People are invited to celebrate the recent snowfall and traditional Anishinaabeg outdoor games at the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ (GTB) annual winter festival (Maawnjidowin) in Peshawbestown on Saturday.
It’s the third year GTB is holding their winter games at the Strongheart Center softball field, where people will have the opportunity to participate in snow snake throwing (goon ginebig aazhawiwebin), spear throwing (zhimaagan aazhawiwebin), snow shoeing (agamig), and sledding (odaabaan). The Strongheart Center will be open for warming up and use of restrooms, while the tribe will provide hot chocolate, Three Sisters soup, and hot dogs for people to grab a bite to eat.
GTB Tribal Librarian Francis Carew helps organize the event and has been making the snow snakes by hand since the festival started three years ago. In 2021, Carew said they only had about three or four people show up, but last year, the number of attendees grew to about 60 people who made it out to play and learn about the Anishinaabeg culture and traditional games.
“For adults and young people, it’s a way of showing our culture to native and non-native people, and reintroducing these old ways… to give them a glimpse into the things we used to do for fun in the winter time,” Carew said. “Wherever there’s snow, there’s native people throwing snow snakes. It’s bringing back that old culture to the region. We have some people and families that have been doing it over the years, but just by themselves.”
Carew got a headstart on forming the snow snake tracks this past Sunday, and anticipates another nice turnout with the weather ahead looking promising for outdoor activities. He’s also finishing up painting the last of his unfinished snow snakes for anyone that doesn’t have one to use on Saturday.
“It’s supposed to be about 30 degrees, so it’ll be nice weather to do an outdoor event,” he said. “The snow snake and the spear throwing were really the two biggest things last year… A lot of native people that threw the snow snake never did it before, so they thought this was really fun. The little kids really like the sledding, and the older kids liked the spear toss. Pretty much everybody up into the adults liked the snow snaking.”
Considering how important it is to learn the process and history of making a snow snake out of wood, Carew said he hopes to get more people interested in learning about the different steps it takes to make the stick what it is and into something someone can use for years to come.
“Hopefully, if we do this next year, we can get the youth involved with learning to build the track (for snow snakes) and stuff like that too,” he said.
The Saturday winter festivities are from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., but are always subject to change due to weather. For more information, contact Carew at The Heritage Library at 231-5347752.
