Our most recent October Community Literacy Event celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. For this special event we were thrilled to welcome Gabriel Frey, and Susan Greenlaw, the authors of the beautiful, award-winning children's book, “The First Blade of Sweetgrass.” Gabriel and Suzanne wrote this book to give representation to native people and their family’s traditions, highlighting a grandmother figure and their own daughter Musqon as the story’s main character. 

Gabriel treated us to a reading, and we got to hear about their process of writing the book, as well as their efforts in ecological conservation and traditional basket making. Suzanne aims to center native voices in sustainable forestry, and Gabriel upholds a long lineage of traditional black ash basket making. 

Gabriel took us through the process of harvesting black ash, and showed us how to split the tree rings and create strips to weave baskets. We then made our own black ash and sweetgrass bookmarks. By getting to handle, weave, and manipulate the sweet smelling sweetgrass, and strong flexible black ash, we were able to appreciate how special these resources are, and the skill it takes to work with them. 

Many thanks to Gabriel Frey and Suzanne Greenlaw for visiting our community! Thank you also to Sherman's Bookstore for supporting the book sale, and to First National Bank for sponsoring this event.