The Dance & Music Festival & More!

The Native American Dance & Music Festival is just around the corner! This year it is 10am - 6pm on July 25 & 26th and we have a webpage for the event. Be sure to keep your eyes on that page for updates and detailed information about the artists and performers that will be attending this year's festival. The final changes are being made to the schedule - be sure to look for that soon to be on the event page too!

If you haven't stopped by the Friends of Ganondagan Gift Shop yet this year, be sure to do so. (See the Gift Shop page for hours.) This year the Gift Shop has tried to focus on items produced by the Friends of Ganondagan and other unique locally produced items as well as a re-focus on items of or about the Six Nations (Iroquois). There are things in the Gift Shop that you will find no place else and the really exciting part is that there are more items being produced and will be available throughout the 2009 season.

The Friends of Ganondagan website continues to grow and change. New content and pages are being regularly added throughout the site. During June, two slideshows were added to the Gallery pages. Be sure to check them out!

Finally, if you haven't been to the site in a while, be sure to come out. All the plants have breathed a sigh of relief with the coming of the recent rain. The Three Sisters Garden, a demonstration vegetable garden of traditional Native varieties, is doing well. The corn and beans are up and the squashes are blooming. The Creator's Garden is green and growing and will soon have new labels for all the medicine plants in it. Be sure to look for those. And the abundance offered by the wild plants is visible all about the site - the wild strawberries have just finished fruiting, the juneberries (see the picture to the right) are large and ripe, and soon to be followed by the black raspberries. Come visit us, walk the trails, and enjoy the natural beauty!

-kim

1794 brought to life

For the past year I have been working on a unique project with historic artist Robert Grffing. He approached me over a year ago concerning the project. He wanted to know if I could help him with a large scale representation of the 1794 Treaty. I encouraged him and was excited about helping bring the event to life. Foremost in my mind was to include the descendants of the people who were in attandance 314 years ago be a big part of the project.

The 1794 Canandaigua Treaty is the lasting agreement between the young United States and the ancient Haudenosaunee which continues to be commemorated each November 11th in the city of Canandaigua.

To this point there has never been an attempt at a faithful recreation of that historic event. It was my responsibility to research the treaty and many of the visual clues which we might use to structure a high quality recreation of what the treaty might have looked like. Tonia and I set up casting calls at Salamanca and Onondaga and solicited participants online as well. In the end, we had just under 30 Haudenosaunee people attend the photo shoot at the Seneca-Iroquois museum this weekend. Here are some glimpses into what will become a very impressive piece in the next two years.




"Niaweh" (thanks) to: The Seneca-Iroquois Museum staff, Jare, Robert, Tonia, Ward, James, Kobuck, Crowder, Don, and ALL the participant models.

Day Trip to the Rockwell Museum

On August 29th the Friends of Ganondagan will be holding a day trip to the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, NY for an exclusive tour of the museum and its special exhibition of Sewing the Seeds: 200 Years of Iroquois Glass Beadwork.

In this tour, we will be joined by Iroquoian Beadwork Specialist, Dolores Elliott, who will share her expertise on the history, creation and importance of beadwork in the Iroquois culture. We are also privileged to be joined by G. Peter Jemison, Ganondagan's Site Manager and renowned Seneca Artist, who will give a guided tour of the Native American Art throughout the museum.

You don't want to miss this unique opportunity so please see our Rockwell Trip web page for full excursion details as well as registration information today!

-kim

Savor the Summer Series

If you enjoyed the True Tale or Beavers at Ganondagan or think you would have, be sure to check out the rest of the events in our Savor the Summer Series.

We have full listings in our on-line event calender or our new Savor the Summer Series flyer. You may print and distribute the flyer or display it where you have permission to do so.

If you haven't done so yet, make sure to let us know what you think about our programs this year. We're pretty excited about them and we hope you are too!

-kim

The True Tale of the Beavers at Ganondagan

Yesterday was the second event in the Friends of Ganondagan's Savor the Summer Series - "The True Tale of the Beavers at Ganondagan." It was a wonderful day for a hike and Peter Jemison did a spectacular job in sharing the beauty and history of the site as well as the wonderful views of the handiwork of Nature's Premier Engineer - the Beaver.

In case you missed it, we have put a slideshow gallery up at:

http://www.ganondagan.org/gallery.html

This walk was FREE to Friends of Ganondagan members and $3 for adults and $2 for children for the general public. Please check out our events calendar for more of our events and programming.

-kim

We need your help!

From Jeanette Miller, Executive Director of the Friends of Ganondagan:

Hello everyone,
In our "green efforts" we are in need of a few items you might have in your home or at your business for some projects we are working on to sell in the gift shop this summer:

FROM YOUR HOME:
we need your empty 18 oz OATMEAL containers or 24 oz CORNMEAL containers (or something similar)

FROM YOUR OFFICE:
we need 30# or 40# paper

We need these as soon as possible (deadline May 22) - so if you have any (ask your family and friends, too) - please drop them off at the visitors center or gift shop 9am-5pm Tuesday through Sunday; if you must deliver after those hours - just leave at the Site Manager's back door.

Thank you everyone!
Jeanette

Ganondagan's Fort Hill Slide Show

Speaking of wildflowers, be sure to take a look at our newly updated Gallery web page to see the first of many slide shows that has been created for it. This slide show is of many native wildflowers and plants currently visible from Ganondagan's Fort Hill Trails. We hope you enjoy it!

And please remember to NOT pick any wildflowers that you see in your walks. Not only is it prohibited in all New York State Parks, but many woodland plants do not tolerate picking well. It may kill some plants, like trillium. Please bring your camera and take only photos!

-kim