Skip to content Skip to main navigation Skip to footer

Month: October 2025

October 29, 2025 in Uncategorized

Brothertown Elder Interview Workshop (Zoom), Eeyamquittoowauconnuck Day 2025

Come together as our Tribal family for an important event on Zoom on November 7.

For Eeyamquittoowauconnuck (Brothertown) Day, 2025, Brothertown Indian Nation and Calumet and Cross Heritage Society are proud to announce that Dr. Courtney Gerzetich, Brothertown’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) and a member of the Calumet and Cross Board, will be offering a presentation on interviewing tribal elders. 

The workshop will begin at 6 pm CT/7 pm ET/5 pm MT/4 pm PT on November 7th and will cover equipment set-up, interview questions, and tips for preserving and sharing your interviews.

For additional information you can see more details of the presentation here….

Take advantage of the upcoming holiday season to sit down with your family members and ask them to share their memories with you. Everyone’s stories are essential, and we can all contribute to the collection and preservation of our tribal history by speaking with and interviewing our relatives and, with their permission, sharing a copy for the tribe’s archives.

    How to attend: Zoom—link with sign-on instructions and passcode are available by contacting CalumetAndCross@gmail.com or webmaster@brothertownindians.org

    Relevance to our Tribe: our history and shared memories are essential to our heritage.  Going back to the 1980s, when this project first began, it was a vital key to our shared Tribal knowledge of our family stories and memories. This includes both our struggles and our celebrations, which can’t be lost to our future generations.

    What is Eeyamquittoowauconnuck (Brothertown) Day?

    This day, by proclamation by the Brothertown Tribal Council, we celebrate not only our Tribal heritage, but the decades of trials that our Ancestors endured (from New England, to New York, Indiana, and on to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, etc.), and still endure to this day.

    It is a testament that we, as a tribal family, “are still here!  240 years later (Nov 7, 1785), following these words “We now proceeded to form into a Body Politick -We named our town by the name of Brotherton, in Indian—Eeyamquittoowauconnuck” (Occom 1785)

    All Brothertown, each of whom proudly recognizes themselves as the “Brothertown Indian Nation”, with both our Tribal friends and our Tribal cousins, come together to celebrate Community, with one voice—as a single tribe. Whether in Fond du Lac, greater Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Pacific Northwest, and a multitude of other locations – we are Brothertown and stand proudly together.

    October 28, 2025 in Uncategorized

    Lake Winnebago wild rice restoration project continues despite federal funding cut – WPR

    By Trevor Hook  Wisconsin Public Radio, October 6, 2025

    Intertribal Lake Winnebago Wild Rice Revitalization Project seeks to merge mainstream, Indigenous methods to preserve wild rice

    To view the entire article, and to listen to the podcast – Click here…

    For Jessica Skeesuck, vice chair of the Brothertown Indian Nation, restoring wild rice goes beyond just helping the environment.

    “It is an important food from a nutritional value perspective, but also from a very important cultural perspective for many tribes, including Brothertown Indian Nation,” Skeesuck told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”

    Skeesuck and Jessie Conaway, an outdoor educator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are co-leads on the Intertribal Lake Winnebago Wild Rice Revitalization Project. 

    For three years, Skeesuck, Conaway and other collaborators have worked to reseed wild rice across the lake by combining mainstream science and Indigenous reseeding methods. This can mean reseeding via “broadcasting” — throwing rice directly into the water — or by mixing wild rice with nearby clay and sediment to create “mud balls” to then place into the water.

    To view the entire article, and to listen to the podcast – Click here…

    “My great hope is that we will continue to have improved collaborative relationships … so that the quality of the water and the quality of the sediment is improved,” Skeesuck said. “In this day and age, we know that water is a scarcity. We have some really high quality water in the area. If we are able to do that in a good way, then the rice will survive and we will be able to take care of our people and our animal relatives that depend on it.”

    October 20, 2025 in Uncategorized

    BIN Homecoming 2025 was an event to remember!

    Special Occasion:  Celebrating Brothertown Indian Nation Bingo’s 20th anniversary!

    Dawn Kraintz was presented with the Joseph Johnson award while her husband, Dan Kraintz, was awarded the Thomas Dean Award for their efforts going above and beyond, over the past 20 years, in support of Brothertown Indian Nation through the operation of Brothertown Bingo.

    We also introduced two new members to the tribe via our cradle roll! They, along with many family members, travelled all the way from Canada. There was a presentation by Brothertown Tom Smith on the trail markers our ingenious ancestors used. Finally, for our younger generations, storytelling with BIN Storyteller Shelli Dekker (click here for a snippet of her telling of “Robin Squash”). 

    The food was superb, as usual, and our family of vendors, along with everyone who shared stories and memories at this Tribal family event, made the day complete.

    Congratulations to our newest members and to Dawn and Dan!

    Mark your calendars to attend Homecoming —3rd Saturday of October 2026!  

    A special snippet of Brothertown Indian Nation Storyteller Shelli Dekker telling the ending of the story of the Robin Squash… (Apologies about the audio, it was a beautiful day, but windy as you can hear).

    October 1, 2025 in Uncategorized

    PNW Gallery is now live from August!

    The Pacific Northwest gathering was held on August 23, 2025, at Milo McIver State Park in Estacada, Oregon.

    Despite the crushing heat that day, this official Brothertown Indian Nation gathering was attended by upwards of 60 people, including three tribal Council members (Vice Chair, Jessica Ryan; Secretary Melissa Kavonius, and Dawn Kraintz). The day’s events included a potluck lunch, games and activities, and an enrollment ceremony where eleven children were welcomed into the tribe.

    View and enjoy the PNW Gathering by clicking here…..

    Be sure to view all the new Galleries of events recently added at the end of the post, below…

    View the gallery and join our Brothertown Family from the Pacific Northwest as they celebrate extended community, shared bond, and our mutual heritage. Over 40 photographs of the day’s activities and our cousins are available for you to view and share. As you see, it was quite a day!

    If you’d like to be put on the list to be notified of future PNW gatherings, please reach out to SethElsen@gmail.com. If you plan to present children to the Tribe at a future event, please get in touch with the Brothertown office at (920) 907-0624 or BrothertownOffice@brothertownindians.org with any questions.

    Other new events of the Brothertown Indian Nation have been recently added, and most were included in the New Fall 2025 BIN Newsletter, which was just released and sent out.

    Enrollled Members can sign up to recieve the quarterly BIN Newsleter here...

    The New Galleries of recently added BIN Events are now live on the website include: