From the Landscape and Folk Artists of Northern Michigan
Buried deep within all traditional communities that are connected to the natural world is an awareness of the connectedness of all things.
One of the Institute’s new environmental initiatives is THE ZAAGKII PROJECT. This is a restoration of native plants and a pollinator protection project in which youth from the juvenile courts, volunteers from the U.P. Children’s Museum, members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the U.S. Forest Service will be joining together to protect an important part of the Upper Peninsula’s threatened ecosystem.
We welcome gifts of any size to underwrite this project and support the work of the Institute. For a gift of $100 or more, you are invited to select one of the available Earth Gifts as a sign of our appreciation.
The Cedar Tree Institute is a nonprofit 501(c3) organization.
All donations are tax deductible.
This pure oil is distilled in a time-consuming process from the Northern White Cedar here in Northern Michigan. This tree has always had unique ceremonial and medicinal uses by the Ojibway. The Jesuits who first visited the Upper Peninsula in the seventeenth century named it Arbor Vitae or “tree of life.”
Across Canada and the Northern States, wild rice has played an important role in the life and culture of indigenous people.
This religious and spiritual symbol is part of the traditional spiritual tradition of the Ojibway Indian people of Northern Michigan. It has long been used as a ritual item in “the way of the dream,” part of the Midewiwin traditional practices of the Annishnabe.
As a young girl, Heather Lindquist spent many afternoons of her childhood playing along the shore of Lake Superior. A vivid memory of those days was collecting the many colored bits of glass that waves would wash up on the sand and rock.
