Sign Up for Wild Plant Workshop

Linda Black Elk, right, has presented on medicinal plants in the Mille Lacs community for several years.

Band members are encouraged to sign up for a free summer woodland series: Foraging and Photography: Learn to Identify and Photograph Wild Plants for Food, Medicine, and Art.

The series consists of three segments, one day each month for three months during the summer and fall of 2021, beginning in July. All supplies, including cameras, camera accessories, computers, and other materials will be provided along with food and beverages.

Participants must attend all three segments:

Thursday, July 8, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Photography training and plant walk.

Wednesday, August 11, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Photography editing and selection.

Thursday, September 9, 1 to 8 p.m.: Photography show and presentations.

Locations will be announced later. Limited space is available, and registration is required.

Priority will be given to Mille Lacs Band members age 16 and over.

The leaders of the workshop are Linda Black Elk and Della Nohl.

Linda Black Elk is an ethnobotanist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food, medicine, and materials. Linda works to build curriculum and ways of thinking that will promote and protect food sovereignty, traditional plant knowledge, and environmental quality as an extension of the fight against hydraulic fracturing and the fossil fuels industry. She has written for numerous publications, and is the author of “Watoto Unyutapi,“ a field guide to edible wild plants of the Dakota people. Linda currently serves as the Food Sovereignty Coordinator at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota, and spends her free time with her husband and three sons, who are all citizens of the Oceti Sakowin.

Della Nohl (Anishinaabe) is a fine arts educator who has guided students and workshop participants in the art of documenting their surroundings through photography. Della has worked as a photojournalist, stills photographer for an award-winning feature film shot on the Onondaga Nation, con- tract photographer for Indian Artist magazine, and an exhibiting artist best known for her photographic weaves. Della is currently working on anthotypes, a photographic process using plant-based emulsions.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the East Central Regional Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

For More Details and Registration Information, email Col- leen.McKinney@HHS.millelacsband-nsn.gov.