Youth learn how to grow traditional tobacco

Tobacco teachings were presented Feb. 13 by Laura Calmwind and Phyllis Shaugabay during this year’s Seven Sacred Teachings conference.
“Commercial tobacco has a lot of chemicals – it’s not really good for you when you smoke it,” said Calmwind, youth coordinator with the Chiefs of Ontario.
Calmwind showed the youth a bag of traditional tobacco, noting the differences between the commercial tobacco now sold in stores and the traditional tobacco once grown by First Nations people.
“This is the tobacco the Haudenosaunee grow,” Calmwind said. “The man who grows this tobacco has the original seeds that have been passed down through the generations.”
Calmwind said the man grows the tobacco the way it is supposed to be grown, by the seasons.
“This is pure tobacco,” Calmwind said.
More than 100 youth aged 12-29 from all across NAN territory attended the Seven Sacred Teachings conference, which was held Feb. 12-14 at the Best Western Nor’Wester Hotel and Conference Centre near Thunder Bay.
Calmwind also described the Three Nations Youth Tobacco Protocol Project that was completed over the past year focusing on how the youth feel about tobacco.
“The way we use tobacco now was not the way we used tobacco back in the olden days,” Calmwind said.
Calmwind stressed the project is aimed at educating people about what tobacco was used for, how it could make people strong when used properly and sick when used improperly.
Calmwind and Shaugabay then showed the youth how to make a form of tobacco by scraping the bark off three different types of willow trees.
Traditional tobacco is used in ceremonial pipes, as an offering or as a gift.
It should not be used for smoking or dipping, according to the Three Nations Youth Draft Tobacco Protocol.
After learning how to scrape the bark off the willow branches, Weagamow Lake’s Brent Patawanick is thinking about making more tobacco once he gets back to his community.
“These things are interesting,” Patawanick said. “I’d like to make my own now that I know how.”
Lakesha Meekis, a youth from Sioux Lookout, also enjoyed learning how to make tobacco from the different types of willow bark.
“I learned about the different kinds of tobacco and what it can do for you,” said. “I’m going to ask my grandfather about it.”
Poplar Hill’s Travis Moose found the Tobacco Teachings to be “very interesting,” noting he had attended the Tobacco Free conference the previous week in Thunder Bay.
“I’m trying to quit (smoking) too,” Moose said.