Along the east side of Watersmeet in Gogebic County sits the 110-acre J.W. Toumey Nursery.
Part of the Ottawa National Forest, the nursery is one of six in the National Forest system.
It regularly grows 12 million seedlings during the summer and another 600,000 plants in greenhouses.
They get shipped to the 14 National Forests in the northeastern region that stretches from Missouri to Vermont.
Nursery Manager Jim Pekola says pretty much everything grown at the nursery is requests from those National Forests.
A number of factors go into those requests like climate change, assisted migration, and remediation.
“A lot of those are things are really looking at increasing diversity on a lot of their sites. The majority, in our region, of our reforestation efforts, though, are from reforesting after timber sale activities,” said Pekola.
Starting next year, species of medicinal and cultural significance will also be grown on the property.
“Birch and cedar are in decline in our area, so that's a major concern for us because we rely so heavily, and those are just two trees I'm mentioning, but we rely so heavily on those trees for cultural purposes,” said Alina Shively, she’s the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Lac Vieux Desert Tribe.
The Gete Miinikaanan Project
The Tribe and Ottawa National Forest are creating the Gete Miinikaanan Project which translates into Ancient Seeds in the Ojibwe language.
As part of the partnership, the Tribe will provide three tribal nursery crew members, a heavy equipment operator trainee, and an ethnobotanist.
They’ll be employed by the tribe but work for the nursery.
The Forest Service will teach the employees all about the nursery, the processes there, and give space for them to grow trees and other plants for the Tribe.
Shively says the millions of acres of land that the Ottawa manages is important to the Tribe in terms of treaty rights to gather, hunt, and harvest.
“This was a way for tribal members to learn the processes at the nursery, to learn the operation, to gain scientific knowledge to blend with their cultural and their inherent knowledge on how to care for the earth, love the earth, love the land, and be part of restoring lands that are important to us,” said Shively.
Shively is hopeful the knowledge sharing will go both ways, especially after a 2022 executive order that called for indigenous knowledge guidance for federal agencies.
“The tribes are thrilled that someone is finally taking our life ways, our teachings, our methods of taking care of our own lands and trying to really consider those practices when there's decisions being made,” she said.
The timing works well for the nursery.
Expanding the nursery
The nursery currently produces to capacity. It’s in the planning stages of a major expansion project.
Pekola says they’re meeting a lot of goals with the project.
“It helps also continue to build our collaboration and relationships with our local tribe, who's right next door. But they also can provide a workforce and a lot of collaboration on the ideas back and forth,” said Pekola. “That will really help us with being able to move into the future, being able to handle any of the things that come up, whether it's changing direction or priority needs. It's just another partner that we can work with to meet a lot of those goals. So super, super excited about this.”
Jim Strazier is the project manager for the Toumey Nursery Modernization, he started working on the Ottawa right around when the talks about this partnership began.
On a personal level, he says there’s a lot of shared respect for the land.
“When talks with Alina began and how she brings up the tribal side, it just echoes so much from my grandparents and what it was like for me growing up. We’re not tribal members ourselves, but it’s just that shared respect and care for the land that really just echoes through our family values,” he said.
Strazier says the Gete Miinikaanan Project is the first of its kind. The only thing close to it is a tribal nursery specialist out west who works with Tribes to help bring up their own programs.
“There is no other program that we know of going on with the Forest Service right now where we have tribal employees using our facilities working towards growing their plants right next to us in the same space,” he said.
Avery McGeshick is one of the tribal employees now working at the nursery.
On a warm sunny day, he was sitting at a picnic table in the shade of one of the green houses thinning birch trees just starting to grow in little pods.
“It's just a unique experience. It's a learning experience. I wanted to learn about the environment and all the species of trees and the seedlings, how they plant, and it just really intrigued me,” said McGeshick. “I'm just learning more every day out here, and I really like it out here.”
Looking ahead
As much as Shively and the Lac Vieux Desert Tribe are looking forward to environmental and cultural work that will be done through this project, Shively also says this an incredible opportunity for Tribal Members to find good jobs, close to home.
Strazier says the feeling is mutual.
“There's a lot of significance in what's going on. To be able to have local, younger people come in, have the opportunity for future employment here, grow things that are important to them, it's kind of amazing to see all this come together and hope that it's something that continues for many years into the future,” said Strazier.
Funding for the Gete Miinikaanan Project comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
It’s funded up to two years. Shively says they’ll be looking for other funding opportunities to continue it.
“There's just such an incredible benefit to collaboration, and, generally, Forest Service goals do align closely with tribal goals in terms of conservation, preservation and taking care of the earth. So why would we not work together where we can?” said Shivley.
