Zaagkii Wings & Seeds - An Update

By jan schultz on Feb 2, 2010

Years 2008 & 2009 are briefly recapped and our third and final year 2010 is summarized.

Working alongside members of several Ojibwa tribes, at-risk teens with the U.S. Forest Service-sponsored Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project in Michigan's Upper Peninsula will continue protecting pollinators during 2010. They will help to build a new native plant greenhouse on an American Indian reservation and hope to trace the migration of Monarchs into Mexico.

During the past two summers (2008-2009), 23 at-risk teens from Michigan's UP: planted or distributed over 26,000 native plants seeds; helped transplant hundreds of native plant seedlings; hiked through remote forests with Zaagkii Project Native American college interns to learn importance and uses for native species plants; and built and painted 36 mason bee houses and 18 butterfly houses. One of each of the houses was placed by the USFS in the USDA "People's Garden" near the National Mall in Washington, DC. The at-risk teens put in 1,786 hours of community service working on the Zaagkii Project.

In 2010, the youths will help the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the USFS build a native plants greenhouse near the shores of Lake Superior. This year, the Zaagkii youth volunteers will continue other activities including learning about regional American Indian heritage, culture and language with Leora and Levi Tadgerson, who are Zaagkii Project interns from the NMU Department of Native American Studies (NMU CNAS). The brother/sister team are members of the Bay Mills Indian Community. Also this year, the Tadgersons are creating an ethnobotany project for the USFs Celebrating Wildflowers Website integrating traditional Anishinaabe (aka Ojibwa, Chippewa) language in identifying native plants and their cultural uses. Leora Tadgerson will discuss the Zaagkii Project while making a presentation on "Engaging Students through Community Action and Service" on May 20-22, 2010 at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) 2010 National Conference in Tucson, AZ.

In 2008, KBIC youth helped build butterfly houses and in 2009 helped restore native species plants to 2.5 miles along Sand Point on Lake Superior, a tribal beach that was the first Native American Brownfield site in the Midwest after being contaminated 90 years ago by a copper refinery. Also in 2009, the Zaagkii Project teens: visited with three beekeepers in Marquette County MI; helped plant and harvest native plants at three organic farms along the Lake Superior basin; studied pollinators at the Peter White Public Library; and learned about annual Monarch migrations and its dependence on milkweed from "The Butterfly Lady" Susan Payant. The Zaagkii Project has been featured in local and regional news articles, several Native American and non-native national newspaper stories, has a large internet presence and has begun posting the first of more than a dozen high definition videos in Youtube, bliptv and other popular online sites. Zaagkii Project contributors include the M.E. Davenport Foundation, the Kaufman Foundation and the Phyllis and Max Reynolds Foundation.

The Zaagkii Project is sponsored by the nonprofit Cedar Tree Institute, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), the Eastern Region of the Forest Service (USFS) and Marquette County Juvenile Court. KBIC "is happy to be partnering with the Cedar Tree Institute and the U.S. Forest Service in trying to protect native plants and bring them back home," said KBIC Tribal President Chris Swartz Jr. "One day we hope (KBIC) will be regarded as pioneers to bring these native plants back here," he said. "So it's only fitting that the (KBIC) become involved in helping save those native plants."