Zaagkii Wings & Seeds Project: Protecting Polli...

Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project interns and volunteers were very busy in the summer of 2010:
Zaagkii volunteers built a Native Plants greenhouse that's growing Indigenous Plants on the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) reservation.
"We hope KBIC becomes a training site for other Native American communities," said Rev. Jon Magnuson, Zaagkii Project founder.
Elders from 5 tribal communities were interviewed by interns from the Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies (NMU CNAS).
Among those interviewed were LVD elder Jim Williams Sr., a well-known and popular storyteller and historian; KBIC MEMBER Jim St. Arnold, Planning and Development Specialist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC); Bay Mills Indian Community elder Agnes Carrick and her daughters Paula Carrick and Wanda Perron, both daughters work for the BMIC History Department; LDF elder and birch bark craftsman Nick Hockings; Giiwegiizhigookway "Giiwe" Martin, director of the LVD Cultural Center, Museum and Tribal Historic Preservation Office; and Black Ash basket maker Kelly Church, a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
A NMU CNAS Zaagkii Project intern attended a three-day wild rice camp in early September hosted by the Lac Vieux Desert tribe, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Native Wild Rice Coalition.
Native American youth and other Northern Michigan teens are protecting pollinators like butterflies because honeybees are dying.
The Zaagkii Wings & Seeds Project was founded by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, MI with Marquette County Juvenile Court, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community & the U.S. Forest Service.
Teens built northern white cedar butterfly houses offering protection & rest.
The teens built dozens of Mason bee houses in the summer of 2009 .
Teens planted/distributed 26,000 native plants including from the Hiawatha National Forest greenhouse. Called Colony Collapse Disorder, feral and commercial bee colonies have declined by 70-90% in the past 25 years. Sponsors: The Marquette Community Foundation, Negaunee Community Fund, Negaunee Community Youth Fund, M.E. Davenport Foundation, Kaufman Foundation, Phyllis and Max Reynolds Foundation, Upper Peninsula Children's Museum in Marquette & the Borealis Seed Company in Big Bay, MI.

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