Haudenosaunee Youth & Elders Gathering on Climate Change

By David Arquette.

On the weekend of August 9th to the 11th, HETF Youth Group (YG) hosted the Haudenosaunee Youth & Elders Gathering on Climate Change (HY&EGCC) in Akwesasne Mohawk Nation Territory.

We would start off Friday welcoming guests to Akwesasne and assisting them in getting to their lodging. Many of the guests would arrive in the late evening and into the night.

It would be an eventful day as Akwesasne, and the North Country would face rapid flooding like never seen before. Initially, we did not believe the flooding would be an issue at the Mohawk Nation Longhouse for dinner and social set for the evening. With all the rain, we did not realize how bad the road had become once visitors started to arrive at the Longhouse and notified us of the situation. The water had quickly risen flowing across the road and any vehicle traffic would have to cease as it posed hazards to both the vehicles as well as the occupants involved. We would notify the attendees that the social that was supposed to take place that night would be rescheduled to the following night, and we spent much of the time strategizing how to proceed forward with the gathering while combatting the rising water levels and conistant rain. We would be fortunate as the SRMT Road Crew would arrive that evening to assess the situation and lay out their own plan to implement the following morning.

The SRMT Road Crew would arrive early Saturday morning and have the road fixed by 9:00 am. This would allow us to continue on with our gathering with a one hour delay.

We would start the day off with Roiane Ernest David doing the opening and then go over the agenda for the day. We started off with a discussion on growing crops in a changing environment led by Emma Phillips, SRMT Agriculture Program Director, and David Arquette, HETF Director. Then we transitioned into cooking with pots over an open fire workshop with Jessica Shenandoah. This workshop would be very well received and people would stay beyond the time slot to ask questions and learn more. Jessica would cook a series of different foods in different pots for people to taste and test. Some of the foods included corn mush, corn bread, tea and moose meat. She would also talk about different things she experienced working with clay and how to avoid challenges such as clay exploding in the kiln.

In the afternoon, we had our Youth and Elders panel. We had youth and elders from Akwesasne, Onondaga, Six Nations, Tuscarora answering questions like how the environment has changed in their lifetime in their home communities. Having such a diverse panel definitely helped attendees better understand what is going on across the Confederacy in the realm of environmental hazards and how communities are addressing them. They would also learn more about how they can help or offer advice about how they overcame similar issues in their own communities. It was nice to hear the elders give encouragement to the youth to keep up the good work in helping our environment and the youth thanking the elders for sharing their knowledge and experience with them.

Following the youth and elders panel, we would go outside, and Jared Jock would lead a workshop on log pounding. Log pounding is a tradition that goes back generations in the Akwesasne community as we have become known throughout the Confederacy as the black ash basket makers. Jared would talk about how he selects trees as well as the process of pounding the log and making splints. It is not an easy process, but it does offer the reward of having splints so that one can go about breaking them down and making a basket. It first requires one to go about taking an ax and using the flat side of the ax head to slowly work up and down the log to loosen the layers. Once you have a bundle of splints, it is then tied and can be soaked and used for various baskets ranging from small fancy baskets to large pack baskets.

Keeping with the theme of basketry, Tusha and Jade would lead a workshop on making baskets out of cattails. The workshop would be well attended, and the youth would be quite excited to make baskets out of something they had not previously used as a material for making baskets.

Following the basket making workshop, we would take a break and prepare for dinner and a short film showing the short film that would be made by Kahnawake Environmental Protection Office (KEPO) called "Entewahnekahserón:ni - We are Rejuvenating the Waters" presented by Julie Delisle and Carlee Loft who work at KEPO. The film would showcase the work that KEPO is doing in regards to creek monitoring under the Aquatic Stewardship Program and included a series of interviews with community members in Kahnawake. Throughout the interviews, community members would talk about how the creek in Kahnawake was and how it has changed over time.

The rescheduled social would follow the film showing and people from the community would begin to arrive. The social would be well attended and people would talk extensively that night and into the following day about how much fun they had attending.

Sunday morning, we would start off with breakfast and transition into a climate resiliency discussion with Neil Patterson Jr., Spencer Lyons, Courtney Skye and Serena Mendizabal. Neil talked about the work he is doing in the field and seeing how the climate is creating these changes to the natural world and using our cultural practices to turn things around. Spencer would speak about the environmental issues in Onondaga and how they have been resilient in their approach to the environmental hazards that they have faced. Courtney would speak in depth about the work they're doing with Protect The Tract and Serena has been working on a hybrid system with the Sour Springs Longhouse that will utilize solar energy. Each brought their own ideas and perspectives about the work they are doing and how we can continue to work together to make our communities more environmentally safe.

Next, we had Sateiokwen Bucktooth teach us how to make teas from medicine plants that heal us. Then we ended with Eddie Gray to talk about the protocols of picking medicine and when and how to use them. He had samples of plants, showing us what they looked like and what they are used for.

Everyone did not want the gathering to end, so we agreed to have another one in Six Nations next year. We encouraged the youth to continue networking with whatever social platform they are familiar with and showed how resilient we are when we all work together. Then we had a youth, Konwawennarahkwa Jock do the closing.