Traditional Anishnabek Maple Sugaring Workshop Set for West Michigan

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Currents. Discussion »

HOPKINS, MICHIGAN – The Gun Lake Band of Pottawatomi, Jijak Foundation and the Great Lakes Lifeways Institute are once again teaming up to present a fun filled weekend of learning the ways of the Anishnabek.

Participants will be sugaring off - making granulated sugar using a tombyagen,
log sugaring trough, as well as maple sugar cakes, begode, maple taffy, and
ziwabo, maple vinegar.

During the first weekend in March, the Anishinabe Sugarbush "Gdapnamen gété mno-wisnewen" Spring 2013 workshop will be offered to the first 100 registrants.

This workshop will provide hands-on opportunities for participants off all ages to enjoy the maple sugaring activities long practiced in our communities and to learn other traditional spring foodways from elders. We will be tapping trees, gathering sap, and finishing off different types of maple sugar using traditional and historic native tools and methods. We will also be celebrating the arrival of spring, and honoring the gifts of the maple with a first fruits feast.

Participants will make sugar and learn to process beaver and muskrat for food, medicines, tools, and fur.

Weekend Activities

Saturday - Participants will be learning to tap maple trees using both modern and traditional methods. We will be making cedar sap spiles, birch bark sap dishes, and constructing a skegmezgegenatek (log frame for suspending our kettles.) Then we will gather and boil sap and learn how to use a bmojegen (traditional wooden shoulder yoke) for carrying sap.

Daisy Kostus, James Bay Cree, will be teaching how to cook beaver over an open fire. Lunch and dinner, prepared with traditional Anishinabe foods will be provided. After dinner we will have a round dance.

Sunday - Participants will be sugaring off - making granulated sugar using a tombyagen, log sugaring trough, as well as maple sugar cakes, begode, maple taffy, and ziwabo, maple vinegar. We will also be crafting bark sugar molds, and learning about the origins of sugaring with a demonstration of boiling sap in earthenware pottery with GLLI's Erik Vosteen.

Daisy Kostus will be teaching how to smoke muskrats. Sunday afternoon we will host our first fruits feast to honor the arrival of spring and celebrate the life sustaining gifts of the maple trees.

The cost of the workshop is $70. The event is family friendly and children 12 and under are free. Lifeways Institute members as well as Gun Lake tribal members, employees, and their families may attend without cost. The registration cost includes lunches prepared with traditional foods, an evening feast on Saturday, and all event activities.

The workshop will be held at Camp Jijak in Hopkins, Michigan, about midway between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo off of US 131. If you have any questions about the workshop or need to find local accommodations, contact Kevin Finney at 616.644.3822.

To register, Click Here »

WHAT:
Anishinabe Sugarbush "Gdapnamen gété mno-wisnewen" Spring 2013 workshop
WHEN:
Saturday March 2, 2013 at 9:00 am, EST
WHERE:
Camp Jijak
2558 20th Street
Hopkins, Michigan 49328

posted February 9, 2013 9:40 am est