Lakehead students raise $400 for First Nation maple syrup producers

Maple syrup producers on Fort William First Nation, in northwestern Ontario,are getting some financial help from the Indigenous Law Students Association at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

The association raised $400 through a pancake lunch.

A member of the Fort William First Nation said the donation will help get the sugar bush operation up and running.

"We have a lot of trees that we can tap, but we have very little equipment to do that, Damien Lee said.

Each bucket and tap assemblage costs about $10, so to do 60 of those is going to be $600."

In addition to buying equipment, Lee said they'll use the money for firewood, gas for transportation, and anything else that might be needed to work in the sugar bush this year.

Pancake lunch organizer SamanthaRamage said about 70 people attended the event, which "exceeded expectations."

"The reason why we chose the sugar bush fund is because it complements what we've learned in our schooling so far around indigenous legal traditions, she said.

We've learned so much about how indigenous legal traditions are drawn out from the land in many cases."

Ramage said they also wanted to make a statement that they acknowledged the indigenous legal traditions that existed before contact and that continue to exist today.

'Giving back'

Lee said the law students' initiative to maintain good relations with the community is an excellent illustration of his cultures ideology.

We hosted them and now they're giving back to us, and that to me is a perfect example of Anishinabek law in action," he said.

Ramage saidshe hopes the event will be the start of a continuing relationship between the Indigenous law students and Fort William First Nation.