'Native American Harvest Celebration': Giving thanks at Artpark

From 1-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, Artpark & Company will present the first “Native Fall Harvest Celebration” of thanks with traditional songs, dance, harvest storytelling, a lacrosse workshop, interactive activities and a cornhusk doll workshop. Admission is free.

There will also be traditional foods, beading demonstrations and an interactive Native American marketplace – just in time for the holiday season.

Artpark & Company stated, “We will celebrate together in gratitude and give thanks to every living thing around for helping us live through sacrificing themselves to be food and clothing for us. We celebrate the harvest of our Three Sisters: the corn, bean and squash; the fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, fish, small game and other foods. We celebrate our ancestors' knowledge and their planting strategy practiced as we prepare Mother Earth for her blanket of snow and her time to replenish.”

Guests will find myriad demonstrations of unique crafts and skills throughout the day at the vendors' booths just past the main entrance and parking lot on South Fourth Street in Lewiston.

Images provided by Artpark & Company

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• 1 p.m.: Preparing the garden for her time of rest – smudging with the medicines for those who wish to do so; offering tobacco to the garden; all can participate
• 1:20 p.m.: Official welcome address with Jordan Smith
• 1:30 p.m.: Offer a song and a dance of gratitude to Mother Earth and the plant world to help prepare the garden for her blanket of snow
• 1:45 p.m.: Harvest teaching/story of the corn to celebrate Mother Earth by Perry Ground
• 1:55 p.m.: Friendship Round Dance; all participants may join in
• 2 p.m.: Weed and turnover the soil so the community garden will be ready for her rest period
• 2-4 p.m.: Create a harvest pony-bead wampum strand, visit the largest wampum display in America, and try drilling a wampum shell with Richard Hamell
• 2-2:45 p.m.: Back by popular demand – a lacrosse workshop! Join Ground in the Creator’s game; learn the meaning of it from the Indigenous lens, while working on several lacrosse techniques through various activities
• 2:15-3 p.m. Cornhusk dolls session one (Open to seven registrants); preregister by emailing [email protected]; at the workshop, create your own and learn the teaching of the cornhusk dolls and the importance of the harvest
• 3:15-4 p.m. Cornhusk dolls session two (open to eight registrants); preregister by emailing [email protected] 

For more information, visit www.artpark.net.