Since arriving at the SUNY-ESF Cranberry Lake Biological Station this past Sunday, June 20th, I have already had a handful of new experiences. On the first day of the ethnobotany course I am taking here, my fellow classmates and I went out into the forests surrounding the field station to harvest young saplings for the construction of a traditional Algonquin wigwam. We had to work with and learn from the ecosystem to harvest saplings that would form to the correct hemispheric shape and flex without breaking. Nature was our teacher and we had to interact with it in order to learn from it. After some time, we were able to determine that the best sapling choices around where we were constructing the wigwam would be American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum). Before harvesting, we held a ceremony where we discussed the Native American tradition of asking permission from the trees to harvest them. This kind of ceremony emphasizes the holistic respect that Native Americans have for all life on earth and how they treat living beings as relatives, not resources.

After ceremony, the relationship between ourselves and the trees was healed and we could then harvest what we needed. We harvested only as many saplings as was required to construct the dome shaped frame upon which the wigwam would be built. Each sapling was anchored into a hole in the soil, bent over, and lashed to one directly across from it. As soon as work on the structure started, it really began to take shape. It was an admirable amount of work that required a high level of group effort and cooperation. As you can imagine, improperly securing a flexed sapling is a recipe for disaster, so attention to detail and focus were crucial to the project.

One aspect of Native American shelter building that I found intriguing was that the entrance of every structure is always built facing due east. Native Americans hold the daily sunrise in very high regard. Every morning after awakening, the first order of business is to greet the sun and to thank it for bringing forth a new day and for sustaining life on planet earth. This happens before anything else at the start of the day and further strengthens the relationship between people and the natural world.

Our professor for ethnobotany, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, said about our class’s wigwam that it was one of the most harmoniously shaped wigwams that she had overseen the construction of at the bio-station in all her years here. We didn’t fully appreciate what she had said until we visited one of the wigwams from a former class after constructing ours. Although that wigwam was still very well built, it had an odd pointed shape to it that Robin said made it very difficult to cover with birch and cattail mats. We have come to truly appreciate our wigwam building abilities.

As of yet, the frame of the wigwam is complete and all that needs to be done to finish the structure is to apply the sections of birch bark we gathered and the sewn cattail mats that we are going to make this coming Monday to the frame to create a water repellent roof. We spent all of yesterday canoeing out to a cattail dominated marsh to harvest cattails in muddy water that was at times chest deep. It was easily one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had here this past week.

The process of harvesting saplings, learning from nature and one another, communicating with each other, and constructing a wigwam this past week has brought the students in our ethnobotany class closer together and created a sense of close-knit community for us here at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station.