Congratulations to our King Family Bursary winners!
Posted on April 10, 2017
The Georgian Bay Land Trust is delighted to announce the winners of this year’s King Family Bursary. Supported by the Wally and Marilyn King Endowment Fund, as well as an anonymous donor, the bursary provides $3,500 to support projects that promote knowledge and appreciation of eastern Georgian Bay and/or the North Channel.
This year’s winners are both embarking on very important projects for Georgian Bay. Katherine Denune will spend the summer tackling one of the biggest threats to conservation on the Bay, invasive Phragmites, while Boshdayosgaykwe will set out to document one of the area’s most important cultural practices, the art of quillwork. Congratulations to both winners, and thank you to the donors and volunteers who make this bursary possible!
Boshdayosgaykwe / Tracey Pawis
Boshdayosgaykwe is an Ojibway/Potawatomi Quill worker from Wasauksing First Nation, (Anishinabe Territory) Ontario, Canada. Through teachings received by her mother and ancestors, she recognizes the importance of celebrating a long-lived tradition. As an Ojibway/Potawatomi woman she notices and has accepted within her heart the responsibility of being a strong and courageous woman with love and kindness in the best way she knows and continuing the pride of her culture through quillwork.
This project is a set of pictures in booklet form of completed quillwork that outline a recorded five generations of quillwork within Tracey’s lineage. Quillwork is a skill that has been practiced for hundreds of years beyond the recorded works this book will outline. Learning to make and create quillwork has been a personal goal of Tracey’s towards preserving, protecting, and promoting her Ojibway/Potawatomi heritage.
“Georgian Bay is recognized as Anishinabe territory. The work that’s completed is a true testament of the learned traditions that have been carried on through my family’s generations. This history carries and holds strong within me, and as an Anishinabe woman, I carry pride and love for this time honoured tradition.”
-Boshdayosgaykwe
Katherine Denune
Growing up spending summers on the waters of the eastern Georgian Bay has instilled in Katherine a passion and commitment to protecting this magnificent ecosystem. Katherine is entering her fourth year at Ohio State University majoring in Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology with a special focus on conservation and restoration. This summer she will be creating a comprehensive baseline assessment of the invasive reed,Phragmites, from Parry Sound to Twelve Mile Bay to enable and encourage future management and eradication efforts. Katherine will be promoting community knowledge and engagement in Phragmites eradication efforts throughout her project, and will produce a guide to Phragmites identification and removal that can be used throughout Georgian Bay.
“I am very honored to receive the King Family Bursary Award and excited to further address invasive phragmites in the Georgian Bay. This support will assist in documenting the current distribution to enable further removal and monitoring efforts. I look forward to sharing and engaging with others who are concerned about preserving our remarkable and pristine shoreline.”
-Katherine Denune