DOWAGIAC — Thursday morning, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’ Rodgers Lake campus was filled with smells of fresh maple syrup, sweet potatoes and wild rice porridge as part of an event designed to celebrate indigenous foods.

The Pokagon Band is cohosting the 2019 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit in partnership with Intertribal Agricultural Council.

The event began Thursday morning and will run through Sunday. Throughout the weekend, the event will feature hands-on workshops on a variety of topics including food security, farming, food preparation and sustainability, among others.

On Saturday, a day-long Intertribal Foods Festival will feature small group demonstrations and food-tasting stations with activities available for visitors of all ages.

On Sunday, a presentation and lunch will round out the program. A concurrent Youth Summit will also run throughout the event, which is open to high school-aged youth.

“The Pokagon Band is excited to host [the event] this year,” said Gary Morseau, chair of the Pokagon Band Food Sovereignty Committee. “For years, we have supported this event by sending members to other areas, so we are happy to have it here this year.”

The Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit is a regional, travelling summit which brings together several hundred native farmers, ranchers, gardeners, chefs, businesses, policymakers, tribal agriculture staff, native nonprofits working in agriculture, food producers and tribal leaders to share and learn together around traditional food and agriculture, and food sovereignty, according to organizers.

“This is about celebrating indigenous foods and getting networking going to get people to understand what these foods do for your diets,” Morseau said, standing in front of a grove of trees. “In these woods, there is a whole supermarket. [The food summit] is about re-educating people about how to use these foods.”

Kevin Finney, a coordinator for the 2019 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit, agreed saying the event was essential to keeping native food and recipes alive because food can directly impact the health and prosperity of a community.

“It is important because food is identity, and it is also about a relationship with the land,” Finney said. “A lot of people, even if they live in Anishinaabe territory, have no idea what our foods are. … This is a big event that addresses that.”

Both Morseau and Finney said they were happy with Thursday morning’s turnout to the food summit and that they hoped locals would continue to attend the event over the weekend. Finney said he believed that Native Americans who participated in the event would leave with knowledge that would benefit them and their communities.

“Our focus is building up the skill, the knowledge and the value in Indian culture and food,” Finney said. “We are doing that by bringing together native people from all across the county that know about that to share their knowledge with each other and those that want to know.”

The event is taking place at the Pokagon Band’s Rodger’s Lake campus, 58620 Sink Road, Dowagiac. For more information, contact Paige Risser at (269) 783-6199.