Braiding Sweetgrass

inner faces of the splint unexpectedly beautiful: glossy and warm, they catch the light like a ribbon of cream satin. The outer ...

and design, a black ash basket can sell for good money. “People get a little mad when they see the prices,” John says. “People t ...

diminishes the household budget. Just about everything we use is the result of another’s life, but that simple reality is rarely ...

disease or a windstorm had brought down a few old trees, letting light through. Curiously enough, he found that where Dutch elm ...

gives us each a U.S. Department of Agriculture pamphlet with a photo of a shiny green beetle on the cover. “If you care about as ...

by generations is at risk, the Pigeons work to protect both trees and the tradition. They are partnering with forest scientists ...

John calls us back to the circle for the next step: assembling the bottom of the basket. We’re doing a traditional round bottom, ...

The first two rows of the basket are the hardest. On the first goround, the splint seems to have a will of its own and wants to ...

splints become a whole basket, sturdy and resilient enough to carry us into the future. While we’re working, a gaggle of little ...

all made of the same thing and each their own kind of beautiful.” That night I see the powwow circle with new eyes. I notice tha ...

basket, the candle, the paper—I delight in following their origins back to the ground. I twirl a pencil—a magic wand lathed from ...

Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass i. Introduction You can smell it before you see it, a sweetgrass meadow on a summer d ...

she passes this patch by, letting it slide through her fingers. She obeys the teachings of her ancestors to never take the first ...

pickers that I’ve been here,” she says, “so that they know not to take any more. This place always gives good sweetgrass since w ...

To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen. So, back at school, I proposed the idea as a thesis proj ...

sweetgrass, observe the result, evaluate their findings, and then create management guidelines from them, that sounds a lot like ...

schoolteacher she was, Laurie was unfailingly calm and gracious as she explained further, but her eyes were steely. Later, thoug ...

plot, pinching them off one by one carefully at the base in some plots and yanking up a tuft and leaving a small ragged gap in t ...

v. Results Laurie observed carefully and filled her notebook with measurements, charting the vigor of each plot. She worried a l ...

between the harvesting methods. From the twist ties on every stem, Laurie could chart the births and deaths in the sample plots. ...