Gathering Giizhik in a changing landscape

Abstract

Giizhik (gee-zhick; Northern white cedar; Thuja occidentalis) maintains essential roles in Anishinaabe teachings, ceremony, and lifeways. Anishinaabeg at Bahweting and Gnoozhekaaning have adaptively gathered Giizhik through millennia of change. Over the last century, Giizhik have declined in abundance across their range and future declines are projected due to climate-driven change. Anishinaabe gatherers maintain relationships with Giizhik forests across a gradient of Giizhik dominance; with these relationships and knowledges, gatherers offer important alternatives in forest management planning and practice. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians at Bahweting, Bay Mills Indian Community at Gnoozhekaaning, and Giizhik gatherers from each community are pursuing forest relations based on Anishinaabe lifeways and relationalities. We describe gathering practices and changes through time based on group discussions and semi-structured interviews with 25 Anishinaabe gatherers and tribal natural resource staff. Spiritual and physical relationships among Anishinaabeg and Giizhik were discussed within the contexts of our original instructions (guidance defining respectful kin relations in this moral universe, handed down through the generations since time immemorial), settler colonialism, and forest management. This work builds upon the concepts of relationalities and collective continuance in the context of Anishinaabe forest relationships. We offer suggestions on ways of respecting and protecting forest communities by putting forest management into the context of forest relationalities.