Native Earth Environmental Youth Camp (NEEYC) 2009

The Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force (HETF) partnered with SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) Center for Native Peoples and the Environment to establish the first Native Earth Environmental Youth Camp funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). A group of educators got together with a group of environmentalists and developed an environmental youth camp integrating western science with traditional knowledge through a series of hands on outdoor activities focused on encouraging Native youth to get more involved in understanding and protection of the natural world.

Carol Thomas (Onondaga Nation) was hired to coordinate and set up planning meetings and contributing her perspective and valuable experience from the Native American Fish & Wildlife Service in High School. We couldn’t have done it without her! The Native Earth Camp grew out of three years of SUNY ESF offering a week of environmental science camp at Cranberry Lake. Four to five Haudenosaunee youth attended each year with fellowships along with 50 other high school students, each of those years. The Haudenosaunee students told us they really loved the Cranberry Lake program and so wanted to expand on it to include traditional knowledge and create a camp just for native youth that would better engage both culture and science on behalf of mother earth.

When we all got together, it was decided to have five days at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station starting from August 15 to August 20, where the students can get hands on experience in aquatic biology, tree, plant, bird and animal identification, and survival skills out in the woods coordinated by Robin Kimmerer and then spend five days at the Thompson Island Youth Camp starting on August 20 and ending on August 24 to introduce to them about the use of medicine plants, animal tracking and fur trapping and to talk about the history of the Haudenosaunee and how we kept our culture alive to this day all coordinated by Bob Stevenson. The last day, August 25, we would take them to the SUNY ESF campus to show them sustainable green development projects that the students and professors are doing across campus to help mother earth.

We sent out notices to all the Native Nations on the east coast and we would take the first 20 that sign up. We had representation from the Wampanoag Nation, Tuscarora Nation, Seneca Nation, Onondaga Nation, Oneida Nation, Mohawk Nation and we even had one representative from the Navajo Nation out west. All the students gained valuable knowledge about our environment and our culture from different speakers like Jeanne Shenandoah, responsibilities to Mother Earth, Neil Patterson, Jr., aquatic biology, Catherine Landis, bird song identification, Peggy Pyke Thompson, wetland Ecology, Cece Mitchell, Medicine walk, Lionel Lacroix, fur trapping, Mike McDonald, Wampum teachings, Richard David and Les Benedict, Black Ash Restoration Project, and Jake Swamp, teachings of the Haudenosaunee culture and language from the elders. The students also got to experience a traditional dinner catered by Cece Mitchell and Marie Thompson and a Social performed by the Akwesasne Women Singers on the last day at Thompson Island. On their way out of Akwesasne, the students got to visit the SRMT Environment Division to hear all the great things they are doing for the environment and discuss career choices you can go into after you graduate from college. They also got to experience a little hiking, swimming, and canoeing in between classes.

At the end of it all, we got to experience bonding between students, and develop a special bond with their environment, hopefully that will last a lifetime. We will be offering the camp again next year, so be on the look out for the announcements next spring.