Spearing bass, and some lessons

My people are known as Mississauga Ojibway Indians/First Nations. Our entire culture revolves/revolved around the water. We were highly mobile, compared to our neighbors- the Iroquois. Whether relying on wild rice, ducks, geese, frogs, beaver or fish, the majority of our food came from lakes, rivers and marshes. As with many other eastern woodlands/Great Lakes tribes, we employed a lot of methods for catching fish, including weirs, basket traps, bowfishing, netting and spearing. Though some tribes in the Americas did use hooks and lines, I have not seen any evidence of the Ojibway nations doing so. 

Spearfishing for the most part is highly illegal in present-day Ontario, except for one exception; if you are a First Nation with hunting and fishing rights within the province, or within a certain part of Ontario. My community -the Mississaugas of Rice Lake, also known as Hiawatha First Nation- had no hunting rights for the past century or so. I'm not going to make this into a political discussion, so suffice it to say, back in December that was finally resolved and my community was granted hunting and fishing rights back into our traditional territory. This might explain one of the many reasons that I have not had the chance to post as frequently as I did a year ago. Been hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering as much as I can!

So tonight, my cousin came over and explained that we were idiots for not focusing on spearfishing this past spring. We missed the pickerel run, mostly due to my school schedule, but also to the severe weather we've had in Ontario this spring.. literally 4 ft high waves on Rice Lake during a large portion of the pickerel spawning run (which makes for really crappy spearfishing. We had talked a lot about it over the past month, and finally decided tonight to just go out and try the new spears we made back in March. Josh (the cousin) couldn't find his, so we ended up with just mine. 

My spear is made from a young white pine sapling that is approximately 8ft long, two steel prongs, and lashed together with codline (I believe this is often called Bankline south of the 49th). The prongs were made by me with a miniature forge of firebricks and a gas-torch. I used standard steel rods that were 3/16ths of an inch thick. I bought the rods from Home Depot. The ends were bent at a 90-degree angle while under heat, and then the rods were annealed. Once annealed, I cut very small barbs into the rods, and tape the tips to a fairly fine point. These I plan to make larger later when I get the new forge built next Friday. After that is all done, its' time to harden and then temper the prongs. This is where it gets interesting, as the tips of the prongs must be hard enough to hold a sharp tip, yet soft enough that when you strike a rock (not IF you strike a rock, but WHEN you strike a rock) you don't snap the tips of your prongs. Basically what I like to do is keep the entire prong fairly soft in temper, except for the very tip (which I keep about the same hardness as a knife). So first I bring them up to temperature where the steel is no longer magnetic. Once that is done, I quenched them in old motor oil. Then I scrape the steel clean with wire brushes, so that I can watch the tempering procedure. Using a gas-torch, I dance the flame back and forth, aiming for a light blue tone on the majority of the prong. However, I only aim for a light brassy tone on the last 1/2 inch of prong, towards the tip. 

Once the prongs are tempered, I drill a small hole into the spearshaft (at the thick end) about 3-4 inches in from the end. This hole is about 3/16" in diameter, and fits the bent ends of the prongs snugly. I add a slight channel from the hole to the end of the spearshaft, to help hold the prongs snugly. Once this is done, I shape the end to be a bit more aqua-dynamic, and then fit the prongs in. Afterwards, I lashed codline tightly around the prongs. This technique is what I learned from an old Chippewa Ojibway from Saugeen First Nation (over on Lake Huron). The spear end looks like this;



Alright, so onto the fun part...

We get into my Kawartha canoe, whose nickname is aptly "Tippy". We have no proper lighting, so we use two flashlights. With only one spear, and obviously wanting to control the canoe, I had Josh sit in the bow, while I paddled us at a snail's crawl. Two tips for anyone wanting to try boat-based spearfishing; get good lighting and a real stable canoe. We'll be building an English-style punt this summer out of pine and cedar boards, both for duck season, and for the fall pickerel run. Josh was hoping for pickerel, but I knew we were unlikely to find any. We ended up scouting the water out for at least 45 minutes. After a while of checking along the cattail edge and finding nothing, we turned back and went westerly along the north shore of Rice Lake, heading for the rock and stumps of the shallows. 

This was where we found luck. After missing twenty or more Large-mouthed bass, Josh had one close by. WHACK! And that was when the struggle began. Believe me on this, if you think a fish can put up a fight on a hook and line, you have not seen a 5lb bass get hit by an Ojibway with a spear! He held her to the bottom until she stopped struggling for the most part. Every muscle in his upper body was straining -to keep the fish on the spear AND to keep his butt in the canoe! Finally he flipped her in. 

Next lesson; kill any fish you spear immediately. We decided to not "bother" with that, though something told us both that we should. That was when we saw an 8lb mother of all bass cruise right for the spear tip... and that was when the bass Josh caught decided to spasm and slam into the hull of the canoe repeatedly. The 8er was gone in a flash, and it took us another 30 minutes to see any fish. This is why we decapitated the one Josh caught. No more splashing attempts.. We were turning back to head home (it was well past 1am at this point, and we started around 11pm), when Josh saw one that was less than a pound. "Don't bother Cousin, I don't think you can get one that small with that spea-WHACK!" Annnd that was when Josh learned that even a tiny fish on a spear can put up a helluva fight. Once he flipped her into the boat, I severed the spine immediately, so that we'd have no repeats. Josh got close to another half a dozen, but they always eluded his shots. I tried a few times, but gave up, as its' difficult to aim from the back of the canoe! When it hit 2am, we knew it was time to pack it in. The night air was just above freezing tonight, even though the water was warm. I was soaked, and my butt was asleep. Josh's ankles were burning from crouching to balance the canoe with every shot he took.

