Search the dictionary Advanced Search

How to use the Ojibwe People's Dictionary

Arthur Wilcox Chippewa Sugar Camp

The manufacture of maple sugar was an important occupation of the Chippewa people of northern Michigan. Indeed, the widespread use of maple sugar and the festivities connected with sugar making were so conspicuous as to call for rather detailed accounts on the part of early observers. The practice was largely restricted to peoples of the Algonquin stock who inhabited much of the normal range of the sugar maple...Of this group the Chippewas (Ojibways) dominated the upper lake states region...Maple sugar and wild rice were the two most important plant foods of the Chippewas. The obtaining of both of these commodities was attended by considerable pleasure, and sugar making (seensibaukwut) especially took on the aspects of a spring carnival. Each family or group of families has its own sugar bush with a semipermanent storage lodge and sugar lodge...Maple sugar was more than a luxury; it was a practical necessity in everyday cooking.
from
Arthur T. Wilcox, "The Chippewa Sugar Camp" Michigan History 37 (1953): 277-279.