LOCALadk Magazine

Morris is hunting and fishing, along with food preparation and preservation. Fish, for example, would have been a significant commodity, and massive runs of smelt were netted, smoked and sent back to the Old World. Echoing other guides, Morris finds colonial life more satisfying than the modern world, and camaraderie among those who feel as he does. "is feels like home, and these people feel like family," he said. For Alex Nischa Meechgalanne Warrington and his son Dean, it is family, both modern and historic. His lineage includes the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, as well as French and Germanic. Alex is passing heritage and native language to his son, whose native name means water snake, "since I can't keep him out of the water." Dean said he is keen to follow his father's lead, and preserve what is otherwise likely to be lost. "I want to follow in his shadow as I get older and he gets older," he said. Passing down knowledge from one generation to another has fueled Dwight McGee, whose career includes 20 years as a Civil War reenactor and 15 years portraying a mountain man and teaching the skills employed by hunters and trappers, lone agents who went west in pursuit of furs and laid eyes on the Great Lakes region and the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys well in advance of any White settlement. Today, there is still adventure to be found exploring history and family genealogies. McGee has turned up the 17th century Frenchman Pierre-Georges Roy in his lineage, a trapper who married a Native American woman, whose family knew the French explorer Antoine Laumet, better known as Cadillac. "It totally blew me away; I'm riveted and can't wait to learn more," he said. underhawk strives to impart that passion for knowledge on young people, who at first are more enamored with a living history unit than they are a book. "is really gives them a different perspective," McCormack said. "It just clicks with them." "e biggest thing for us is to see those smiles," McGee said. Before they can learn, they first have to unlearn pop- culture conceptions of what colonial life was like. "ey think the settlers were living in forts, like what they see on TV," McCormack said. "We try to give a full immersion into the 18th century. Some of the people who come to see us are history buffs, and for some it's a brand-new experience." People who attend a underhawk reenactment learn arts such as fire starting, bow making, blacksmithing, weaving and foraging. Foraging, said Sawyer, has come something of a full circle, as today there is renewed appreciation of forest products that blur the line between food and medicine. e chaga fungus that grows on birch trees is used as a tea that people drink in part because it is believed to stop the growth of cancer cells. "All these foraged foods are becoming delicacies today," Sawyer said. "e old ways are becoming new ways to younger people." At the camp is a flour made up of pualls and acorns, and a variety of edible mushrooms that would have complemented game, crawfish or anything else that could be scavenged. It is educational for their visitors, but also a satisfying experience for the guides themselves, who find the native and natural way to be the better way. "Aer being out here," McCormack said, "we don't want to go back to modern life." LOCALadk 31

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