Join us for food and stories!
Bay Mills Community College is holding our 15th Annual Spring Feast on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at Adikameg Hall (Lower Level).
At 10:30 am we will be welcoming Howard Webkamigad to share cultural stories. Webkamigad is a first language speaker, has been a professor of Anishinaabemowin at multiple higher learning institutions, and is the author of “Ottawa Stories from the Springs: Anishinaabe dibaadjimowinan wodi gaa binjibaamigak wodi mookodjiwong e zhinikaadek.”
The feast will follow from 11:45 am to 1 pm.
Everyone is welcome and is encouraged to bring a dish to pass!
Learn More About Howard Webkamigad
Howard Webkamigad was born and raised in the WiikwemikooNsing area of the Wiikwemikoong Indian Reservation on Manitoulin Island in anishinaabe akiing. But our land was divided by outsiders, so that area is now called Canada. He was raised in an anishinaabe speaking home as his Mother did not speak any English at all whereas his father learned to read a write and speak some English at the local residential school they had up on the hill in Wiikwemikoong in the early 1900’s. Howard’s anishinaabe life was interrupted when he was taken away from his family and transported many miles away to a residential school far from WiikwemikooNsing. There he had to learn English and he soon learned it quickly because he did not like being strapped for speaking anishinaabe the only language he knew which was forbidden to be spoken at that residential school. Those people who ran the school were mean to them.
He was there for almost three years as they were beginning to close down those places and he went home where he went to school on the rez. That school was not any better as it was run by the same type of people who ran the residential school. But he was home with his family.
His mom and dad always encouraged him to study hard and he did do quite well in school. He did eventually go to university where he eventually got an MA degree in education at Michigan State University.
He worked at several universities since he graduated from MSU, six years at CMU in Michigan and 24 years at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. He now works for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe in their Education Department.
He has been teaching the anishinaabe language for many years. He helped to develop the BA program in anishinaabe language at Algoma University. He enjoys working in the anishinaabe language as it is fun for him. He used to tell people who ask about the language and its intricacies, ‘That is just the way it is.’, and he now tells students who ask why is it like that, he tells them, ‘When it is your time to meet nenibozhoo, ask him why he made the language that way.’
His favorite saying is,
‘aapidji go wenapanad maanda anishinaabemowin.’ Which is easy for him to say.