So here are our results! 



Not too bad!

We'll be building a better boat, and setting up a proper lighting system on it. As well, we'll be making some Australian-style fishing spears, with paralyzer-style prongs. I'll also be setting up my bow with a reel in a few days, as the carp are everywhere! 

Anyways, I'm tired, and we've got at least one successful night of spearfishing in this spring. Glad to be back on the forums, hope y'all enjoy the read!

Guest Blogger: Arthur Haines - How Being Healthy Protects Drinking Water

Once again I have the honour of welcoming my good friend Arthur's words onto this blog. In the near future I will be interviewing Arthur on the Living the Thirteen Moons Podcast. If you wish to know more about him, check out the Delta Institute of Natural History, or his Youtube Channel.  The reason I wanted this on my blog is three-fold. The first and foremost reason is because I care about water quality, for both us and the environment itself. This reason is enough for me to want this sort of knowledge on here. However I also work at a wonderful program called TRACKS Youth Outreach, which focuses on teaching Native and non-Native youth about science, especially environmental science. You can find us on Facebook here. We have been teaching a lot about water health and what our people in Western culture can do to protect the water that is on this big, beautiful planet. This is another good reason to pass on this information regarding water health. Finally, with the recent proceedings here in Canada, we have lost a lot of fundamental protection for our lakes, rivers and streams. It is up to us now as citizens to do our part to take care of our waterways. This again is a fundamental reason as to why this article is vital for our continuing survival, not to mention our current environment's. So a big big miigwetch to Arthur Haines, and without further adieu...

How Being Healthy Protects Drinking Water

First, let’s build awareness of the issue: pharmaceutical drugs (among other chemicals) are routinely detected in public drinking water supplies here in the United States. One of the primary sources of these drugs is people--specifically, those who use pharmaceutical drugs. When you use a drug (prescription or over-the-counter) some of that drug passes un-metabolized through your body and is excreted into the septic system. Those drugs then enter the ground water or sewer systems (depending on where you live) and ultimately end up in the bodies of wild animals or in the bodies of people (especially if you live in an area with waste water treatment facilities that recycle water for drinking). So, to summarize this paragraph, many people in metropolitan areas (and some people in rural areas) are being exposed to low, constant doses of antibiotic, antifertility, pain-relieving, and mood-altering medications. Even aquifers have been found to be contaminated by synthetic medicines.

The amount of these drugs in the public water system is low (it would be described as trace). That has led many water suppliers to claim there is no harm caused by the presence of these compounds. However, no test has shown that exposure is safe (especially in the long run) and some recent research finds that harm is being caused. Remember that most medicine is to be taken for a short time and then discontinued. But when you get low doses in your drinking water, you are constantly exposed to a myriad of chemicals--in one review, 63 drugs were found during testing in watersheds around cities and 56 of those were in the public water supply. These low dose medicines in the water have been shown to slow growth of human embryonic kidney cells, speed cancer cell proliferation, and alter blood cell activity. Further, there is evidence that adding chlorine, a common component of urban drinking water, makes the pharmaceutical drugs more toxic. There is no doubt that some wildlife species are being affected. For example, male fish in some areas are being feminized.

So, what do you do about this? Well, you may decide to drink only spring water. That would protect you and your family (note: your home filtration system was likely not designed to remove trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs). But what about those people who can’t afford bottled water? And what about the other-than-human-persons we share this world with? This is a case where we need to be unselfish. Drugs in the water supply are going to come back to harm us. What if your child lives or one day moves to a metropolitan area and becomes exposed to these compounds? The solution for this dilemma is that we need to be healthier. We need to ingest fewer drugs, wash and adorn ourselves with more eco-friendly products (because those end up in the water as well), and even consider what our toilet paper is doing to the world (recycled paper contains Bisphenol-A, an endocrine disruptor, which also ends up in the water supply).

Regardless of your diet and lifestyle, most people will become ill and be in need of medicine at some point in their life. This is where I encourage people to turn to natural products, even better, those medicines that they gather from the landscapes around their homes. These plants and fungi are ever present in the ecosystem. They are eaten by animals (who excrete them into the environment). They decay in the fall, releasing minerals and various natural compounds. They are all around us, in the leaf litter and in the ground water, and anyone who spends time in the outdoors is constantly exposed to them. Based on what we know, constant exposure to wild plant phytochemicals has a role in generating health (so long as toxins are avoided). Hypothetically, if I were to ingest staghorn sumac for an infection, I would ultimately be excreting chemicals that are already found in the watershed (where I gathered them in the first place). There is no introduction of new or synthetic compounds. No need to gain resistance to novel drugs. No need to worry about the secondary impacts.

