For many years now I have been fascinated by the art of the Woodland Native Indians. Several of these prints adorn a couple of my livingroom walls and I enjoy their simplicity of stylistic rendering and colourful design. One of my favourite artists was a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Chee Chee who tragically met his end at a very early age. Benjamin was a Manitoulin painter who produced a very elegant style of art. His father died shortly after his birth. His mother became an alcoholic who disappeared from his life. Ever hopeful that his mother would see one of his works of art and contact him was a dream that never became a reality for the painter. At the age of 33, Benjamin Chee Chee took his own life. He left behind a few pieces of some very beautiful work. 
I had mentioned to a friend of mine who operated an art gallery in Vancouver how much I had admired Chee Chee's work and learned that she had known him personally and handled some of his fine prints. She sent me a lovely card graced by one of Benjamin Chee Chee's paintings called "friends".
The Canadian First Nations Native and Inuit Internet Resource site is part of a larger site that contains many lovely prints and much more. I spent a long time browsing and whiling away a good part of the day, lost to time, there were so many interesting and beautiful things to see and read.
CANADIAN FIRST NATIONS NATIVE and INUIT RESOURCES
A few years ago, daughter #2 and her husband taught school in the Northwest Territories on the south shore of Great Slave Lake. Her husband taught full time and she only in the mornings. Having graduated with her BFA, she became very interested in the local art and crafts and furthered her education by taking lessons on making traditional mukluks and mittens with their colourful embroidery and gorgeous beadwork.
For some information and fine examples of beadwork, visit the Beadwork Resource Pages which also contain many other links of similar interest.
It is no secret that I collect herbal books and have also been interested in what is sometimes called "bush medicine". Remember the Medicine Man movie with Sean Connery? I think I've seen that one at least five times and counting!
Alternate medicine is gaining interest and along with it we seem to look to the past and think of the old remedies that our grandparents used, these probably being handed down as an oral tradition or practice from their parents. My grandmother had a plethora of these much to our family delight and interest, not to mention, use.
If you enjoy such reading, look into the Traditional Herbal and Plant knowledge page. Learn about plants for food, teas, medicines. There are field ID photos and botanical information along with multi-tribal uses, phytochemical analyis and on...
Here is a site for those interested in cooking, health and nutrition in general along with Inter-tribal recipes. Enjoy maple syrup? wild rice? there are Indian recipes contributed by many great Indian cooks, including some men. Two cooks part with their "secret" wild rice recipes.
One of the most beautiful night skies I have ever witnessed occurred while travelling through the mountains in Spain. Our bus driver stopped at a lonely outpost miles from anywhere and when the last person left the bus, the headlights were turned off leaving us literally in the dark. There above us glowed the milky way, stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, a breathtaking display none of us will ever forget. (I wish the driver had mentioned that this was also a 'pit' stop.) How often do you sit outside and look at the stars? or marvel at the Mir station or other satellites passing overhead? The ancients spent many moons viewing the night skies, (Mir excepted) thus a whole culture of astronomay and lore developed around their observations.
Learn about native astronomy, the Lakota sacred constellations, ancient northern Plains stone Medicine Wheels, naked-eye stargazing, petroglyphs of the crab nebula supernova, and starmaps.
In a little different vein, but nonetheless interesting, are the Maya people of Mexico and central America. Not all that long ago I had the experience of visiting a few of the Mayan sites in the Yucatan peninsula - Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Tulum, a coastal Mayan site.
To understand more about Maya science teaching, numbers, vocabulary, maps, folktales, art and the modern Mayan peoples the following site has it all with writeups on the many Mayan sites along with maps. 16 City/States in all with their descriptions, indepth discussions of city layouts and architecture - from the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
The following address takes you to the Native Nations Official tribal sites and sites that are unofficial. All U.S. and Canadian Nations, if known, appear here.
AMERICAN INDIAN LINK PAGE
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