Events

Kwel’ Hoy: We Draw the Line is a cross-country tour, traveling museum exhibition, and series of public programs that uplift Indigenous leadership in struggles to protect water, land, sacred sites, and our collective future. The Lummi, also known as Lhaq’temish, People of the Sea, are the original inhabitants of Washington’s northernmost coast and southern British Columbia. Since 2014, members of the Lummi Nation have traveled across North America with a totem pole to raise awareness about threats to the environment and public health. Each journey builds an unprecedented alliance of tribal and non-tribal communities who together advocate for a sustainable relationship between humanity and the natural world.

From the Salish Sea to the Snake River, Chaco Canyon to the Black Hills, Anishnaabe lands in Minnesota to Standing Rock in South Dakota, the totem pole carries the spirit of the lands it visits, and the power and prayers of those who encounter it. As the pole traveled, it helped build alliances between Native and non-Native communities. Concluding with an exhibition at the world’s largest museum complex, the journey aimed to enlist the Smithsonian as an amplifier and an ally of the Red Road to DC, inviting all of us to take a stand with those who are leading the movement to protect sacred places.