KBIC | Wings and Seeds – The Zaagkii Project

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# Tag Archives: KBIC

# 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 →

# 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.

# US Forest Service Eastern Region Intertribal Nursery Workshop

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Admin

The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) hosted a Forest Service Eastern Region Intertribal Nursery Workshop on August 13-14, 2013. The event was recapped nicely by the U.S. Forest Service.

Visit the USFS web site to read the full story.

# Efforts for Plant Restoration Unite Tribes in Northern Michigan

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Admin

When sounds of drums echoed through the forests in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a dedication of a Native plants greenhouse at the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), neighboring communities across the Great Lakes basin took notice.

That evening, less than a year ago, marked the beginning of a deeper connection among the region’s tribes in reclaiming their role as stewards of an original ecosystem. The Zaagkii Project (Anishanaabe for “The love that comes from the Earth”) was sparked in 2008 as a collaborative effort of the Cedar Tree Institute, the US Forest Service, the Center for Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University, and Marquette County’s Juvenile Court.

Building a redemptive circle, KBIC tribal staffs are utilizing native plants propagated at the KBIC greenhouse to help restore ground cover at Sand Point, a cultural landmark, with federal funds appropriated from the Great Lakes Restoration Act. Additional benchmarks for the 2011 project include the restoration of locally native species (Canada wild rye, Black-eyed Susan, Hairgrass and many more species) planted on Lake Superior’s Grand Island via youth volunteers and Hiawatha National Forest staff , and the distribution of hundreds of milkweed plugs. Since 2008, over 100 handcrafted butterfly and bee shelters have been built by youth and offered as gifts to the wider community.

Native Plants Greenhouse in Zeba, Michigan 2011

The jewel of the Zaagkii Project remains the 33’ geodesic, environmentally friendly Native plants greenhouse, built in 2010 near the shores of Keweenaw Bay, home of KBIC, the largest land-based Native American community in Northern Michigan. Along with implementing training events for the tribal leaders, the Zaagkii Project sponsored representatives to the National Indigenous Native Plants Conference in 2010 and the USFS Conference on Monarch Butterflies in 2011. In March of 2011, the Zaagkii Project was recipient of the Wings across the Americas Butterfly Conservation Award for their restoration work in native plants and their pollinators.

Scott Herron, Odawa, serves as consulting ethnobotanist for this Peninsula-wide effort that’s home for five American Indian (Potawatomi and Ojibway) Reservations. Jan Schultz, Program Lead – Botany, Special Forest Products and Non-native Invasive Species – FS Eastern Region assists tribal leaders in evolving program goals and objectives. Jon Magnuson, Director of the Cedar Tree Institute, coordinates logistics. April Lindala, Director with NMU’s Center for Native American Studies, serves as a key partner for the Project, having archived 24 video-taped interviews with Anishanaabe elders, all of which will become available on the USDA FS Celebrating Wildflowers/ Ethnobotany Website in 2012. http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ “There’s always been one deep conviction underlying the Zaagkii Project,” Magnuson says. “Restoring the earth is inextricably linked to a healing of the human spirit.”

# KBIC helps indigenous plant restoration with geodesic dome solar-powered greenhouse

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Admin

### KBIC Zaagkii project solar-power greenhouse
dedication is August 31/September 1

(L’Anse, Michigan) – A dedication ceremony will be held in late August for the 16-foot geodesic dome solar-powered greenhouse that was built this summer at the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) in an effort to restore native species plants to northern Michigan.

It’s located at the tribe’s Natural Resources Department north of L’Anse along Lake Superior.

Part of the Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project, the greenhouse project is sponsored by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), the United States Forest Service (USFS), the Center for Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University and the nonprofit Cedar Tree Institute (CTI) in Marquette, MI.

Native plants “are one of the underpinnings of the ecosystem for wildlife and water quality,” said Todd Warner, KBIC Natural Resource Director. “They are a foundation for all the insect and pollinator populations.”
“We are expanding our capacity for native plants projects on the reservation,” Warner said.

Tribal members and others will help decide what plants will be grown and where they will be planted
“We try to be part of nature,” said Evelyn Ravindran, KBIC NRD natural resources specialist. “It’s giving a helping hand to get things back to the way they were.”

“We’ll have input from the Cedar Tree Institute and the Forest Service (and others) getting some suggestions about plants that we can grow in the greenhouse,” Ravindran said.

KBIC members will help decide what plants will be grown and where they will be planted.

KBIC NRD Director Todd Warner, Sue Rabitaille of Borealis Seed Company, USFS regional botanist Jan Schultz, KBIC Tribal Council President Warren "Chris" Swartz and KBIC Tribal Wildlife Biologist Pam Nankervis check out the KBIC greenhouse.

The greenhouse will grow a wide-range of plants indigenous to the Upper Peninsula starting with the most “cooperative” native plants including Evening primrose (Oenothera biennis), Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), according to Jan Schultz, regional botanist for the United States Forest Service (USFS) regional office in Milwaukee.

