Waabooyaan – the original blanket

I have always thought that it was interesting that in Ojibwemowin, the word for blanket is waabooyaan or waabowayaan.  Literally this translates as rabbit skin.  This refers to the tradition of making blankets of rabbit skins, but the word continues to be used for wool blankets during the fur trade and even for modern blankets today. Rabbit skin blankets were an ingenious use of an otherwise minimally useful hide.  Rabbit...

Grand Portage 2014

This past weekend, our family visited Grand Portage National Monument for its annual rendezvous reenactment.  This is one of the biggest events that we have been going to in the past couple of years and it is always a treat.  Grand Portage, or”Kitchi Onigaming” (Great Carrying Place), is an 8.5 mile portage linking Lake Superior with the Pigeon River (avoiding the High Falls).  It has been used by natives of...