Being healthy is the primary way we protect our water supplies from pharmaceutical drugs. Using natural medicine is the second line of defense. Of course, the over-arching principle here is that we need to be aware of what our actions do to the world (and the many ways that poor health hurts everyone, not just the person afflicted with the ailment). Remember: humans did not weave the web of life, they are merely a strand in it. Whatever humans do to the web, they do to themselves (adapted from Chief Seattle).

Meat and preparing for the cold times.

Back in early November, my cousin got his first deer. A lot of emotions are brought up for a person when they see a large animal die right in front of them. Rabbits, ducks and fish are just as important, and I am not discrediting their deaths as non-emotional or anything like that. However to see something as large as a deer, or bear or moose die for the first time is for many of us extremely moving.

I remember getting my first deer (only a few years ago, even though I have been hunting for literally half of my life), and how messed up it left me for a long few weeks. I had caught, killed and cleaned many a fish and bird. I had butchered countless deer and moose. Death of a fellow moving, breathing creature was definitely not something new for me. However as I watched the deer (a young but very large buck) seem to suddenly freeze on impact from my slug penetrating his chest and abdomen, and then keel over as if his legs were made out of rebar rather than tendons and muscles, it effected me in a way that to this day I cannot fully explain. I was happy, but disturbed. I knew I had just provided for my family. Acquired a hide and brains for new material. I knew the bones and sinew would bless me with more supplies. But to see a life drain out of an anima with such sudden swiftness (he thrashed for but a moment) is truly emotional. I take the subject of catching any animal very seriously -regardless of size or species. But at the same time, it is joyful. I whoop. I shout. I even laugh. However during that, I do what my people have always done; I pour water into the animal's mouth, I offer tobacco in thanks, I sing a small song of gratitude. I make sure the being sees the western sky. These things are tasks many Anishnaabe men (and women) feel obligated to do for the animal whose life we extinguished. Its' a give and take. The animal has done their work (sacrificed themselves' for us), now it is our turn to make good on the deal: by making sure we honour the animal.

However, this does not mean jokes are taboo, or banished. We laugh, and joke; "Holy crap this deer's liver is big enough to belong to a Frat Boy!", or "That goose is small enough to be a duck!". This is not disrespect in our eyes. Its' having fun with the animal who is still present. Teasing is a sign of affection in countless Native cultures here in Canada, just as it is in many non-Natve cultures. However, for us, it is really the way of life. Joking, and comedy are what bond all humans, and to find something humorous in an emotional moment is really a beautiful thing.

In this video, myself and my cousin butcher the deer that he caught just the night before. We skinned her in the dark, as we don't use knives between the gutting and butchering process. We skin the deer immediately after it is hung up, as this cools the deer, and is much faster than if we left the hide on for too long. It is also much better for the hide, as decomposition can happen in mere hours in the right circumstances. You won't hear much dialogue other than the joking (which I mentioned a moment ago). But it shows almost every step taken after the skin and head are removed.

I want to say a few things about this deer. I cannot speak on behalf of my cousin. I do not know if he went through the same emotions as I have. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I do know however that this deer was taken down with the most humane of a shot any hunter could ask for. She maybe ran 40 feet in total, if that. We tracked her immediately, and very early on we could tell she would be dead just around the corner. It was a clean kill, and she never suffered. We found her within two minutes of tracking, and she was already passed on. It was the perfect shot. I was there when she was seen, I was there when she was shot, and I helped with every step of the process once that deer was hit. I am very honest when I say that I am proud of my cousin, and was deeply honoured to be able to share that moment with him. It is a moment that I know will live on with him for the rest of his life.

While we are on the subject of meat, maybe I should discuss some further developments regarding acquiring meat. The goose we caught was a winged bird that another hunter had shot earlier in the day. We saw the young northern Canada goose hiding under a dock, and it was very clear that the wing was severely damaged. It was part mercy, and part need for food. I got in my canoe and when I tried to get him, he had paddled away! He was struggling to stay above the water, and even then got well over a kilometre from shore before I caught up to him. This shows the tenacity of wildlife when survival is on the line. I have seen a squirrel get hit with a broadhead from twenty feet away, and still run through seven different trees before finally succumbing to the injury. I have tracked a lung-shot deer for over two kilometres. Once I was within range, he was put out of his pain very swiftly with a twelve-gauge shotgun blast to the head. He was dead on impact. Once again, I took tobacco out and offered him thanks. I opened his mouth and let him have a drink, and while paddling back to shore, I sang him a song of gratitude, always keeping his head facing west.

Beyond meat that has already been acquired, I have a few projects underway. This weekend I will be purchasing some steel rods. I will be basement-forging them into special spikes made specifically for spearfishing. The Anisnaabeg are well known for their history as fishermen, especially with fish fences, and with spears. I will be making the shafts six or seven feet long out of cedar. This is because cedar is straight and light. Once done, two spikes that are seven inches long and barbed all the way up. We live where pickerel, bass, pike and perch all flourish, and our ancestors' way of life revolved around spearfishing.

