Wings and Seeds – The Zaagkii Project | A Native Plants and Pollinator Protection Initiative

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# Chocolay Township Intertribal Native Plants Workshop

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Admin

MONDAY
AUGUST 7th 2017
10am-4pm
Chocolay Township Offices
5010 US 41 South • Marquette Michigan

## ZAAGKII

## TEACHINGS FROM THE EARTH

### A NATIVE PLANTS & POLLINATOR PROTECTION INITIATIVE

A partnership of the Cedar Tree Institute with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community & Marquette county’s Chocolay Township, with invited guests from the Continue reading →

# Chicago Intertribal Native Plants Workshop

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Admin

TUESDAY
SEPTEMBER 15
2015
9AM-5PM
Chicago Botanic Garden
Glencoe, Illinois

## A Native Plants Restoration & Pollinator Protection Workshop for Native American Tribal Communities in Northern Michigan

TRAVEL DATES: SEPTEMBER 14-16 ~ Registered tribal representatives will travel by chartered bus from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Illinois.

### Sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute in collaboration with the US Forest Service & the Chicago Botanic Garden

Continue reading →

# Choosing Between Your Money and Your Soul

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Admin

from Indian Country Today August 19, 2015

By Jon Magnuson

Twenty years ago, on a visit to Great Falls, Montana, I spent an afternoon casually wandering through the C.M. Russell Auction of Original Western Art, reputed, at that time, to be the most prestigious Western art show in North America. Periodically, I’d stroll down a few streets to a conference room at a local motel where the 10th Annual Montana Native American Art and Craft Sale was being sponsored by regional tribes.

The contrast between the two couldn’t have been more dramatic if it had been scripted by Hollywood. At the Russell exhibition, the main show room was packed with vendors and well-heeled tourists. The upscale venue was filled with hundreds of perfectly executed, over-the-top depictions of American Indians on horseback, picturesque village encampments in mountain meadows, and sexualized, doe-eyed young Native maidens clothed in traditional ceremonial buckskin.

Not far away at the Best Western, the majority of the forty-some Native artists displaying their work in a modest conference room were nonprofessionals. Among them were a dozen teenagers showing beadwork and paintings. One of the organizers, a local leader among the Blackfeet, stood up to share remarks. “Last year,” she said, “Montana’s governor stopped by our show and bought a piece of art. He said he’d mail us a check. We told we’d let him take the art and would even write him a temporary receipt. The problem was,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “when it came right down to it, none of the Indians at the table knew his name.”

In 1988, a few years before my visit to Great Falls, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. We know now it was to become the 20thcentury game-changer for Indian country. Stereotypes about Native Americans still dominate, of course, the contemporary American cultural landscape, but these days “casino land” is the first image that pops up for the majority of the public. A second, thanks to the influence of Seattle photographer Edward Curtis and upscale art galleries on Santa Fe’s Canyon Road, remains the feathered warrior on horseback. A close third, the butt of dismissive jokes, is the drunken, homeless street bum living off federal aid.

The path ahead is unclear. Identity, for most Indian people, in the first part of the 21stcentury as never before, will be carved out, collectively and individually, from a swirling world of carpetbaggers, do-gooders, and self-serving politicians and missionaries, many who are predators, economically and spiritually, across Indian Country. No one is going to turn the clock back, but there will be decisions, perhaps more important now than ever, to be made by tribes. They will define the future for generations to come. And those decisions will be about money and soul.

There’s no question that the economic prosperity resulting from the gaming industry legal agreements between tribes, states and the Federal government, has been nothing less than an historic, cultural landmark. But tribal efforts to protect traditional spiritual and cultural values will increasingly become the real battleground unless we’re all satisfied to watch what’s left of a treasure of North American indigenous culture sink into Donald Trump’s Wall Street Nirvana, a cesspool of consumer-driven, materialistic mindlessness.

