Wild Food Summit III

The third Wild Food Summit will be taking place on White Earth Lake at the White Earth Rediscovery Center on June 19th, 20th and 21st, 2008. Learn how to identify and prepare wild foods with these Wild Food Enthusiasts: Rose Barlow, Steve Dahlberg, Matt Mattson, Francois Medion, Sunny Savage, Sam Thayer, Kathleen Westcot and Stephanie Williams. Please click here to download more information and a registration form.

Additional information and registration

Wild Food Summit I

In the Spring of 2007, WETCC Extension held it's first Wild Food Summit at Maplelag. It was planned for 50 participants but 170 ended up participating!

Speakers included:

Bill Auginaush: Red Lake band member who works a sugarbush, sets up wild rice camp and takes kids berry picking.

Alma Christensen: "Lady of the Woods", A self-taught botanist who used her knowledge of harvesting wild foods to help her family survive the Great Depression.

Steve Dahlburg: Steve has fond memories of foraging as a kid, which he now passed on to his triplet 8-year-old boys and two teenage daughters. As science chari at the WETCC he incorporates wild edible plants and tracking into his classes He handcrafts knives and know a lot about trees.

Sunny Johnson: Sunny is a woodswoman at heart and loves eating wild things with her son Saelyn. With and Education background in nutrition, she works at WETCC as an Extension Educator who promotes wild and local foods.

John Kallas: John has a PhD in Nutrition and a Masters in Education. He's a trained botanist, nature photographer, writer, researcher and teacher. John has led expeditions on wild foods for over 25 years and runs Wild Food Adventures- an institute for the study of edible wild plants and other foragables. He publishes the Wild Food Adventure quarterly newsletter and the Wild Food Primer.

Michael Wassegijig Price is a Wikwemoikong First Nations of Manitoulin Island band member. He is project director for the National Science Foundation'sSTEM program at the Leech Lake Tribal and community college. He works to keep Ojibwe plant names and culture alive and enjoys sitting by the campfire with his son Che'.

Sam Thayer; He has been teaching for 10 years and recently published The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. He was editor for The Forager, a wild food periodical with subscribers across the US and Canada. He lives in Ogema, Wisconsin near National Forest Land.

Stephanie Williams: Stephanie is a White Earth band member whose first job is grandmother and her second job is Extension Coordinator at WETCC. She is also the teacher of wildly popular classes on medicinal plants, wild foods and making cremes and salves from natural ingredients

Wild Living with Sunny U-tube WFS II production

Wild Food Summit II

The second Wild Food Summit was held on June 7-9, 2007 at the White Earth Rediscovery Center. Participants were invited to "Join us for an outdoor adventure learning how to identify and prepare wild foods."

Speakers included:

Sam Thayer; He has been teaching for 10 years and recently published The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. He was editor for The Forager, a wild food periodical with subscribers across the US and Canada. He lives in Ogema, Wisconsin near National Forest Land. Forager's harvest website

Rose Barlow: An herbalist for over 20 years, practicing in the Wise Woman tradition. director of Coulee Region Herbal Institute in Souhwestern Wisconsin. Her website is prodicalgardens.info.

Matt Mattson,

Sunny Savage, formerly Johnson, creator of Wildfoodplants.com., has moved on from WETCC to sunny California, where the plants are very different but still very good.

Steve Dahlberg: Steve has fond memories of foraging as a kid, which he now passed on to his triplet 8-year-old boys and two teenage daughters. As science chari at the WETCC he incorporates wild edible plants and tracking into his classes He handcrafts knives and know a lot about trees.

Stephanie Williams: Stephanie is a White Earth band member whose first job is grandmother and her second job is Extension Coordinator at WETCC. She is also the teacher of wildly popular classes on medicinal plants, wild foods and making cremes and salves from natural ingredients

This is the experience promised to each paraticipant:

• Participants will be collecting food that will be consumed during the Wild Food Summit. Experts will be available to guide participants with cooking over the fire and pit cooking.
• Participants will also have the opportunity to learn the medicinal and utilitarian uses of plants.
• We will be experiencing a hunter/gatherers way of life, a little work and lots of playtime!
• This will be a hands on, collect all of our own food experience. We believe that the possibility of rumbling tummy's make for faster learning.
• No electricity, running water or other such amenities.
• We will be primitive camping by beautiful White Earth Lake. Portable toilets will be available.
• Please bring your own drinking water, nibi, dishes, cups and cutlery. Clean up before during and after will be a group shared event.