. I spoke to a young man named Thomas and he told me that the biggest problem on the island was that the only time that the community had anything to do with the Native community was when they wanted them to stop selling shell fish along the road I looked over to the road and sure enough not a vender to be found. As I was looking I could imagine how nice it would have been to see local venders selling fresh Oysters, Crab and Salmon and thought how sad it was that there was not more cooperation and understanding. We walked the mile across the Island and then we all headed to the local shop for a coffee. Then back across the ferry to load into the vehicles and headed back to the church.

Back at the church and some ladies and men from the community had stopped by and made us a surprise dinner. That was a pleasant surprise considering that as of noon no one knew we were coming. After dinner the church choir had practice while they were singing we relaxed and made peace cranes for give-a-ways. Utsumi-Shoni and Marcus discovered a Public Declaration in a frame on the wall. It starts with.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This is a formal apology on behalf of our churches for their long-standing participation in the destruction of the traditional Native American spiritual practices.

To read the rest just click on the picture.

June 20th

Lummi Nation to Ferndale WA

This was a short day so we actually walked past were we are staying today to cut down tomorrows miles. The ladies that came to cook for us were great just full of life and loved to joke around. They cooked us a feast of chicken and baked potato’s salad and it just went on and on. The most spectacular part of today was at sunset. The mountaintop finally made an appearance. What a beautiful site.



We also watched a DVD tonight that was done by one of the walkers on the walk to the Trident Nuclear Submarine Base on Bainbridge Island (Bangor) last year for the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Great job Alice.

June 21st

Ferndale to Blain

Today is are last day in the US tomorrow we cross in to Canada. And sometime today Doyle and his mom Willie will join us. A woman who had seen us walking that day decided to join us and while we were walking decided that the road was to dangerous and went home got her hard hat and big stop/slow sign plus her bright yellow vest and stopped traffic for us all day. She was really in to it. (Sorry I don���t remember her name) All I can say is she must do it for a living she had all the hand signals down and everything. The big debate for most of the day was one of the walkers had left their passports at home in Seattle and were they going to be able to cross into Canada without it? Finally one of the walkers said lets just go get it we’ll be back in no time. So some of us waited up for Dole and Willie to arrive and it was perfect timing they pulled in with their RV and a surprise Doyle’s partner Janice. When we finished visiting with them we walked over to the front of the church and there was the crew from getting the passport. Everyone’s home for the night safe and sound.

June 22nd

Blain to Somewhere in B.C.

So the game plan for today is to caravan across the border. Once we are all across to go to the closest park and then start walking. Depending on how long it takes to cross the border will depend on how far we walk. Crossing was relatively Simple we crossed got to the park and Sinji – Shoni got his map out and went to town looking for a route. When he got it all laid out we started on our way. For the rest of the walk and during the World Peace Forum (WPF) we will be staying at the Aboriginal Friendship Center in Vancouver. After the walk today we all gathered back at the center. Tonight is very special because we are celebrating Willie’s birthday she is 93 years young and after all these years she chose to spend it with us. We are truly grateful to be able to spend it with her. She gives us strength and brings a lot of joy and happiness.

Happy Birthday Willie !!!!!!




June 23rd

Last day walking into Vancouver

Today we walk into Vancouver through the city finishing at the Hiroshima – Nagasaki exhibit. Walking through a city is a great experience. All the honking by the car’s people waving giving the peace sign talking to people on the street about what we are doing. The drums reverberating of the buildings seeming sometimes like the echo never stops carrying all the prayers on forever.

Steve Leeper from Mayors for Peace ( for more information on Mayors for Peace Click Here) greeted us at the Storyeum We had our closing circle in front of the exhibit some of the walkers spoke along with the monks and Steve giving thanks for walking and praying for peace. Tonight will be our last night together tomorrow some of us will start making our way home and others will be staying for the WPF.