GRAND RAPIDS — The important question this spring of 2023 in northern Minnesota is: Will the sap ever run?
Artist, singer-songwriter and elder Annie Humphrey assured on the Thursday, March 30, KAXE Morning Show the sap will run. She joined Shanai Matteson to talk about Iskigamizigan, a Saturday, April 1, sugar bush gathering at the Welcome Water Protectors site on the Mississippi River in Palisade.
Humphrey talked about her sugar bush camp and the generations of her family gatherings.
“I try to do things just like my dad taught me. Sometimes my kids say we should get a four-wheeler,” Humphrey said. “I would do that to my dad too. I said, ‘Dad, why? Why are we walking with these pails so far?’”
She asked her dad for tubing between trees to make it easier to collect sap. He answered, “If we have tubes, we can’t visit the trees.”
That thought made sense when Humphrey was a kid and now as an elder, she’s passing on traditions to her grandchildren.
“I love seeing them all running around the trees, laughing and just being happy.”
It’s also to remind folks that this tradition of tapping the trees comes from Anishinaabe people on this land. And it’s something that settlers learned.Shanai Matteson
Matteson grew up in rural Aitkin County also with a family tradition of tapping maples — just at a different pace. She described a desire to speed up the process as a family and find more efficient ways to gather the sap.
“Sometimes, we just need that reminder to slow down,” she said.
At the Welcome Water Protectors gathering, they will celebrate the season and reconnect outdoors. It begins 10 a.m. Saturday and all ages are welcome, especially families.
“It’s also to remind folks that this tradition of tapping the trees comes from Anishinaabe people on this land. And it’s something that settlers learned,” Matteson said.
She asked Humphrey about her role as a grandmother, artist and advocate.
“I just honor my great-grandparents and my grandparents and my father by just carrying on these things,” Humphrey said.
“If you don’t pay any attention or have any kind of relationship with the land and water they you will believe anything that someone tells you about it,” Matteson said.
The Welcome Water Protectors camp started during the movement to stop the Enbridge Energy Line 3 oil pipeline. Through the pipeline construction they hosted cultural gatherings and now continue gathering and learning about the land.
“The pipeline was completed, but a lot of people are still watching the pipeline, Matteson said. “Keeping eyes on it.”
