BARAGA — Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Tribal Council last month heard from Summer Youth Conservation Corps students who’d recently worked on projects led by members of the tribe’s Natural Resources Department and the Superior Watershed Partnership.

This year’s inter-related projects were classified into three categories: Conservation, cultural and educational.

To learn about conservation, students worked on the Sand Point Brownfield restoration; planted and weeded the community garden; identified floral and aquatic invasive species; took water samples of the Lake Superior watershed and held a sacred water ceremony for the lake; cleaned up trails in L’Anse and Baraga and built a bridge for a health trail in Baraga; and learned about the life cycle of fish while cleaning, feeding, marking and stocking them at tribal fish hatcheries.

On the cultural side, youth corps members not only worked at KBIC’s pow wow and kids fishing derby, they also learned how to harvest birch bark and planted sage, sweetgrass and tobacco, all of which are of traditional importance to the tribe; planted a “three sisters” garden of corn, beans and squash; attended wild rice camp and worked extensively on stocking walleye ponds, which involves a lot more than just tossing the fry in.

While all of the projects were educational, the youth corps toured and participated in events at Northern Michigan and Michigan Technological universities, as well as studying honey bees and other pollinators and the plants they prefer, invertebrates and composting and recycling.

Making up the Natural Resources Department crew were Joran Asher, Billy and Bobby Genschow, William Jondreau, John Messer, Syndi Voakes and Brent Waranka.

On the Superior Watershed crew were Lexi Chosa-Simmons, Kirsten Nelson, Alan and Ryan DesRochers, Austin Durant, Janna Magnant, Scott Maskew-Loonsfoot, Jenna Messer, Logan Shalifoe, Jailyn Shelifoe, Zachary Welch and Cheyenne Welsh.

Here is the link to the presentation the Tribal Council watched while participants summed up each project: docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JAN0Sb1rkQE2eNcyKwQF9WOKe3Us4QYMOb2a0OHx0Hc/edit?usp=sharing

The KBIC Youth Conservation Corps Facebook page is: www.facebook.com/KBIC-Youth-Conservation-Corps-Crew-Superior-Watershed-Partnership-196160213767736/