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Today we caravanned across the bridge to Canada for a day trip to Manitoulin Island. After many hours in the car we crossed another bridge – from Canada’s mainland to the island. We stopped for lunch and icecream where we met with Chris Bigras a founder of the Zhiibaahaasing First Nations reserve in Manitoulin. Following her lead, we visited sites along the way to her village. We saw the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls

visited an Ojibwe Cultural Center and crafts shop that featured traditional porcupine quill and beaded jewelry for sale.

Next we got a tour of a church that blends Anishinaabe and Christian practices and teachings. Our tour guide explained some of the imagery, such as dreamcatchers symbolized both the four directions and the four apostles.

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The second day of the Water Protectors Conference continued with a Sunrise Ceremony to start the day. The ceremony brought together traditional people and pipe carriers from many nations across the Great Lakes region. Grandma Josephine Mandamin led a water and strawberry ceremony to start the prayers.

After the ceremony, ATE went over to Kewadin where the conference continued with a keynote speech from former Chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Ottawa, Frank Ettawageshik, who spoke about the history of treaty rights. He pointed out how the US government and the tribes had fundamentally different understandings of the definition of the terms used in the treaties. For the tribes, fishing and hunting rights were relational rights – the right to continue a healthy and natural relation with the swimmers and four-legged and other lifeforms – whereas the settlers saw these rights as property rights.

Thomas Lopez from the International Indigenous Youth Council sparked dialog at the conference, asking the community what they were doing to engage the youth, pointing out the absence of young people from the room. Many people agreed that in whatever resolutions the group passed in regards to water diversion, there should be youth involved in the committees that carry the work forward.

The group gets together for a photo at the Water Protectors conference.

Back row (left to right): Colleen Medicine, Jillian Walker, Malcolm Tulip, Tomantha Slyvester, Zach Kolodziej, John Diehl, Jonathan Diehl

Front row (left to right): Micaela Dominguez Ironshell, Thomas Lopez, Sara Radamacher, Anita Gonzalez, Eli Horinek, Shaunie Lewis, Maggie Miller

An elder and leader speaks at the conference.

Today began and ended on the water. First the group visited the Soo Locks, a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the UP who can see as huge cargo ships go through them. The locks are one of the most dramatic industrial alterations to the region, especially for the Anishinaabe. The St. Mary River once was the site of great rapids, a meeting place for people to exchange goods. Settlers seeking to move coal, ore, and stone across the Great Lakes formed locks, diverting much of the river along another channel, forever altering the natural flow of water around which people had gathered.

After visiting the Soo Locks, the group drove over to Bay Mills Community College where we met briefly with Joe Medicine, then headed towards Whitefish Point. We stopped at a lighthouse along the way and walked out onto the beach, listening to the water, then continued. At Whitefish Point, we went through the Shipwreck Museum, which houses artifacts of shipwrecks from along the Great Lakes. Whitefish Point used to be a major Coast Guard station that performed hundreds of rescues a year. With advanced tracking and radar technology today the need for search-and-rescue has declined dramatically. The days of massive shipwrecks are mostly in the past with some like the Edmund Fitzgerald living on in folklore as testaments to the ferocity of nature and tenacity of sailors and coast guards to brave the storm.

The museum did not touch on fishing or the traditional Anishinaabe practices around water. The only reference to indigenous people in the museum was a life-like sculpture of an Anishinaabe man and a European explorer navigating the Great Lakes. The text accompanying the exhibit told the story of a man named Brule who was supposedly cannibalize by a band of Ottawa, and whom is hailed as an explorer who paved the way for trade and European settlement in the region. It is telling that the only mention of native people in the museum portrays them as cannibals.

Despite the omission of a native perspective on the water, the Shipwreck Museum did help to give us a better sense of the intensity of living on Lake Superior and fury one might encounter out in the elements. As we go forward with our play, we will keep this in mind in order to translate storm into movement.

 

After a cozy lunch in Paradise, Michigan we headed back towards Sugar Island, stopping at the Mission Hill Cemetery. The cemetery looks out on ponds and inlets off of Lake Superior, a beautiful view of water and forrest. We walked through the cemetery and noticed the names of Sault and Bay Mills families, with the symbols of clans of bear, fish, and eagle. The cemetery, like the one in downtown Sault Ste Marie we saw near the Soo Locks, marks the connection of the Anishinaabe to the land, the place of their ancestors, to which they are returned.

Walking at Mission Hill Cemetary

View from Mission Hill Cemetary

Jonathan Diehl looks out on a beach near Whitefish Point

Lighthouse along Lake Superior

Soo Locks

Zach Kolodziej looks at the exhibit at Soo Locks Museum

 

 

 

Today brought together many people for the immersion week of our project.  Anita Gonzalez (theatre director and professor), John Diehl (photographer), Jonathan Diehl (writer), Zach Kolodziej (U of M alum), and Malcolm Tulip (director and theatre professor) made up the Ann Arbor contingent of our group, and were joined by Jillian Walker, a New York playwright the day before. At LSSU they met with theatre students Tamantha, Michaela, and Michael, and Theatre Professor Spencer Christensen and English Prof. Mary McMyne to discuss collaboration. Rebecca Parrish came with a draft of 50 Cents a Pound, a play chronicling the Fish Wars, and the fight for native fishing rights in the Soo. Rebecca explained how she had compiled the play from stories told to her by the fishermen of Bay Mills who had struggled to maintain their livelihood against racist intimidation and broken treaties. After reading the play, we came away with a deeper understanding of the challenges of fishing, the harsh reality of both the unbridled weather and the rampant intimidation they received from sports fishermen. Decades after Big Abe LeBlanc of Bay Mills knowingly risked arrest in 1971 to defend his treaty rights, the legal battle for the recognition of Ojibwe fishing rights still continues, as tribes must have their rights renew every five years.

Leaving LSSU, we traveled to the Dancing Crane for a quick coffee break before heading to Bay Mills Community College, hoping to meet more tribal members who would want to speak about the fight for fishing rights. We met with Kathy LeBlanc, Cultural Services Director, who spoke to the connection between struggles for fishing rights and the plights facing the water across the Earth. Next we sat with Wade Teeple, former fisherman and tribal chairman, in his office at Bay Mills. He spoke about the harassment the native fisherman received not only from “sporties” but from police and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) who would interrupt their work for petty violations, sometimes arresting and fining them or causing them to lose a day’s work.

The day ended with a great dinner at Indo-China Garden reflecting on a day packed with new information and new directions to follow. We’ll see what comes together in the next few weeks – right now the paths are wide open!

 

Rebecca Parrish (center left) talks to students and professors at LSSU before reading through 50 Cents a Pound.

LSSU students Tamantha (top) and Michael (bottom) share their reactions to reading the play.

Anita (left), Michael (middle), Michaela (right) and others walk through campus at Bay Mills Community College.

Schools Out!