Many Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal members made their way to Michigan to attend the 2025 Pottawatomi Gathering hosted by Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish (also known as the Gun Lake Tribe). They danced, donned regalia and took part in many events. Here are just a few of the things Tribal members participated in there.

Craft vendors

Bodewadmi Mijem mine Nokjagen by Jody Gzhadawsot Mattena, Just Skirting Around by Alychia Wooton and My Ribbon Closet by Anna Johnson were just a few of the vendors represented by CPN.

Wooton, attending Gathering for the fifth year, and for the third year as a vendor, was selling ribbon skirts and said she’d had a positive experience with everyone being very friendly.

Johnson, whose booth had items such as clothing and earrings, was also passing out District 1 buttons to help fellow D1 residents find each other.

Seeing maple sugar made

CPN elders Marilyn Campbell, Reva Wolf and Kim Nootbarr made their way to the Sugarhouse (Skegmezgegemek), where volunteers demonstrated turning maple sap into maple sugar.

The sap was cooked in a large, steel pot over a camp stove until it reached the right temperature, then poured into a wooden trencher where those watching were invited to help stir the syrup until it turned into sugar. Volunteers also passed around the newly made sugar for everyone to try.

“I was really surprised that it didn’t take forever. And the taste! I could have licked the whole trough up,” Campbell said, describing the taste to be like “coming home.”

“I was fascinated by the process and the explanation of it,” Wolf said. “And then they asked if we had a song for maple syrup, and all we had was the Invitation Song. So we started that song, and they gifted me some sweetgrass.”

Nootbaar echoed those thoughts, and said she loved being on the grounds and seeing things such as the wildflowers and butterflies there.

“Being here and seeing the layout of the grounds and how beautiful it is and how they care about their grounds has been really impressive,” she said.

First ever Gathering

Bear Southwell, a Rhodd family member from Chickasha, Oklahoma, was attending his first ever Gathering this year.

When asked his favorite parts, he talked about the maple sugar demonstration, also adding, “The food and seeing all of the regalia is really nice.”

Carrying the eagle staff

For the Grand Entry at noon on Saturday, Aug. 2, the children were the ones that led the way right behind the veterans and head dancers.

For that event, CPN veterans asked sisters Bailey and Ashlyn Ogle to carry in the eagle staves.

Bailey said she is not a veteran herself but explained that her father was an Army veteran who served in the Gulf War in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He walked on in 2016 due to a service-related illness.

“They so kindly asked me to carry the staff, and it’s a great honor,” Bailey said.

She also spoke of the connection she feels to eagles. Bailey is now a third-year law student, but she remembers when she was taking the LSAT test to get into law school, a bald eagle circled above her house for the two days she was taking the exam. She hadn’t seen it before and has not seen it since, and the memory has stayed with her.

Looking ahead

Next year’s Potawatomi Gathering will be hosted by the Forest County Potawatomi in Wisconsin.