Stories and Storytelling

In the Ojibwe culture, storytelling is an ancient and important art. It’s how tales and teachings about the world are passed from generation to generation, from elder storytellers to eager children.

Tales are told all year long, but winter, especially, is a season of storytelling. The tradition stems back many generations to when, with each new season, the Ojibwe moved to different locations to harvest the resources from the land. In winter, they would move into large birch bark wigwams and live on the food they had collected and preserved during the spring, summer and fall.

The long, dark winter nights were perfect for telling stories around the fire the stories were entertaining and helped pass the time, but they also taught valuable lessons in life.