The Anishinaabe: Living with the Seasons

Remember from Grade 3

In Grade 3 you met the Mississauga, Ojibwe and Odawa around 1800, and learned that many Anishinaabe families moved with the seasons. Now we go back even farther, hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, to see how the Anishinaabe lived with the land.

Who are the Anishinaabe?

The Anishinaabe (say: ah-nish-ih-NAH-bay) are a group of related First Nations who speak closely related languages, such as Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language), and share many teachings. They include the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Algonquin and Mississauga.

Their lands are around the Great Lakes: forests, lakes, rivers and rocky shores across much of what is now Ontario and beyond.

Today there are many Anishinaabe communities, such as Wiikwemkoong on Manitoulin Island, Curve Lake First Nation and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

Moving with the seasons

The land around the Great Lakes changes a lot through the year: deep snow in winter, rushing sap in spring, warm summers, and ripe rice in fall. Anishinaabe families moved to where the food was. This is called a seasonal round.

Gifts of the birch tree

The birch tree was very important. Its bark is light, waterproof and bends without breaking. People used it for:

• Canoes: a frame of cedar wood covered with birch bark, sewn with spruce roots and sealed with tree gum. Light enough for one or two people to carry between lakes (this is called a portage).
• Homes: the wiigiwaam (wigwam), a dome of bent poles covered with birch bark.
• Containers: baskets and buckets for maple sap, berries and rice.
• Scrolls: birch bark scrolls with drawings that record songs, teachings and maps.

The birchbark canoe was an amazing technology. It let people travel fast across the many lakes and rivers of the Great Lakes region to hunt, trade and visit.

Wild rice: taking only what you need

In the fall, two people go out in a canoe into the shallow water where manoomin grows. One pushes the canoe with a pole. The other gently bends the rice stalks over the canoe and taps them with two sticks, so the ripe grains fall into the canoe.

Some grains fall into the water. They become next year's rice! This is a sustainable way of harvesting: the rice keeps coming back for future generations.

Many Anishinaabe still harvest manoomin this way today.

Clans and leadership

The Anishinaabe have a clan system, called doodem. Each clan is named for an animal, such as Crane, Loon, Bear, Fish or Marten. Each clan has responsibilities for the community, such as leadership, protection, teaching or healing.

Leaders, called ogimaa, were respected for their wisdom and generosity. Important decisions were made in councils, where people talked things through. Elders were honoured for their knowledge.

Anishinaabe teachings, such as the Seven Grandfather Teachings (wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth), guide how people treat each other and the land.