Educational Services
Our latest traveling exhibit; At the Southern Door, Life in the Potawatomi Homeland 1400 - 1640 AD, will be available for three month lease as of June, 2008. This 4500 sq. ft. exhibit follows the annual seasonal economic activities and movements of a Potawatomi family prior to European contact. The exhibit is complete with a bark summer house and a winter mat house, 4 canoes and an abundance of hands-on, interactive activities to engage visitors.
Our traditional bark wigwam, called a nswe’ogen, is one of our most unique tools for hands-on learning about Native American lifeways and heritage. Every year, this structure visits dozens of schools and special events throughout Michigan and abroad. The house is the perfect size to fit an average class of students, and makes an amazing classroom where we can explore, first hand, the daily activities and lifeways of historic Native American families. The house is currently available for both schools and special events.
Arts and Technologies Workshops
We offer in depth, hand-on workshops for all ages on many different arts, technologies and skills. We believe that the best way to pass on and preserve the practice of these skills is for folks to learn and practice them. Though we do offer some classes locally, we most often will travel to a location to provide a class or workshop series. We have also customized workshops for docent/interpreter training sessions for museums and interpretive sites, providing interpreters with new skills and experiences to draw from in their work with the public.
Great lakes Indian Architecture
One of our strongest specialties is the replication of accurate, full sized, historic, Native American houses of the Eastern Woodlands. Over the last decade we have built over twenty structures, and have stayed in a few as working dwellings for various lengths of time. As historic native architectural traditions are often poorly understood and largely misinterpreted we have dedicated a large amount of effort to the research and understanding of this important technological tradition.
Dugout and Bark Canoe Building
We build custom reproductions of native watercraft for museums and interpretive facilities as well as building canoes as educational demonstrations and as part of artist-in-residencies. We also have multiple canoes available for use in programming and for lease as props for the film and television production industry. We have build both bark canoes (elm- Southern Great Lakes and birch- Northern Great Lakes) in addition to historic and prehistoric copies of original dugout canoes.
Ancient Pathways Cultural Resource Group 3494 28th St. Hopkins MI 49328 Tel: 269-793-8730 pathways@altelco.net