The other project is the buckthorn bow. This project was originally a theory I had after spending a week with Mors Kochanski. The theory was that I could take a dense, yet elastic wood, that is an invasive specie that is overwhelming our forests, and produce serviceable and strong bows from it. Purging Buckthorn is a very invasive tree that overshadows other forest plants and goes to leaf earlier and remains in leaf longer than most of our native hardwoods. So my goal was to be able to give our native trees a bit of an advantage, be repeatedly cutting back the buckthorn, and using it for tasks (knife and axe handles, basketry material, bows and lodge poles) and leave our native trees be. So far the theory I had ha already been proven by a gentleman over at Primitive Archer, and even Quicky Bows I have seen made by Skeet Sutherland from Sticks and Stones Wilderness School. However, ever being the man trying to return to a traditional Anishnaabe diet and lifestyle, I have decided to produce an Ojibwa style Flatbow from this wood. If you want to see a good example of an Ojibwa bow, check out this video from my friend Mike at Boarrior Bows. This in my eyes is something very important and specific, as my people are currently struggling with the idea of self-determination through decolonization. In my eyes, we cannot go back in time. We must move forward, and with that, we must accept modern influences, or at least introduce western materials into our more "primitive" technologies. A good example is beer bottle glass arrowheads, such as the one produced in the video of Brian from TrackersNW. These are very popular and very very effective. I have also made knives, and spearheads from the glass from old televisions. I've been saving a good piece to later make into a clovis point, such as the one being made in this video with stone. My belief is that if we take traditional technology and philosophies, and blend them with the materials available now by recycling and reusing, it can be a lot better for all of us. Again, which would be better for our environment? Practising our traditional skills with materials that are already at risk (one of the best woods in this part of Canada is white ash, which is being targetted by the Emerald Ash Borer), or with materials that are invading or causing problems in our environment (such as purging buckthorn)?

So as we speak, I have several three-inch and four-inch diameter staves of purging buckthorn seasoning in my house for the winter. I stripped the bark, and dipped the ends in pine pitch to prevent cracking. By Baakade Giizis (The Hunger Moon/February), I will be able to start shaping them into traditional style bows.

I should have a video up sometime next week about the fishing spear making. Hope you all enjoy it!

An incomplete non-animal food list of the Ojibway People

This is an incomplete list of non-animal based food sources used amongst the Indigenous people known collectively as the Ojibway/Ojibwa/Ojibwe/Chippewa, or as we prefer to be called, Anishnaubeg. I have divded it into two sections; Plant, and Fungi. Though lichens are not exactly a fungi, I have included them in the Fungi section, as they are more related than plants.

This is incomplete, as my research has not lead to other plants definitively being use. As well, though there are many many more plants that could be listed as edible on this list (plantain, dandelion, etc), they were not native in pre-columban times. You may notice that the Fungi list is short. This is due to two reasons;

a) I do not have a strong experience with fungi. I learn what I can, but the list is short, because my experience is small.

b) many of the fungi in North America were used more for their medicinal and "magical" properties rather than their edible properties. For example, Miskwedo, a medicine used by our Midewiwin and other medicine people, has been identified as the Fly Agaric Mushroom (Amanita muscaria). This was a very potent medicine, used to receive visions (aka a Halucinogen). The Amanita family is full of very very deadly mushrooms, and should be studied with due caution.

I will include scientific names. Each of these food sources should be researched heavily prior to consuming, as certain ones are toxic unless prepared properly (such as acorns or Jack-in-the-Pulpit), or are toxic unless harvested in the right season (such as Mayapple). Though I do love the taste of mayapples, I cannot stress this enough: The fully ripe fruit is the only safe part. The unripe fruit was used by my ancestors to commit suicide. So be wary of all new food sources until studied fully. Anything with "*" beside it should be researched heavily prior to consumption.

Plant
*Acorns from Black, Red and White oaks (Nutmeat)
American chestnut (Nutmeat)
Arrowhead (Tuber)
Aspen (Cambium)
Beans (Fruit)
Bearberry (Fruit and leaves)
Birch (bark, cambium and sap)
Blackberry (fruit and leaves)
Blueberry (fruit and leaves)
Box elder (Cambium and sap)
Cactus, prickly-pear (pads)
Cattail (rhizomes, shoots, unripe seedhead, pollen)
Cherry, black (fruit) 
*Chokecherries (fruit)
*Cowparsnip
*Cowslip
Cranberry, highbush
Dropseed grasses (many varieties of Tallgrass prairie and Black oak savanna grass seeds have been found cooked and consumed, as well as the shoots)
*Elderberries (Ripe fruit)
Fern, Ostrich (fiddleheads)
Gooseberry (fruit)
Hawthorne (fruit becomes its' own preservant)
Hickory (nutmeat)
Horsemint (leaves)
*Jack-in-the-pulpit (tuber)
Juniper (fruit)
Labrador tea (leaves)
Lamb's quarters (leaves)
Leeks (Tubers, leaves and blossoms)
Lily, Trout and Wood (Tubers)
Lily, White water (Tubers)
Lily, Yellow Pond (Tubers)
*Locust (blossoms)
Maize (kernals)
Maple (Cambium and sap)
*Mayappe (Ripe fruit)
*Milkweed, common and swamp (shoots and pods)
Mint (Leaves)
Mulberry (Fruit)
Partridgeberry (Fruit)
Pumpkin (Fruit)
Raspberry, Purple-flowering, red common (Fruit)
*Solomon's seal, False (shoots)
*Solomon's seal, true (roots)
Strawberry, woods (fruit and leaves)
Strawberry-blite (whole plant, but especially the fruit-like flower)
Sunchoke, aka Jerusalum artichoke (tubers)
Squash (fruit)
Sweetgale (seeds/nutlet)
Sweet-fern (leaves)
Sweetflag (rhizome)
Thistle, Canada (inner stalk)
Wild Rice (seeds)
Yucca (flowers)

