Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, Wisdom-Keeper

My little sister, Marilyn, and I were acutely attuned to Indians who had preceded us in Michigan, particularly summering at Lake Leelanau and Traverse City, then north to Naubinway and the Keewenaw Peninsula.  We thrilled to Indian names of towns, creeks, roadways and landforms.  Unlike Thoreau, Marilyn and I did not find arrowheads everywhere we walked. 

But, particularly in a canoe or a small boat, on limpid wooded rivers of the Upper Peninsula, rowing over to and back from Tahquamenon Falls, we could sense Indians’ silent presence on all sides.  In those days, virgin forests were frequent, one of my most cherished named after my favorite poem, “The Hiawatha Forest.”  Even as little girls we knew that Indians’ absolute right to these regions had been profaned by miners and lumberjacks and all those soldiers with their primitive wooden forts. 

It wasn’t popular in childhood, in Michigan, to be on the Indians’ side.  I was the only girl in the entire theatre who wanted Indians to win, on the few Saturdays when someone’s mother could take us to a Western movie in a nearby town.  (Ours, Lathrup Village near Detroit, had no store, no library, no post office, so certainly no theatre!)  I never understood why everyone in those movies cheered the brutal usual outcome.  I was not on Custer’s side.  I waited a long time for Dances With Wolves.  Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, wild is not crazy.  In fact, research is showing quite the opposite: that humans in general and children in particular are more prone to become crazy without the Wild.  Richard Louv is the key spokesman for this thesis, in his seminal work, Last Child in the Woods.  But ask anyone who remembers watching tadpoles in a stream; pressing autumn leaves in a book; trying to catch snowflakes during a yes, wild, blizzard — are they not among the most serene and blessed memories of a life?  Do you not return to them for sanity? Read the rest of this entry »