Anishanabee Canoe Race

(photos will be posted soon)

Here I am back at the same beach. Today it is filled with people. There is a canoe race going on with members of the Leech Lake Anishanabee Tribe and others. Green canoes line the shore. Those in first place are only 37 seconds ahead in the lead.

There's a cool breeze blowing real hard as I sit at a table with the first place winners. They tell me they have come all the way down from near Bemidji to participate. "It's about a six hour drive".

Cool breezes blow. I swim as always...Darling children swim up to me in their charm and splendor...telling me where the drop off is...right there..right where I am. Such sweet faces. They bob about in their blue life jackets blowing whistles.I am trying in more ways than one, not to fall into the deep waters.

I feel cool breezes blow. On shore two large tee pees are set up.Painted majestic colors with eagles and bright colors and symbols. Wooden stakes hold the teepees in the ground. I go inside one of them.I step through a portal of time.There, look, look again into the center of a world that once was. I am grateful to allow ancient memories that are not even mine to stir. Grateful to muse on how it all must have been so long ago for the native people of this area. Inside the tee pee I can close my eyes and imagine what it might have been like decades ago, to live in one. Perhaps this lovely beach was a summer settlement.
Sometimes when I swim here I can feel something stir..Old memories that belong to place. Was this beach a summer encampment? A place to fish, gather foods? Cat tails.. and..a place to feel the summer breezes....
These musings gather around me. I pause, looking at the group. Wondering about their past, their history and now their present, so fought for and now so enduring. All that has happened to the native people of this area. Poignant, tough, and now this moment of the canoe races keeps something enduring. I swim in the water, out past the drop off point, then come into shore to hear the wise elders speak to the group... Their wisdom remains. "Take Care of Mother Earth." These two men pass on their wisdom to the next generation.
On a hot summer day I watch and feel grateful for this moment at my favorite little beach.