St. Louis River Summit

Michael Waasegiizhig Price is the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Specialist at the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission headquartered in Odanah, WI. He is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of Wikwemikong First Nations, Canada. His role as TEK Specialist involves integrating Anishinaabe language and cultural perspectives into research methods and resource management to make science more culturally relevant. Michael received his Master of Science in Forestry from the University of Montana and a Bachelor of Art in Biology from Benedictine College in Atchison, KS. He also received his Certificate of Ojibwe Language Instruction from Bemidji State University.

Moderated by Anne Dugan, independent curator and instructor of art history at the College of St. Scholastica and the University of Wisconsin Superior

This panel features artists offering diverse perspectives on the connection between art and the waters of our region. For millennia, water has served as an invariable subject and inspiration and art has been a tool of cultural production and interpretation. Art functions in many ways. It is a source of expression. It can connect us deeply with each other and with our place. It can foster stewardship and provoke social change. It can record, interpret, and reinterpret history. It can be of great comfort to the artist and its audience. It can simply be beautiful. These many functions of art inspired by place feed reciprocally back into the care and protection of land and water.

At the St. Louis River Summit, we encourage speakers from across disciplines to share their knowledge in a space where everyone learns together. This event clusters submitted talks of 10 or 20 minutes on a variety of river-related topics into sessions across multiple days. This year, the first day of session talks on March 8 will take place in a virtual Zoom environment, and the second and third days of session talks on March 9 and 10 will be delivered live in-person at the Yellowjacket Union on the UW-Superior campus. The session full schedule will become available in early February.

People with shared interests and unique knowledge have a lot to talk about when they come together! The Summit strives to support collaboration on timely topics to the St. Louis River community by creating space for networking sessions.  These optional sessions are established through the submission of an abstract indicating interest in hosting a conversation or smaller work session during the Summit. This year, networking sessions will be held in side rooms at the Yellowjacket Union during the lunch hour on March 9 and 10. Session topics will be announced in early February.

All registered Summit attendees are welcome to attend the event’s poster session, where presenters highlight updates from new and ongoing projects connected to the St. Louis River area. New this year: we’ve issued a call for artist submissions at the poster session! Art and poster submissions will be featured alongside each other. This session is an opportunity to connect with colleagues and community members. This year, the poster session will be hosted in-person at UW-Superior’s Yellowjacket Union in the early evening of March 9. The session will make use of the ample space in the Great Room to showcase posters and art, and light refreshments will be served. A cash bar will be available.

For the third year in a row, the Summit is offering an opportunity for attendees to get out and experience this amazing place! We have all new field trips planned for this year. There are three field trip opportunities that attendees can choose from and sign up for at the time of registration (at no additional cost). Field trips are space-limited, and will be available until full.

Field trip participants will receive additional information about their event from their trip leader in the week leading up to the Summit.