Notes from Dynamite Hill, Keweenaw Bay, Part 1 of 3

By: Joe Brehm

Jerry and I pause at a loud but distant noise. Through the green woods of big hemlocks, sugar maples and yellow and white birches, the wild cry of a sandhill crane reverberates. From our vantage point on the trail, surrounded by deep, shady forest, I am surprised to even hear the crane’s song. Jerry doesn’t seem surprised at all. He must be aware of a wet meadow nearby that’s out of sight. Jerry is Anishinaabe, an indigenous tribe in the Great Lakes region; he shares that he is of the Crane clan. Like this vociferous large reddish gray bird, members of the Crane clan are encouraged to speak up and use their voices. Jerry does this with as much kindness, generosity and thoughtfulness as anyone I have ever met.

Jerry Jondreau, Katy Bresette, and their family started Dynamite Hill Farms, where they produce traditional foods such as zhiiwaagamizigan (maple sugar), zhiiwaagamizigan (maple syrup) and manoomin (wild rice). They tap hundreds of sugar maples; the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan has the highest density of sugar maples anywhere in the world. While I was there, we also expanded their garden. They grow corn (traditional varieties), various other food crops and medicinal plants like white sage. Jerry pointed out that “some of the seeds we were entrusted with [by fellow Indigenous farmers] only after committing to take care of them for our entire lives.”

Dynamite Hill Farms looks down onto Lake Superior and Keweenaw Bay on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

During the COVID-induced shutdown, Katy and Jerry helped to lead a webinar about the Tribal Climate Adaptations Menu that they co-authored along with ”a diverse group of collaborators representing tribal, intertribal, academic, and federal entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.” The toolkit goes beyond climate science and “provides a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language, and history into the climate adaptation planning process.” I had the opportunity to spend several days at Dynamite Hill Farms because of a grant Rural Action received to expand its Americorps program specifically in order to address the growing needs and challenges related to climate change. The grant funded a limited number of learning journeys intended to inform our approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation. After the webinar, I reached out to the Menu authors to inquire about the possibility of traveling to the Great Lakes region to learn more from them, and Jerry and Katy generously agreed to host me.

Throughout our several days together, they provided planned and impromptu lessons about education, diversity and inclusion, climate change, land management, food sovereignty, tribal governance, and ecology. After I had spent a couple of days with Jerry, I finally asked him if I could share their business and products with people back home. I wasn’t sure if they preferred to share or sell these traditional foods with a closer circle.

“Absolutely,” Jerry says. “As long as they’re good people and as long as they’re up for having a conversation about what we’re doing here.”

While walking the land to which Jerry’s family has belonged for many, many generations, I asked if other indigenous farmers that he’s met have similar approaches to their relationship with the land. He responded by explaining that “we started this–maple sugaring, gardening, gathering wild leeks and other plants–to reconnect with the land.” They didn’t start this lifestyle to make money “Of course, we have to pay the bills, but it’s way more than that,” which stands out to me as a powerful peak standing above a valley of capitalist motivation in this country.

On the last day of my visit, Jerry and Katy took me to see the river that seems ever-present in their lives. Water, stained the color of tea from tannins in the hemlock and cedar trees, spilled over a rock ledge and cascaded into a frothy pool about eight feet below. It was easy to imagine their family taking a break from working on the garden or cleaning out buckets for maple syrup to jump in the cool, clean water or wade the river while fishing for brook trout.

I voiced a thought that had been in the back of my mind: “Maybe hunting and gathering is really the only good way for people to live?”

Katy immediately responded, saying, “Intentionality. It’s about living intentionally. Sure, that can be hunting and gathering and gardening, but it’s different everywhere.”

Our best guide to a good way of living is observing how our actions impact the local environment and community and listening to the water and plants and animals.

We sometimes need a reminder that our personal relationship with the land is a long process. I visited some friends who were creating prairie habitats on newly acquired acreage and replacing more and more mowed lawns with a diverse arrangement of plants. When I mentioned Katy’s concept of intentionality and that it is supposed to be a lengthy process, they seemed relieved that not everything had to be done at once. In fact, it’s really important not to. Our “management” of the land is really our conversation with it, and the land is what we ultimately must pay attention to. How does the land react to a planting of ginseng or goldenseal, or a row of elderberries in the riparian area, or to the selective harvest of a tree in your forest? Sit, watch, listen, and think about how the land responds.

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