Duluth – Learning from Place: Anishinaabe Duluth/Misaabekong
October 10 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm CDT
$35
Experience Duluth/Misaabekong through Ojibwe/Anishinaabe perspectives, exploring the stories, histories, and relationships to place that have shaped the city and continue to resonate today.
We will convene at the Duluth Art Institute, where artist, historian, teacher, and writer Carl Gawboy (Bois Forte Nation) will explore the Ojibwe fur trade and the relationships among Anishinaabe communities, European traders, waterways, and the developing economy of the region.
From there, participants will travel by bus to sites throughout Duluth/Misaabekong, including a stop at the Chief Buffalo mural with artist Michelle DeFoe (Red Cliff Anishinaabe Nation). Through the story of Chief Buffalo (Bizhiki), participants will explore Ojibwe leadership, diplomacy, sovereignty, and connections to Duluth and Lake Superior.
The experience will also engage with Anishinaabe oral history and traditional knowledge, including stories of Misaabekong—“the place of the giant”—Thunderbirds, origins, and relationships among people and the natural world. These stories, shared by Linda LeGarde Grover (Bois Forte Nation) and Wendy Savage (Fond du Lac Nation), carry teachings about place, relationship, responsibility, and identity that continue to hold meaning today.
Together, these perspectives offer more than additional stories about Duluth’s past. They invite participants to consider how the histories we remember—and the knowledge and voices we center—shape how we understand a place in the present. Through walking, bus travel, storytelling, conversation, and observation, participants will encounter familiar places in new ways and gain a fuller understanding of the enduring relationships among people, land, water, and community that continue to shape Duluth/Misaabekong today.
The experience is curated and facilitated by Christina Woods (Bois Forte Nation), an Anishinaabekwe educator and community leader who serves as Executive Director of the Duluth Art Institute. Through the experience, Woods invites participants to consider how place itself holds memory—and how Anishinaabe perspectives can deepen our understanding of the landscape beneath and around the city.
Christina Woods serves as the Duluth Art Institute’s (DAI) first Anishinaabe Executive Director. Christina is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Nation and works closely with the Anishinaabe community as a leader and mentor. Christina also conducts trainings and workshops on equity, diversity and inclusion including the program she created for the DAI, Commission Your Bias.
Christina’s success includes a 14-year career teaching, ten years narrating and on camera work on the national program Native Report, and 30 years writing curriculum and grants, fundraising, and diversity/inclusion consultation. Christina thoughtfully serves our community with a vision to the future. She lives in Duluth, MN with her acknowledged home in the Bois Forte Nation of Northern MN.
Carl Gawboy, born and raised in Ely, Minnesota, is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Nation. He earned a B.A. in Art with a minor in Art History from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 1965 and completed his graduate studies at the University of Montana in 1973. Gawboy taught Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the College of St. Scholastica, retiring in 1992. Primarily a watercolorist, he is also known for acrylic murals at the Superior Public Library, Bois Forte Heritage Center, and Grand Portage National Monument. His work tells stories of Ojibwe history, culture, and northern life. He authored and illustrated Fur Trade Nation: An Ojibwe’s Graphic History.
Michelle DeFoe is an artist enrolled in the Red Cliff Anishinaabe Nation. She is working towards revitalizing Anishinaabe cultural arts, including moccasin making and beadwork. She teaches community classes to pass this knowledge on to future generations. Michelle is a painter. Her paintings are inspired by her dreams and by her cultural background. Most of her work is acrylic on canvas. She does public art in collaboration with other artists creating murals. She teaches college courses at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College for their fine arts program. One of her goals as an artist is to use her art to create social change and have a positive impact on the community. She also uses her art as a form of self-expression.
Linda LeGarde Grover is a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a member of the Bois Forte Nation. She is the award-winning author of several books, including The Road Back to Sweetgrass, Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year, In the Night of Memory, A Song Over Miskwaa Rapids, and Gichigami Hearts: Stories and Histories from Misaabekong.
Wendy Lee Savage is an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Nation, artist, educator, curator, and consultant. She holds a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Superior and has received numerous honors, including the 2019 Mattie Simons Advocate Award. Savage has taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, and Fond du Lac Ojibwe High School, developing curriculum for regional cultural and arts organizations. She curated Then & Now: Ojibway Cultural Traditions for the Tweed Museum of Art in 2024. Her artwork and curatorial work center Ojibwe cultural traditions, beadwork, ribbon applique, and designs inspired by nature.
K-12 Educators will receive 3 clock hours upon completion of the event.
Registration
Complimentary registrations are available to help ensure cost is not a barrier. Use discount code FEEWAIVER when registering.
Questions: immersive@mnhum.org | Cancellation Policy
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