Fungi 
Chaga 
Morrels
Moss, Reindeer 
Old Man's Beard
Turkey-tail
Tripe, Rock
Puffball, Giant

Wild Rice, the superfood of the Ojibway

Now in my last blog, I discussed the importance of wild rice in the seasonal aspect. However in this blog, I want to break down the nutrition and value you can get from Zizania/wild rice/manomiin.

But first, I suggest you watch this video, done by Daniel Vitalis and my good friend Arthur Haines!

 

The next few links are from the USDA regarding the full reports on both raw and cooked wild rice, and the nutrition you can receive from this grain, that is gluten free and has such a dense amount of beneficial nutrience!

The Raw Wild Rice Report

The Cooked Wild Rice Report

This should really give you some good insight as to why Manomin is so valuable!

Alright, that's all for now folks. I will have a new blog out soon with some wild rice recipes!!

 Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk

The Ricing Moon, a small slice of history, plus other available resources.

As I stood in awe after watching a flock of nearly one hundred Canada geese fly over me on my way to the university today, I realized it was a new moon. They reminded me it was their time now. Time of the Ricing Moon!

August in my language is called Manominiika Giizoonh, and in other dialects Manoomiiniikaa Giizis, and in others it simply is called Manomin Giizis. The shorter one translates into The Wild Rice Moon. However the other titles refer to the action of harvesting the wild rice. Simply translated, August is the Ricing Moon. Wild rice (Manomin, Zizania aquatica, etc) was and still is an extremely imporant food staple for the Anishnaubeg, and really for all humans. Being very rich in protein, dietary fibre and even lysine. For those of us trying to avoid glutens, rest easy as manomin has none. Along with thiamin, iron, riboflavin, niacin, manganese and countless other important dietary resources, manomin is also very low in fat. It was/is for the Anishnaubeg what the Three Sisters (Maize, Beans and Squash) were/are for the Haudenasaunae (Iroquois, Six Nations). 

Manomin actually comes from two root words that do not actually translate into "Wild Rice". "Min" usually is the word used to describe a fruit, seed or other foodsource from a plant. "Mano", comes from "Manoo", which in turn originated as "Mnidoo", which many people call "Manitou" or "Spirit". So translated, Manomin actually means Spirit Fruit, or in more poetic terms, "Seed/Fruit the Spirits gave us". In the Seven Fires Prophecy, the Anishnaube were told that the third stopping place (Third Fire) would be identified by food growing on the water. When the Anishnaube arrived in this part of the country, they found acres upon acres of wild rice sticking out of the mud and up into the waters of the shallow lakes and large marshes. Food grew upon the water and the Anishnaube prospered for millenia.

We would spend several weeks, to a month in the ricing fields. First the people would divide up the wild rice areas between the families equally. These families would often stake out their respected areas with family markers to help make sure no one made a mistake and gathered more than others. In a canoe, the person in the bow (the front for you land-lubbers) would sit reverse and using two cedar rods would bend over a patch of the rice with one rod and then tap that rod with the other rod. This way the wild rice stalks would not be damaged from direct percussion. As well, several seeds would often cling tenaciously to the stalks from this technique. Rather than try to shake those ones loose, the harvester would merely let go of the stalks, which would often end up catapulting these remaining seeds off into the water, to be seeded for next year. This is the most efficient form of aquaponic farming I have ever seen, and its' thousands of years old!

Often my people, the Mississauga Anishnaube would take our surplus and trade to the Haudenasaunae on the southernmost shore of Rice Lake. We would trade our surplus for their surplus parched maize, dried beans and fresh squash. This was a varied diet for both nations, and through this friendship, we continued the ancient rites of the One Spoon, One Dish Wampum Belt- a very very old contractual treaty between all Nations in Ontario and beyond regarding the using of resources and food supplies which was honoured by all Nations up until the French Indian Wars.

However this moon -like many others- is called by several names within the Anishnaubeg. The other common title is Basikwa'o Giizoonh, or Flying Moon, or Moon with much Flight. This refers to what I mentioned at the beginning of this blog; birds taking flight all over the land. The Canada geese, mallard ducks, swans, herons and cranes are all warming up and getting their young ready for the long migration. By the middle of the month, many of the northern birds will have arrived in our part of the country. By Gashkanido Giizoonh (November, Freezing Moon) very few will remain, and by Mnidoo Giizoonh (Spirit Moon, December) only the winter birds will remain.

