Portage Lake : Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood

Maude Kegg's memories build a bridge to a time when building birch-bark wigwams and harvesting turtles were still part of the everyday life of a native girl in the mid-west. In this bilingual book, this elder of the Minnesota Anishinaabe reminisces about her childhood. An English translation of each story appears on pages facing the original Ojibwe text, and the editor John Nicholds has included a full Ojibwe-English glossary with study aids. "The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) Indians of Minnesota give the name Gabekanaansing (At the End of the Trail) to Portage Lake of Crow Wing County in Central Minnesota. In this bilingual book, Minnesota Anishinaabe elder Maude Kegg of the Mille Lacs Reservation at Vineland, near Onamia, Minnesota, reminisces about her childhood at Gabekanaansing. Building birchbark and reed-mat wigwams, boiling maple sap into syrup and harvesting turtles and wild rice are some of the activities which are related in detail by Maude Kegg. Dictated in her native language, these delightful memories provide a child's view of traditional Anishinaabe lifeways coming into contact with Euro-American settlers in the early decades of this century"--Back cover Maude Kegg ; Edited And Transcribed By John D. Nichols. English And Ojibwa. Includes Bibliographical References (p. Xiii-xiv).