PORT TOWNSEND – Under a sky of gray clouds, about 15 Native American canoes pulled up to the beach at the Port of Port Townsend Boat Haven on Monday in the final North Olympic Peninsula stop of the 2007 Tribal Canoe Journey.

This year’s visit to Port Townsend – the only non-tribal land on the journey’s North Olympic Peninsula itinerary – was different.

Canoeists, asking permission to come ashore, were told by a representative of the McQuillen-Greene family of Port Townsend that permission was granted although it’s a mourning period.

Terri McCullough, daughter of noted Makah tribal elder Mary McQuillen, who died earlier this year at age 75, did not speak out to the canoes participating in the 2007 Paddle to Lummi canoe journey.

Instead, she whispered in the ear of Nigel Lawrence, a family friend from the Suquamish tribe, who relayed the permissions to come ashore on her behalf.