The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission hosts an annual Healing Run along the great lakes. Our Kwepack has participated in the run for over 5 years. We consider it a huge honor to bring a part of our story of running for our Life to this year's T shirt design. This year has brought focus onto our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in incredible and beautiful ways. This year has also brought incredible focus onto Native wellness and onto our Indigenous Running Group the KwePack and the power of taking control of our own narratives. As the trump era and treaty rights tension builds our communities face threats we had hoped and worked to extinguish. The Healing Run runners...
Today in the city of Duluth, rang in by Mayor Emily Larson, the Imagine Duluth team revealed three new innovative public art projects. The utility cabinets in Canal Park, the area's tourist district are now covered in art from House of Howes artist Sarah Agaton Howes, Adam Swanson, and Angel Sarkela-Saur. On the corner of Canal Park Drive and Lake Drive is Howes' piece described as "this piece reflects our story of how we rebuilt our life on the gift of a turtle's back. How would we operate differently if we knew we lived upon a living gift? This great water with the incredible ability to give life also has the great capacity to sweep it all away. Our role...
Ah! thought that would catch your eye. Clicked on it? One time I saw a woman walk towards me and on her feet were the most incredible pair of split toe moccasin I have ever seen. Was she from Canada?? Of course! These beauties were flat, form fitting, simple, and really the holy grail of split toe moccasins. I knew when I saw hers I needed to work on my technique. And they have evaded me. I have been patterning, and sewing, and interviewing, and sewing, and through a series of incredibly informing interviews I have compiled some great intel and techniques. Yet still, they didn't look like hers. Karen Savage was one of my first moccasin teachers. I have...
We are often referred to as Anishinaabe/Indigenous/Native people as living in two worlds. I reject this notion and believe we live in one. We are the people of confluence and adaptation. Last week during a residency at an elementary school a student asked me "Why do you have the Indian things?" "Do you have electricity?" I told her "We are all of these things. We are living both our ancestors ways and we have internet. My kids learn their language and play fortnite. WE GET TO BE IT ALL. Isn't That amazing??" Instead of seeing ourselves as the recipients of endless trauma and deficit perhaps we should consider how we are the thriving recipients of thousands of years of adaptation,...
Yesterday the Nokomis Obagijigan project was fortunate to spend some time with Animikiikwe, Christina Woods, from Bois Forte. She shared her split toe moccasin style, pattern, and sewing style she learned from Margaret Hill (Mille Lacs). Christina took the time to look at our attempts-some better than others- at this style, help us learn about materials, puckering, and how we can improve what we are doing. We are all learners. One of the big pieces of this residency with the Minnesota Historical Society is the opportunity to learn and grow ourselves. As a round toe moccasin maker, we feel confident in our ability to both create, teach, and make patterns from this style. But the split toe, quite frankly, has...
