Menominee community launches traditional dugout canoe on ancestral river
Community members completed a monthlong effort to carve and launch a traditional canoe on the Menominee River
Menominee community members launched a traditional dugout canoe on the Menominee River after a monthlong community effort to carve it from a 17-foot pine log, according to reporting from ICT. Led by Dawn M. Wilber and Wayne Swett, volunteers worked at the Chappee Webster Learning Center, burning, scraping, debarking and sanding the log into a canoe. Organizers said no one could remember the last time Menominee people paddled a traditional dugout canoe on the river.
Community members gathered for a water ceremony before the canoe's maiden voyage according to the ICT reporting. Wilber said the canoe belongs to the community rather than any individual. Swett and Wilber’s group, The Protectors of the Menominee River, plan to use the canoe later this year to harvest wild rice.
- 1.ICT.
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