PILGRIMAGE AND THE SACRED SALMON CAMPAIGN
Prioritizing relationships with the land and people requires continually going to places where we can pray and ground ourselves together. Journeying together with our community partners and learning from and accompanying our Indigenous partners has been central to IPJC’s work.
Then, in late 2024, Pope Francis announced a 2025 Jubilee Year centered around the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” More than 800 Catholic environmental justice organizations across the United States came together to host pilgrimages of hope for creation.
ALL OuR RELATIONS JOuRNEy
From September 23 to October 1, 2023, the Pacific Northwest community engaged with All Our Relations, a powerful art piece by Cyaltsa Finkbonner.
IPJC hosted the Spokane stop Jay Julius (Lummi) and Warren Seyler (Spokane) each shared their tribes’ histories and teachings on kinship with Creation. Faith leaders, including Episcopal Bishop Gretchen Rehberg, Sister Pat Millen, and Gonzaga student Reagan Jones, spoke on environmental justice and reconciliation.
MEMORIAL GATHERING Of THE SNAkE RIvER PALOuSE
In 2024 and 2025, IPJC staff joined a memorial gathering at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers honoring land loss due to the Ice Harbor Dam. Hosted by Khimstonik, an Indigenous-led organization focused on land return and cultural revitalization, the event featured a traditional welcome by Ione Jones and brought together members of the Palouse, Nimíipuu (Nez Perce), Yakima, and Wanapum tribes.
Participants shared a seasonal meal, engaged in sacred storytelling, and planted native seeds—yarrow, purple sage, Indian tobacco, dogbane hemp, and wild roses—at Sacajawea State Park. IPJC supported the event through seed sponsorship and ongoing collaboration
HEALING CANOE JOuRNEy
In both 2024 and 2025, IPJC participated in Khimstonik’s healing canoe journey, which brought together tribes including the Palouse, Cayuse, Puyallup, Kalispel, Spokane, and Wanapum. The journey began with a blessing at Perry/Lyons Ferry and continued through ancestral waterways, ending at Fishhook. Guided by tribal histories and the Cáw Pawá Láakni atlas, participants planted native shrubs and seeds daily at culturally significant sites. IPJC contributed by tending to plant relations and providing fiscal sponsorship to strengthen this growing partnership.
XAALH
AND THE WAy Of THE MASkS
IPJC is honored to continue partnership with Se’Si’Le and many other NGO partners to celebrate to continue the tradition of journeying together to build relationships, and take collective action for change. We hope others in the community will join us in Xaalh and the Way of the Masks, a two-week campaign in September 2025.
This campaign is a result of the Trump Administration’s recently announced frontal attack on Xaalh (the sacred balance of life). They have stated their intent to violate treaty rights and ignore federal laws and regulations to rapidly liquidate the mature forests on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest. This would have a devastating effect on these forests, which caretake our salmon relatives’ water quality and quantity, are critical to biodiversity, and promote climate resilience.
Just as importantly, these legacy forests also provide Indigenous people with s әla-ex w , the strength that comes from the old ones. They are integral to Indigenous ancestral cultural ways of knowing nature and their inherited spiritual beliefs and practices.
It will include a 1,700-mile journey and 10 public actions in Pacific Northwest Native Nation communities, public venues, institutions of higher learning, and places of worship and move from the Canadian border to northern California, then back up the Columbia River Basin to the Snake River.
The Lummi Nation's House of Tear Carvers have crafted a traditional-style cedar mask and 10 hand carved paddles that will be gifted to community members throughout the campaign. The campaign travelers will include representatives from Se’Si’Le, the Lummi Nation’s House of Tears Carvers, an Indigenous journalist, and a videographer. It will be done in partnership with the faith community and nongovernmental organizations that make up a broad coalition of folks committed to our common home.
PILGRIMAGES fOR HOPE AND CREATION – WAyS TO ACT!
Support, promote, and participate in “Xallah the Way of the Mask” - attend one of the stops, and invite five people in your community that you are hoping to build power with for environmental justice.
Plan a Sacred Salmon pilgrimage in your own community - the Season of Creation coincides with the height of the salmon run in the Pacific Northwest. Organize a pilgrimage for your community to go to a salmon spawning sight and let us know about it and any support we can provide!
Plan a pilgrimage of hope for creation in your own community - if salmon is not particularly connected to your context, plan a pilgrimage to a local site in your community to pray together and take collective action. Resources for this can be found at ipjc.org