This shows a very important feature of the Ricing Moon. The people would all be spending their days in the marshes and shallow lakes, gathering hundreds of pounds of manomin, and watching the birds fly by. This was the time of year the goose and duck hunts would begin. Large nets, bolas, and even arrows with Flu-flu fletching would be cast out to capture the birds. Snares placed along the shores of the islands would entrap the birds as they waded to shore for a night's rest, or returned to the waters in the morning. The feathers would be removed (down used to warm bodies, flight feathers ued as fletching on arrows), and the meat would be smoked and preserved. Fat would collected and used in cooking/basting.

This was a time of great feasting, but it was also a time to prepare for the long haul through the winter. The ricing camps represented life. Warfare would cease during the French Indian Wars, just so the Anishnaube could go home and harvest enough manomin to provide for their families. Life was found in ricing and goose hunting. This was a time of great living for the Anishnaubeg. Everything was shared. The people would survive another winter.

Other foods available right now?

-Mayapples are now ripe in many parts of Ontario and beyond
-Wild Grapes are ripening all over the place
-Wild grass and sedge seeds are getting ready, as are the seeds of the Broadleaf plantain
-Walnuts are dropping left-right-and-center. The husks are in my opinion more useful than the nutmeat, as it can be used as a dye, a source of tanning leather, a fish poison, a remedy for poison ivy and bug bites, and even in some forms as an anti-parasitic compound to dispell worms and other bugs from the digestive system.
-Many more that I will be going over as the month progresses!

I will be harvesting wild rice later this month, and as September rolls around, I will be preparing for mornings of hunting down goose and duck.

On August 18th-19th I will be at the Lang Pioneer Village War of 1812 Re-enactment, participating in the re-enactment as one of my ancestors. The Missisaugas of Rice Lake were involved in a great skirmish, and this year we are being honoured for the first time in over 200 years for our contribution to that war. Come on out and see the show!

Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk

A couple of berry recipes

This being the middle of the Raspberry Moon, and so many different fruits are now ripening, I figured it would be only logical to throw out a few berry recipes. Some are pre-contact, while the others are post-contact. All of the ingredients are from the wilds, though some (like wild rice and maple sugar) are usually preserved staples from spring or fall. In other words, if you were able to keep some wild rice all through the winter and kept it all the way until right now, then these recipes are fully accurate to a traditional diet.

The recipes listed below are ones I've learned from my relatives, or found tucked away in some old book, or are of my own design. None of them came from the internet. After a few weeks of researching back in the winter on traditional Ojibway diet and our recipes, the internet would make you think that all my ancestors ate was wild rice and frybread (a deep fried bannock, often called scone -pronounced S-kaw-n). Fact of the matter is wheat ain't from North America, let alone Anishnaube territory, and it is extremely poor for your health. Ever wondered why diabetes is rampant amongst Indigenous people? Put the scone down folks, put the scone down.

Anyways, I got fed up with those pseudo-Traditional recipes, and decided I would list a few good ones right here. Any of the beverages can be sweetened with maple sugar. However I prefer not to, as the more often you sweeten your food and drink, the less you will taste of the true beauty of the food.

1) Heat-made Sumacade
WARNING! Some people are allergic to Staghorn sumac, and moreso, it must be properly identified from Poison sumac, for obvious reasons. If you have any concern regarding the sumac family and your health, I suggest holding off on this recipe until you can have yourself allergy tested for staghorn sumac. Moreso, if you can't figure out the difference between Staghorn sumac (fuzzy bark on branches with big red "cone" of fruit) and Poison sumac (smooth hairless branches, with droops of smooth white berries), and somehow get poison sumac on you, expect to deal with the same problems you would from contact with poison ivy. In that case, may I suggest the post written by my friend Arthur Haines in a previous blog here, that discusses jewelweed?

Items needed:
-Heat source (stove element, pile of coals, etc)
-Cooking pot (steel, aluminum, glass, handmade clay) Make sure the pot you use can sustain its' strength on the heat source.
-Cheesecloth (Optional) Another option is a collander, or if you want to get primitive, a woven grass mast about the size of a dinner plate.
-Jar or Pitcher

Ingredients:
-Two or Three Sumac berry clusters.
-Water
-Maple sugar for sweetening (optional)

Recipe:
-Put the berry clusters into the pot and add enough water to cover the berry clusters to the pot
-Bring to boil and then set off to steep, or for a stronger taste, simmer for five minutes and then steep.
-Strain liquid into pitcher and drink as a hot tea, or chill it to make into a nice citrusy drink.


2)  Sun-infused Sumacade (My preference)

Items needed:
-Clean, large-mouth mason jar with lid.
-Cheesecloth
-Cup

Ingredients:
-Enough Sumac berry clusters to fill up 3/4 that jar
-Enough water to fill up the jar entirely

Recipe
-Put berry clusters into jar so that it is 3/4 full
-Add water
-Seal lid
-Place in the sun on a hot day for the entire day

Voila, a pretty good beverage!


3) EXTREME Sumacade (The word extreme always makes the kiddies wanna drink it)

I will not say I invented this recipe, though I have not come across it yet. If you know of anyone else who does it, let me know! This variation has a whole lot more flavours going on. First and foremost is the citrusy tang of the sumac berry clusters. The second is a very smooth, but sour flavouring from wild grapes. Finally, the ultimate in flavour; raspberries. I won't even describe the epic, astoundingly beautiful taste that comes from this recipe. Just try it yourself and bow down to the beauty that is nature, for she just rocked your world.