“The new native plant greenhouse at KBIC provides additional tools to help restore damaged lands, offers new educational and recreational opportunities to members of all ages, and hands on experience in the very important tasks of healing the earth,” said Schultz, USFS eastern region program leader for botany, non-native invasive species and special forest products program. “We’re happy, excited and very proud to be involved in the many partnering opportunities for us all – we all benefit and grow from this.”

The greenhouse arrived in a color-coded kit purchased from Growing Spaces of Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
The greenhouse includes reflectics insulation on the north side, three solar-powered cooling fans that will take “cool air from the outside and blow it into the dome to help keep it cool in the summer” and a 2,000 gallon water tank designed to store heat, said Allan Werthan, crew supervisor for Growing Spaces.

“It’s designed to grow year around with solar energy – it collects the heat of the day and stores it in massive water tank – so the heat will dissipate slowly at night,” Werthan said.

The outside of the dome is covered with translucent polycarbonite panels and the north side of the dome has additional reflectics insulation to help keep it warm in the winter.

“Since we do not get any sunshine on the north side of the dome – where there is no solar gain to be had – we added another layer of insulation to help make it through the challenging winters here in northern Michigan,” Werthan said. “It also reflects the heat back into the dome so we are not losing it out of the top of the dome.”

A metal glazing strip was attached on top of the aviation tape that cover the dome seams, he said, otherwise the highly-durable tape would disintegrate in the sun in about five years.

“It also makes it look high tech” and adds a space age feel, Werthan said.

About 15 volunteers began erecting the greenhouse on Monday (May 17, 2010) and it was finished five days later.

The greenhouse will support pollinators – like bees and butterflies – by providing plants indigenous to northern Michigan.

This is the third and final summer for the Zaagkii Project, that involves KBIC and other Ojibwa elders from several tribes teaching Marquette area teens and KBIC youth to protect pollinators and learn why pollinators like bees and butterflies depend on native species plants – some of which used to be considered weeds.

During the past two summers, the youth built dozens of mason bee houses and butterfly houses that have been erected across the KBIC and northern Michigan. The teens planted/distributed tens of thousands of native species plant and seeds.

The greenhouse is one of the first of its kind on an American Indian reservation.

The Zaagiii project was created in response to the deaths of billions of bees and the disappearance of millions of monarch butterflies.

Dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the syndrome has especially devastated honeybee and bumble bee populations worldwide – with the Midwest U.S. one of the hardest hit areas.

Reasons for CCD include pollution, pesticides and mites.

Researchers reported that millions of monarch butterflies did not show up as usual in the spring of 2010 in Mexico and California. One of the flight paths in the annual Monarch migration is through the southern Upper Peninsula.

Trudell Construction of Ishpeming was the volunteer builder for the greenhouse project.

“The volunteers have been awesome,” said Rich Trudell, owner of Trudell Construction. “Its been a fun and fascinating project and I am glad to be able to help.”

“I hope to be in touch in the future with Growing Spaces to carry this out to smaller version which they carry, to provide for homeowners,” Trudell said.

Indigenous plants are vital to the health of bees and butterflies.

“These native plants are part of a pollinator cycle in which these native plants are part of the inner fabric of a natural ecosystem,” said Rev. Jon Magnuson of Marquette, Zaagkii Project founder. “Once they are gone, the system is always, always threatened with collapse.”

“We hope the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community becomes a training site for other Native American communities and for the general public,” said Magnuson, CTI executive director.

Zaagkii Project sponsors include KBIC, USFS, Marquette County Juvenile Court, U.P. Children’s Museum and the Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies (NMU CNAS).

Zaagkii Project contributors include Marquette Community Foundation, M.E. Davenport Foundation, Kaufman Foundation, Phyllis and Max Reynolds Foundation and many individual supporters.

A two-day grand opening, dedication and naming ceremony will be held on August 31 and
September 1.

View the Photo Gallery

# Marquette Monthly News Story on Zaagkii Project

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Admin

### KBIC helps indigenous plant restoration with greenhouse

The Marquette Monthly featured a Story on the Zaagkii Project – entitled “KBIC helps indigenous plant restoration with greenhouse” in the July, 2010 issue by Greg Peterson.

Visit the Marquette Monthly web site to read the full story.

# Native American Times News Story on Zaagkii Project

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Admin

### As bees die, Keweena Bay Indian Community adults, teens actively protect pollinators

Native American Times News Story on Zaagkii Project – entitled “As bees die, Keweena Bay Indian Community adults, teens actively protect pollinators” posted Monday, October 27, 2008.

Visit the Native American Times web site to read the full story.

# Indian Country Today News Story on Zaagkii Project

Posted on September 12, 2008 by Admin

### Sand Point to get new look

#### Zaagkii Project to restore Native plants along Lake Superior

Indian Country Today Zaagkii Project Article – Part 2 – entitled “Sand Point to get new look” posted Friday, September 12, 2008 by Greg Peterson, Today correspondent.

Visit the Indian Country Today web site to read the full story.

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### US Forest Service Links

- Celebrating Wildflowers
- Ethnobotany
- Native Plant Program
- Pollinators Page

### 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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- An Overview of Just How Far We've Come in the Battle against Invasive Species
- Bay Mills Indian Community
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