Panel explains pivotal role of birchbark canoes in connecting cultures
There's a renaissance happening in Indigenous spaces around traditional crafts and art forms including boatbuilding, said Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and the author of “Inside the Birchbark Canoe,” a feature article written for the American Craft Council, a nonprofit based in north Minneapolis.
Treuer, who has been tapped to lead a virtual discussion Thursday, said his talk is intended to highlight Indigenous contributions to boatbuilding. But he added there’s always a risk that his comments may upset some people.
“For some Americans, there's a fear of white erasure, there's pushback against anything diverse. And this is pretty obvious,” Treuer said. “But for a lot of other Americans, there's a desire to get along and when you actually enter a conversation about what would diversity, equity and inclusion look like, it also becomes pretty obvious that Native voices have often been highly marginalized.”
For example, he said few people realize that birchbark canoes were the engine that drove military and financial power for everyone in the region for generations.
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“The fur trade was a change to the Ojibwe economy. And then the birchbark canoe changed to accommodate transporting much larger quantities of goods over much longer spaces,” he said. “People are like traveling 1,000 miles in the fur trade, which seems absolutely insane when it would take them weeks to do it.”
While all tribes near water had some sort of watercraft, Treuer said the birchbark canoe was unique because of its adaptability.
“A canoe was at the heart of the Ojibwe universe; it was a pretty remarkable development. I think it gave tremendous advantages for travel, trade and as we mentioned warfare, too,” he said.
Treuer will be joined on the panel by Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member Jim Jones Jr. He’s considered one of the premier makers of traditional birchbark canoes in Minnesota.
Jones said panel listeners will hear how different Indigenous cultures created varying craft works and canoes. And their connection to each other, the landscape and resources.
“When you build a canoe like a birchbark canoe when you're done that is a living thing. That is a living piece because everything that goes into it is alive,” Jones said. “And when you get done with a canoe, I have to sit there in awe, in amazement, because I built that. But more importantly, I look at it and I think our ancestors built the same things and made it work.”
Jones said it’s an honor to continue the tradition of making birchbark canoes and he hopes his passion is reflected to the audience.
“People are going to see and learn about that history and that connection that Indigenous people still have,” he said.
Filling out the panelists is Daniel Creisher from the Apprenticeshop, a boatbuilding and sailing school in Rockland, Maine. He says he will speak about watercraft traditional to the East Coast.
“We have a pretty steep history here, in the Penobscot and the Wabanaki Nations and their use of paddle craft like canoes and birchbark canoes, etc.,” Creisher said. “And then how that kind of informed some of European designs and morphed and melded and became more commonplace in the working watercraft of the East Coast.”
All three speakers stressed the importance watercraft had on travel while connecting communities.
“The waterways were the highways, and they were what connected everyone inland to everyone on the coast,” Creisher said. “They were used for migration of people and carrying goods, and there's very extensive waterways that continue through Maine up into Canada.”
Even one of America’s most well-known naturalists acknowledged the impact watercraft had on his life, said Creisher.
“Thoreau wrote pretty extensively about the use of canoe as a means of travel and connecting people. It was the connector in a lot of ways for a lot of communities,” he said.
Like the waterways of the past, through this virtual discussion Treuer would like to build a highway where ideas can be freely exchanged.
“I hope that people can see, understand and appreciate the art and culture of the traditional Ojibwe birchbark canoe, and understand its history a little bit better,” Treuer said. “I hope that they'll also be able to grapple with important questions. How do we appropriately share between cultures? And how do we not do cultural appropriation?”
But most importantly he said he sees this talk as an opportunity for everyone who attends to grow.
“I hope we'll think about the broader issues for the importance of all of us to get along, understand one another better, and find new ways to connect and communicate going forward,” he said.
“Woven Through Water: How Boatbuilding Connects Communities and Cultures” will be livestreamed at 1 p.m. Thursday. It's free and open to the public.
To register or to learn more about the participants visit: craftcouncil.org/programs/forums.