It should not be, I’m suggesting, a choice between money or soul. There’s nothing wrong with a healthy tribal income from the casino industry. That is, as long as a significant portion of that income can be set aside by tribes to fight intrusions of irresponsible mining companies, short-term forest harvesting practices, and profit-driven corporate polluters. With a priority of protecting the sanctity of natural resources on Treaty lands, American Indian peoples will recover and claim their rightful place as original custodians and defenders of our land, our air and water.

Here in a remote part of Northern Michigan, the heart of such a vision is emerging in a collaborative effort by five tribes to preserve what remains of the original “ecological footprint” of plants and pollinators. Tribal communities are working together to establish centers for environmental education, field training, and promotion of Native seed harvesting and butterfly/bee protection. Those efforts are intentionally framed by ceremony and Native traditional spiritual teachings.

The test is a real one. Harvesting of wild rice, processing of maple sugar, and the growing of ginseng hold extraordinary and untapped potential revenue for tribe-based economies. If such intentional investments can be sustained, they will certainly outlast and, with the selected promise of global markets, even one day possibly outcompete revenues from blackjack tables and slot machines.

Meanwhile, tribes like the Lummi in Northwest Washington State, the White Earth and Fond du Lac in Minnesota, Bad River in Wisconsin and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Michigan serve as examples where collective voices, fierce and visionary, are finding allies to confront some of the largest international companies in the world in order to protect threatened national resources. These same communities, along with Michigan’s Hannahville, Lac Vieux Desert, Bay Mills, and Sault tribes, are building tribal economies around renewable natural resources, protecting and preserving what is left of rare plants on their own tribal lands.

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Native Plant Greenhouse

Be assured. There are those of us, prepared and ready to join you… churches, nonprofit organizations, and individuals working in federal agencies… so we can together, in prayer, dance our way into a collaborative spiritual way of caring for Mother Earth that this planet we all call home has never seen before.

Jon Magnuson is a former Peace Corps volunteer and currently Director of The Cedar Tree Institute. He coordinates, along with Jan Schultz, a US Forest Service Botanist, and five tribes in Northern Michigan, the Zaagkii Project (www. wingsandseeds.org), a Native plants and pollinator protection initiative. In 1987, while serving as ELCA Lutheran pastor at the University, he drafted “The Bishops Apology” with the Church Council of Greater Seattle, a document pledging support to 46 tribes of the Pacific Northwest for helping recover, restore, and protect traditional Native American spiritual teachings.

# Maamaadizi II – 2015

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Admin

On Tuesday morning, May 26, 2015 a traditional offering of tobacco and cedar was scattered on the waters of Lake Superior by 14-year-old Kayla Dakota to mark the beginning of a second trip by KBIC tribal youth to visit one of the most remote, isolated National Parks in North America. The first KBIC youth expedition to Isle Royale took place in May 2013 aboard the 36 ft. research vessel “Agassiz.”

## KBIC Youth Return to Isle Royale National Park

Maamaadizi: “Beginning a Journey” in the Anishinaabe language

Thanks to a partnership between Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s Natural Resource Department,the nonprofit Cedar Tree Institute, Michigan Technological University’s Great Lakes Research Center, and the Isle Royale Institute, thirteen young people boarded the park’s transport ferry, the Ranger III, to begin a six hour journey to what, long ago, Ojibway peoples called Minong, “the good place.”

Continue reading →

# Intertribal Native Plants Workshop

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Admin

THURSDAY
JULY 16
2015
10AM-4PM
Tribal Cultural Center
Wilson, Michigan

## A Native Plants Restoration & Pollinator Protection Workshop for Native American Tribal Communities in Northern Michigan

Continue reading →

# Crop Wild Relatives Plants Workshop

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Admin

August 5-6, 2014

Sponsored by Cedar Tree Institute in Partnership with The U.S. Forest Service, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and invited guests from Native American Communities and the Eastern Region National Forests.

### Host:

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community

### Workshop site:

KBIC Ojibwa Community College 111 Beartown Rd, Baraga Michigan

Tuesday, August 5 from 9 A.M. – 4:30 P.M.
Wednesday, August 6 from 9 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.

This workshop focuses on the emerging challenge of conserving Crop Wild Relatives, those native plants that are closely related to the important food crops that we are inextricably linked to today.

Treaty lands and National Forests are important locations that harbor these essential native plants as we are challenged by climate changes and food security. This workshop will focus more specifically on the USDA/FS and ARS strategy and collection protocols for the complementary conservation (in situ and ex situ) of our two native cranberry species – Large Fruited and Small Fruit Cranberry. Cranberry serves as our “pilot” project in Crop Wild Relatives conservation.

THIS WORKSHOP IS DESIGNED FOR 20 PARTICIPANTS WITH SPECIAL INVITED REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE KEWEENAW BAY INDIAN COMMUNITY, BAY MILLS INDIAN COMMUNITY, HANNAHVILLE INDIAN COMMUNITY, LAC VIEUX DESERT BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA INDIANS, AND THE SAULT STE MARIE TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS.

All tribal representatives will be provided lodging, if requested, on Monday evening August 4th and Tuesday August 5th. Meals will be provided for tribal participants and a community meal will be hosted by KBIC on Tuesday evening, August 5th.

### GUEST INSTRUCTORS INCLUDE:

Jan Schultz, Botany Program Leader, Eastern Region, USFS
Scott Herron, ethnobotanist (Annishinaabe), Patti Vitt, Chicago Botanical Garden
Karen Williams, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

### TO REGISTER CONTACT:

Contact Tom Biron (Cedar Tree Institute) at birontho@gmail.com
or Evelyn Ravindran (KBIC) at eravindran@kbic-nsn.gov

# Non-Native Invasive Plants Workshop

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Admin

June 2-3, 2014

Sponsored by Cedar Tree Institute in Partnership with The U.S. Forest Service Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and invited representatives of Bay Mills Indian Community and the Sault Ste Marie Band of Chippewa Indians

### Host:

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community

### Workshop site:

KBIC Ojibwa Community College 111 Beartown Rd, Baraga Michigan

Monday, June 2 from 10 A.M. – 4:30 P.M.
Tuesday, June 3 from 9 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.

This workshop will focus on increasing numbers of non-native invasive plants (NNIP) of Northern Michigan and Northwest Wisconsin that are radically transforming our region’s natural ecosystem. Strategies will be explored for controlling and limiting their impact. There will be field-work, lab instruction, presentations, and discussions. Forty to fifty species will be identified. The workshop will open with a blessing from tribal elders and close with a traditional talking circle.

The workshop is designed for 15 participants (2 representatives from the Bay Mills Indian Community
2 from the Sault Ste Marie Band of Chippewa Indians & 10 KBIC tribal members)

Lodging, if requested, will be provided for two nights, June 1 and 2nd (Ojibwa Casino Hotel)
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are included on Monday, breakfast and lunch on Tuesday.

### GUEST PRESENTERS AND FACILITATORS INCLUDE:

Jan Schultz, Chief Botanist for the Eastern Region of the U.S. Forest Service and
Evelyn Ravindran, KBIC Natural Resources Department, KBIC tribal elders,
Jon Magnuson, the Cedar Tree Institute & Tom Biron, Sault Ste Marie Band of Chippewa Indians

### TO REGISTER CONTACT:

Evelyn Ravindran at 906-353-54757, Ext #11
E-mail: eravindran@kbic-nsn.gov or Tom Biron at E-mail: birontho@gmail.com

# Overview, Nursery Program, and Sand Point Restoration: Achieving a Shared Vision

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Admin

Karen Anderson at the 13th annual North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) International Conference highlighted native plant and pollinator work by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) Natural Resource Department and the Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Partnership on October 22-24, 2013. Karen, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Natural Resources Department Plant and Greenhouse Technician, made a presentation at the NAPPC event in Washington D.C.

Visit the USFS web site to read the full story.

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- Celebrating Wildflowers
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### Recent Zaagkii News

- Chocolay Township Intertribal Native Plants Workshop
- Chicago Intertribal Native Plants Workshop
- Choosing Between Your Money and Your Soul
- Maamaadizi II – 2015
- Intertribal Native Plants Workshop

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