Native American Tradition Lives On at NU Campus

Northwestern Artist in Residence with the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), Wayne Valliere, is one of only six remaining birch bark canoe builders among the Anishinaabe people. For the last year, he worked with students at NU to build a canoe and launch it from a beach in Evanston (likely the first birch bark canoe launched in 200 years). Valliere told Northwestern Now “The teaching is that the birchbark is very fragile. It’s like paper. Cedar is also fragile. The roots can snap. But when you put these things together, they become very strong,” Valliere said of the canoe’s materials. “A teaching that we use as Anishinaabe people is that we use things that, alone are weak, but together are strong.” You can listen to the story (4 minutes) via WBEZ or watch a video of his efforts here. Photo credit: John Rodas

Land acknowledgement via NU

The Northwestern campus sits on the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations. It was also a site of trade, travel, gathering and healing for more than a dozen other Native tribes and is still home to over 100,000 tribal members in the state of Illinois.