Items needed:
-Heat source (same as before, folks!)
-Cooking Pot (just as before)
-Cheesecloth or other alternative. My first two times making this, we ended up using bug head-nets. Since then I have always carried a bug head-net in my kit.
 -Pitcher
-Cups

Ingredients:
 -2 Sumac berry clusters
-1 cup of wild grape fruits (harves
-1 cup of raspberries (common, purple flowering, blackberry, etc)
-1/2 cup of other edible and in-season wild berries (blueberry is good, as is saskatoon)
-Enough water to cover fruits, and then some
-Optional ingredient: ice cubes

Recipe:
-Place fruits in pot and fill with water
-Optional step: Mash fruits. Not really needed, as the heat will burst the fruits, and the final step will mash them anyways.
-Cover and bring to boil
-Boil for five minutes, or simmer for ten
-Let cool
-When still warm, pour liquid and fruits through cheesecloth or head-net and wring the fruit out into pitcher.

I love this beverage, as it is extremely sweet, and all natural. No sweetener is needed. Each fruit you add just increases the flavours. The first time I did this was on a Basic Hunter-Gatherer course in late-September (Leaves Chaning Colour Moon), and we could not get enough of this drink!

4) Raspberry Wild Rice
An amazing recipe I first experienced back in late winter of this year. Since then, I have researched all I could, and found some traditional ingredients to bring this amazing dish into a more traditional diet. 

Items needed:
-Oven
-Deep baking tray/dish (a 2 inch depth should suffice)
-Aluminum foil or lid
-Cooking pot
-Stovetop
-Ladle or big spoon

Ingredients needed
-Two or three cups of wild rice
-Three or four cups of water
-1.5 cups of raspberries
-Some cooked moose or venison (last nights' steak is great in this), maybe 1 cup of meat shredded
-Wild seasonings (Garlic mustard, wild garlic, wild leeks, wild ginger, Sweetflag root, toothwort, whatever you may have. Sweetgale nutlets/seeds are really good as a black pepper and sage substitute

Recipe:
-Fill pot with wild rice and an equal amount of water. Bring to boil and simmer for twenty minutes. If water starts to run out, add a bit more. Don't add too much, yet.
-Preheat oven to 350C
-Once that is ready, pour into baking tray.
-Add rest of the water
-Add berries and meat
-Add seasonings
-Stir evenly so all of the ingredients are mixed thoroughly
-Seal and bake for thirty minutes.
-Let cool a bit, and then serve.

This is pretty much the perfect meal in my opinion. With light seasoning of the wild herbs, you can really get a feel for the food. The wild rice is soft and puffy with texture, and the meat offers that heavy need for protein we all crave at one point or another (join us Vegetarians, join us). The berries throw in their potency with this meal, as the bake, and steam all at once. Think of it as a casserole and a stew all in one. Served cold it makes an awesome breakfast of champions.

5) Raspberry-leaf tea

Always, always, always use fresh or fully dried leaves for your wild teas!!! Partially dried is not good for the gut, believe me on this one. So either pick them and use them immediately, or dry them and save for later use.

Items:
-Heat source
-cooking pot

Ingredients:
 -1/2 cup of raspberry leaves. I suggest common red or common black raspberries.
-3-4 cups of water

Recipe:
-Add leaves and water to cooking pot and bring to boil
-Boil for about three minutes, then set aside to steep for ten
-Optional step: add maple sugar for taste,

Sipped late by a fire, raspberry-leaf tea is a godsend. I dry as many as I can for winter use. Dry a few berries as well and toss them in if you really want to rid yourself of the winter blahs (that, or get outside more to soak up some vitamin D)

Alright folks, there you go. Five recipes involving the fruits of this season. I will add more next week. For now, I need to finish making some nets, and get to work on my arrows for this hunting season!

Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk

Another week, another step in the diet.

This past week I was teaching a program on wilderness living skills at Canadian Bushcraft, which gave me time to focus on the diet a bit more and do a little bit of foraging. I brought wild rice with me (an obvious staple), and though I broke the diet here and there (dammit, hamburgers in cast iron over an open fire would tempt you too!) I also had the opportunity to gather and prepare some delicious food.

Harvested:
-Cattail roots and "Cossack Asparagus"
-Sunchoke/Jersualem Artichoke Tubers
-Raspberries and Blackberries
-White Pine cambium (this time of year it had a really sweet taste to it)
-Sweetflag/Ratroot/Wiikae roots
-Wild mint
-Catnip
-Plantain (for a couple of cuts and scrapes)
-Yarrow (for bug repellent)
-Jewelweed (for when the bug repellent failed)

Stuff ready in the Garden:
-Beans
-Cucumber
-Spinach
-Swiss Chard
-Sunchoke
-Dill
-Basil

Preserved
-Smoked bass
-Sundried and smoke dried jerky

Projects accomplished
-New white ash digging stick
-Atlatl dart
-Fired pottery
-New bowdrill kit
-200ft worth of Basswood fibre retted

Other projects underway:
-Fishing net
-Arrows for my 45# Black Ash Recurve bow.
-Other bowstaves Identified and marked for harvesting in the fall

Outside of the projects, harvesting and gardening, I have been busy researching exactly what is the Thirteen Moons Diet. The closest I have come across on written record is the Decolonizing Diet Project from Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies, whose blog can be found here. However, this is not a seasonal-oriented diet. Nothing wrong with it, in fact its' a brilliant source of information, especially for those of you who wish to try this and do not have as much access/experience in hunting, fishing or gathering. However I would not be eating duck eggs out of the natural time of year of when I would be finding duck eggs.

