The Land Can Take Care of You

The Burt Lake Band explores foraging, recipes, and tradition

By Anna Faller | Jan. 25, 2025

For most of us, the answer to an empty fridge or pantry is to hop in the car and head to the grocery store. Here in northern Michigan, though, our forests, streams, and even backyards are chock full of edible plants and herbs…we just have to know where to look.

However, for many members of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, that connection to the land was compromised by years of forced assimilation.

Enter: The tribe’s newest undertaking, a book entitled Naajimiijimedaa! (Let’s Find Food!). Authored by band historian Kathy Kae, it comprises a comprehensive introduction to the practice of foraging alongside curated recipes and stories to ensure that knowledge remains intact for future generations.

“Reclaiming those pieces of culture for ourselves individually and as a band is something we’re all hungry for,” says Burt Lake Band Historian Deborah Richmond. “Projects like these [have helped us] reclaim what we have lost.”

History of Foraging

Per Greg Biskakone Johnson, an Anishinaabe cultural practitioner and member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the culture of foraging—in particular, as it relates to Anishinaabe tribes of the northern Midwest—can be traced back more than 10,000 years, when Paleo-Indian populations are thought to have first started living on the North American continent.

Back then, he explains, these peoples would have survived largely on big game. Subsequent extinction events, though, coupled with an ever-changing climate, meant communities were forced to adapt their food systems in order to survive. Receding glaciers formed pools, for example, which introduced scores of freshwater fish, and prehistoric mammals were eventually replaced by smaller game, like rabbits and deer.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and Johnson still names venison and walleye, now supplemented by wild rice, as the “big three” categories for many indigenous peoples. Secondary foods have also since entered the circle, which, per Kae, include leafy greens like wild leeks, mushrooms, and seasonal berries.

Other components of these modern food systems include the development of community agriculture (the specifics of which depend on location and season, though Johnson notes that corn is nearly universal), as well as a variety of preparation and storage methods—including traditional practices like maple sugar curing, dehydration, and the use of woven birch bark baskets—in addition to contemporary tools and materials, which were largely introduced after the 19th century.

A key takeaway here, according to Johnson, is the inextricable relationship between native communities and the land they inhabit.

“These lineages of families had the opportunity to educate their children on the gifts of the forest,” Johnson notes. “You learned how to survive directly from the older people in your family; so, as these children grew up, they could apply that knowledge.”

Reclaiming Tradition

By the mid-1800’s, though, the United States government had set its sights on huge swaths of indigenous land for expansion. To secure that property—and in so doing, assimilate native communities to Western culture—it promised them infrastructure (medical care, schools, and the like) as well as access to treaty rights, which were supposed to enshrine those tribes’ claim within certain land boundaries, wherein they could hunt and forage.

Many of those promises, as we now know, never came to fruition. Consequently, relocation efforts seriously disrupted native food systems, often forcing tribal members to rely on government-provided rations (which not only weakened their connection to nature, but also incited an unhealthy diet shift).

This, when coupled with government-led conformity tactics, like the repression of indigenous languages and implementation of Indian Boarding Schools, resulted in a cultural rift that prevented much of this foraging know-how from surviving through the years.

It’s this disconnect that initiatives like the Burt Lake Band’s Traditional Foods Project and the resultant book, Naajimiijimedaa! (Let’s Find Food!) aim to remedy.

Helmed by historian Kathy Kae, an adopted member of the Burt Lake Band and expert in Great Lakes and Anishinaabe history, the Traditional Foods Project involves teaching tribal citizens about foods and medicinal herbs that can be foraged locally, how to find and process those items, and how to build them into a modern diet.

Per Kae, the project’s genesis began as a grant received through the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) whose purpose was to reestablish connection between the Burt Lake Band and their ancestral land. (If you’re unfamiliar, the BLB was virtually landless for more than a century after the “burnout” of 1900 robbed them of their homes and federal recognition.)

Since then, the band has amassed a tribal reserve of about 20 acres of land, through which they’re slowly reinvesting in previously lost or at-risk practices from traditional food systems to the restoration of native art and language.

“We are very much interested in projects that help us regain our cultural knowledge,” notes Richmond. “All of these activities help us understand our ancestors, and working together on these projects brings us all together as a band.”

Finding Food

The Traditional Foods Project launched in 2021 with 16 teachings over a two-year span, each led by a band elder or other expert with a focus on a different food source, ranging from proteins to plants and beyond. During each session, the group explored how and when to harvest that food while also honing more complex skills, like birch-bark smoking and spear-fishing, before bringing their spoils back inside for hands-on cooking and preservation practice.

All told, the book contains instructions for foraging 40 foods, all organized by category and annotated with expert tips like nutrition details, preparation methods, and how to tell tasty plants from the toxic.

To go with each ingredient, the team also compiled a cache of authentic, though contemporary, recipes. Highlights here include berry scones with strawberry freezer jam and yellow wood sorrel, soups topped with leek pesto, and venison with leeks and fiddleheads. And whenever possible, Kae paired the recipes with the foraging experiences and knowledge of the Burt Lake Band’s elders. One gentleman even remembers preparing meals with muskrat and raccoon!

“There are stories of what those citizens harvest now, and what they did when they were younger. It’s really interesting,” Kae adds. “You get that part of a tribal history with it, and also memories.”

The Future of Foraging

As for the future of that foraging practice? Kae and Johnson agree that the land is the answer, if it isn’t destroyed by humans first.

Phenomena like climate change and the use of pesticides are a growing concern, and Johnson has already noted changes in the patterns of wild deer and fish, as well as the availability of various flora. He also highlights that those patterns fluctuate and vary based on location. In other words, what’s typical for one part of Michigan might not be so for another.

Respect for the land and other living things, on the other hand, he notes, is ubiquitous.

“We’re always thinking ahead seven generations,” Johnson says. “If I go out and I kill that deer, my grandchildren [six generations from now] won’t have anything. We have to be stewards of making sure that there’s enough for our children, our grandchildren, and so forth.”

Per Kae, upholding this principle can be as simple as harvesting only what you need, but also extends to larger issues like reducing pollution and improving forestry.

To further these goals, the Burt Lake Band has already introduced several new food-centric initiatives, including a recently-planted Three Sisters Garden at the tribal office in Brutus—that’s a trio of crops that thrive on each other—whose previous season yielded a staggering 263 pounds of squash, as well as an upcoming grant application to expand the band’s gardening programs and help feed the community by assembling food boxes for elders.

“Whether you’re indigenous or not, it’s important [to understand] that the land can take care of you,” Kae adds. “There are gifts out there for us, but you have to show your appreciation, or sometimes those gifts can disappear.”

To purchase Naajimiijimedaa! (Let’s Find Food!), or for more information on the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, visit burtlakeband.org. The book can also be purchased through McLean and Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey.