CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A master birch bark canoe builder is teaching Northwestern University students skills that few have anymore.
Wayne Valliere is an artist-in-residence at Northwestern, sharing a tradition - birch bark canoe building - that was once passed from generation to generation among the Ojibwe tribe.
"A long time ago, our people used 'Wiigwaas' - birch bark - for everything. It's our identity," he said.
He’s one of just a handful of Native American birch bark canoe builders remaining in the U.S., and is sharing the traditional Native art, unchanged in three millennia, with a group of students on the Evanston campus.
"My native name is Mino giizhig. It means 'good sky,'" he said.
Members of Chicago’s Native American community traveled to Valliere’s Lac du Flambeau Reservation in northern Wisconsin, along with Northwestern faculty, staff, and students to gather the raw materials used to create the canoe — cedar for the ribs, spruce roots for the stitching, pine pitch to seal the seams, and birch bark.
“Our birchbark is so important, because it signifies our identity,” Valliere said. “It’s our connection to our past. It’s very important that we don’t lose this craft, because it connects us to our grandmother, the earth.”
The 16-foot canoe will be launched during a ceremony on the campus at sunrise next Friday.
Valliere said teaching Northwestern students this rich history and the cultural tradition of canoe building is critical to the future of the planet.
“It’s so important to bring awareness to our changing environment and to make sure those environments are still here for Northwestern graduates’ great grandchildren and generations beyond so that they will be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Without our environment, we have nothing," Valliere said.
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