Results by title

Amanda Aaron, a woman of mixed Ojibwe and white heritage, spent twenty years living in Milwaukee, away from her home and family. After the deaths of her parents, a short-lived marriage to an abusive non-Indian, and finally a tragic accident in which her friends were killed, she is pushed into a state of depression. Acting on her doctor’s orders, she returns to her grandparents’ cabin on her home reservation in northern Wisconsin, seeking the solitude she needs to recover.
     Migizi, the Eagle, the Grandfather’s messenger, gifts Amanda with a feather, then visits her one night in her bedroom. Wanting to believe it was a dream, but knowing it was not, Amanda seeks the advice and counsel of Elders on the reservation who, in turn, introduce Amanda to Noah, a spiritual man who can guide and advise her as her life becomes complicated with unwanted responsibilities. Eventually, Amanda is forced to admit that the void she has been experiencing can only be filled by a return to the reservation—a life that has always enriched her and provided her with the needed strength to achieve her goals.

Indigenous perspectives on sustainability, culture, and community

In this collection of twelve biographies, one from each of the Native nations in Wisconsin, author Patty Loew (Bad River Ojibwe) introduces readers to prominent figures in Native sustainability—people whose life’s work reflects the traditional ecological knowledge and cultural values of their people.    

Born out of Loew’s thirty years as a journalist and historian, Seventh Generation Earth Ethics highlights individuals who helped to sustain and nurture their nations.         

Walter Bresette, Red Cliff Ojibwe, community activist 

Hilary Waukau, Menominee, environmental warrior 

Frances Van Zile, Mole Lake (Sokaogon) Ojibwe, keeper of the water  

James Schlender, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, treaty rights guardian  

Jose Rose, Bad River Ojibwe, elder, environmentalist, and scholar  

Dorothy Davids, Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, educator  

William Gollnick, Oneida, culture keeper 

Thomas St. Germaine, Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe, attorney  

Truman Lowe, Ho-Chunk, organic sculpture artist 

Jenny and Mary Thunder, Forest County Potawatomi, medicine women 

Wanda McFaggen, St. Croix Ojibwe, Tribal Historic Preservationist  

Caroline Andler, Brothertown Indian Nation, genealogist 

The indigenous people whose lives are depicted in Seventh Generation Earth Ethics understood the cultural gravity that kept their people rooted to their ancestral lands and acted in ways that ensured the growth and success of future generations.  

Francis Pegahmagabow (1889–1952), an Ojibwe of the Caribou clan, was born in Shawanaga First Nation, Ontario. Enlisting at the onset of the First World War, he served overseas as a scout and sniper and became Canada’s most decorated Indigenous soldier. After the war, Pegahmagabow settled in Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, where he married and raised six children. He served his community as both Chief and Councillor and was a founding member of the Brotherhood of Canadian Indians, the first national Indigenous political organization. In 1949 and 1950, he was elected the Supreme Chief of the National Indian Government.
 
Francis Pegahmagabow’s stories describe many parts of his life and are characterized by classic Ojibwe narrative. They reveal aspects of Francis’s Anishinaabe life and worldview. Interceding chapters by Brian McInnes provide valuable cultural, spiritual, linguistic, and historical insights that give a greater context and application for Francis’s words and world. Presented in their original Ojibwe as well as in English translation, the stories also reveal a rich and evocative relationship to the lands and waters of Georgian Bay.
 
In Sounding Thunder, Brian McInnes provides a new perspective on Pegahmagabow and his experience through a unique synthesis of Ojibwe oral history, historical record, and Pegahmagabow family stories.