Menominee Indian Tribe donates tree to Maritime Heritage Alliance
In 1982 Maritime Heritage Alliance of Traverse City, Michigan was formed. The group of 300-400 volunteers include some boat builders, sailors, historians, fundraisers and other dedicated individuals interested in nurturing maritime education in young people and restoring and preserving the tall ships of the Great Lakes.
In 1992, Maritime Heritage Alliance took on a formidable task when it assumed ownership of the 1775 British Sloop replica Welcome.
The ship was badly deteriorated and was in desperate need to be refurbished. Over the past ten years restoration of Welcome has occurred. The culminating piece to the restoration was a search for a tall straight-white pine to serve as it's mast. Because the Welcome's mast was designed to be more than 65-feet high, a tree in the 100-foot range was required.
After two fruitless years spent searching the Northwoods, it was
learned through the Michigan DNR foresters, the Menominee Indian
Reservation has a vast growth of trees. The Maritime Heritage Alliance made a
few phone calls to see if finding a tall straight white pine would be
feasible. On June 09,2004 a visit was made to the Menominee Indian
Reservation. The members of the Alliance team liked what they saw.
"They told us that they'd never seen anything quite like this in
Michigan". The white pine was found in the area Jeff Dixon and his
crew of Jay Tourtillott and Art Herman Fish were cutting. On June 28,
sawyer Jeff Dixon and his crew donated their expertise and machinery to fell the
100-footer tree and bring the pine from the forest.
The Menominee Indian Tribe donated the tree to maritime Heritage Alliance. A bronze plaque acknowledging the Menominee Indian Tribe and the crest of the Menominee Indian Tribe will be on permanent display on the mast. An additional goodwill gesture will be to present a flag of the Menominee Indian Tribe to Maritime Heritage Alliance to fly on Welcome.
Assisting Maritime Heritage Alliance and the Menominee Indian Tribe was Bill Schmidt, Marketing Specialist of Menominee Tribal Enterprises. Schmidt explained that the donation was borne of shared values between the tribe and the mariners. "I think it had something to do with the word 'heritage'" he said. "They seem to be proud of theirs and we have some very strong feeling about ours. Everything about what they're doing is to preserve tradition and history, and we do the same thing. That's goodwill."
On July 7, 2004 at the Neopit Pavilion a tree blessing ceremony took place. An escort by Menominee Tribal Police was provided when the eastern white pine was presented for the blessing. Rich Brauer, President of Maritime Heritage Alliance and the other Maritime Heritage representatives visited the Menominee Indian Reservation to give thanks and participate in the blessing of the log, given by Joey Awonohopay. President Brauer expressed, "This is a dream come true. We are very blessed to have the support of the Menominee Tribe and I thank you on behalf of the Board of Directors." "We searched High and Low for timber of this beauty" he said. "Our builder Bob Core has pretty high standards and that's why we requested this wonderful gift. The biggest thing is getting the right materials," he said. "I spent two years looking for a tree for this mast that was good enough, and this is it." We are grateful to the tribe and to Menominee Tribal Enterprises. We wanted a good mast on this ship. It wasn't something we wanted to compromise on. We were blessed to have the support of the Menominee Tribe. Mr. Brauer announced the Maritime Heritage Alliance will be developing an educational scholarship to benefit Menominee Indian Tribe.
A Kenworth truck owned and operated by Phil Jonassen, Inc., Structural movers out of Hart, Michigan had the formidable task of transporting the fabulous white pine from the Menominee Indian Reservation to Traverse City, Michigan where it will be fashioned into the sails mast for the ship Welcome. From now and into the years ahead the heritage of the Menominee Indian people is joined with the heritage of the Welcome and Maritime Heritage Alliance.