A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A crowd of tribal officials, band members and other local dignitaries prepare to ceremoniously break ground at the site of the new Cultural Language and Learning Center on Big Lake Road in Cloquet.
A crowd of about 50 people gathered Aug. 14 to celebrate the start of something new: the Fond du Lac Cultural Language and Learning Center.
Although it's a vacant lot now, by March 2020 the site will be home to a new building for Anishinaabe language and cultural health programs.
Many members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and other local officials and construction industry representatives gathered near Tribal Center on a plot of land off Big Lake Road, eager to learn more about the new center.
"The new center is about connection," band member "Gwiiwizens" Ricky DeFoe said. "Connection to our elders and ancestors, and to all those yet to come. We do all this to show the young ones what to do and what we can do as a community."
The project has been in the planning and organization stage for almost five years and will cost an estimated $4.1 million. The new center will include a cultural library with rare Anishinaabe books. It will also house a cultural medicine center and a large space for community events.