The only true difference between what I am doing, and what they have accomplished is the seasonal aspect, which I believe is the key to what I am trying to do. So on their part, they are doing amazing. I will definitely be following along with their research and accomplishments. So all in all, way to go folks, good work!


I will be posting photographs later today, and perhaps a video or two. Dunno if photobucket videos can be uploaded onto Blogger, but we'll find out.


Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk

The seasonal food of the Raspberry Moon

This time of year is known among my people (The Missisauga Anishnaube/Ojibway) as the Raspberry Moon. In my language, Raspberry Moon is translated as Miskomin Giizoonh (Giizis in other dialects). This is because the raspberries are beginning to ripen. North of here, among the Manitoulin Island and Lake Superior Anishnaube, it is called Miinan Giizis, or the Blueberry Moon. We don't have many blueberries growing wild in this region, and our raspberries ripen before theirs' do, so regional differences must always apply. This will be an ongoing subject that I frequently bring up during each Moon.

Many fruits are in this part of the country. I am currently looking out a window and see that the Mayapples Podophyyllum peltatum are ripening up. They ought to be just about ready at the end of Miskomin Giizoonh. Often called American Mandrake, or Elephant's Ear, the Mayapple is extremely toxic, up until the very moment of ripeness. Then it seems to have the taste of a Golden Delicious apple, but with something else added to the flavour.

Strawberry-blite Chenopodium capitatum are just about perfect this time of year. The "fruit" (actually the flower of the plant) of this member of the Goosefoot family has a flavour to me that stands alone. It somewhat tastes like strawberry, raspberry and mint blended into one, but yet it seems to be so unique that my tastebuds go crazy trying to figure it out. It is by far one of my favourite foods in the woodlands. The rest of the plant makes a good potherb, that I often add to stirfries or stews. Some call it Strawberry Spinach, as the fruit-like flowers resemble Ode'min (strawberry), and the rest of the plant tastes very similar to spinach.

Many members of the Raspberry (Rubus) family are going to be ready during this Moon, this is obviously a logical reason for this time of year to be called Miskomin Giizoonh. Wild Red Raspberry Rubus idaecus, common blackberry Rubus occidentalis and even my personal favourite, the Purple-flowering Raspberry Rubus odoratus will all be ripening at different times. The wild red is already ripe, and this weeked I will be working on a Staghorn sumac Rhus typhina bark basket to collect it and its' respective relatives. The common blackberry will begin to ripen next week, and be ready by the third week. The Purple-flowering is still in bloom, but at the end of the Raspberry Moon will provide the largest of the three fruits.

So does this mean just berries are available? Of course not! There are two more weeks left before the bark of many trees will cling ferociously to the wood once again. So if you want to make baskets, gather soon!

 Sweetflag Acorus calamus will be ready at the end of this moon, and we will talk more about her and her uses in next moon's blogs.

The medicinal plant Jewelweed Impatiens spp. is at its' peak now. Though useful throughout the summer, this is when the most sap can be found in our local plants. This stuff is nicknamed the Aloe of the North, for its' soothing effect on bugbites. I have treated poison ivy with it, though so far science has stated that the Jewelweed plant has no genuine effect.

Salsify Tragopogon sp. is in my opinion best harvested now.

The fruit of the Staghorn sumac (whose bark I will be gathering tomorrow), is just going red now. A sun tea with a very tart, but sweet and citrusy flavour can be made now, though I prefer to wait until the first frost sweetens it up a tad. However it is edible once it turns red. I have heard many outdoors instructors state that the reason Staghorn sumac is called Staghorn, is because that is the title of the fruit. That is incorrect. Look at the branches, and then look at the antlers of a deer. You will notice the branches are very similar looking, and the soft fuzzy hairs of the branches is so similar to when a buck is in velvet. This is the true reason for the name. Gather the leaves now, and you can make a strong dye or mordant for dying fabrics.

This is of course an incomplete list, but then again, I have three more weeks to go! I will include photographs in my next blog post.

Nest blog I will give some recipes for using these foods, but one thing I want to make very clear before we end is this; The Raspberry Moon is a time of great yields of fruit. We would glut ourselves' on the berries and wild plants this time of year, but we would also disperse the seeds, to assist the lifecycle of the plants. Just as importantly, we preserved the majority of the fruits we gathered, through dehydrating (a method I will explain in further detail in the next blog). This may have been a time of plenty, a time to feast. But we remembered the famine of the winter. Around here, February has a special name. It is Bakade Giizis, or The Hunger Moon.

Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk