A handful of staff and students at Algoma University learned how to make lacrosse sticks - Anishinaabe style - during a workshop in Shingwauk Auditorium Sunday.
Facilitator Frank Belleau says the lacrosse sticks being made at the workshop aren’t like the modern ones seen today.
“Basically it’s a woodland game, so we played with the round style stick,” Belleau told SooToday. “That’s our traditional style that we play here in the Great Lakes.”
Belleau recounts the story of how a game of lacrosse played during the summer of 1763 at Fort Michilimackinac resulted in a coup - and the fort’s subsequent takeover - by Ojibwe forces, dubbed by some as the deadliest game of lacrosse ever played.
It’s important that Anishinaabe people recognize lacrosse as a part of their history, he says.
“I feel my ancestors with me. It’s trying to bring back something that was taken,” Belleau said. “One of the first things that they took was our way of doing things, and lacrosse was one of them.”
“It’s important that we get back to something that made us who we are.”
Belleau played hockey for years, but after the sport “messed up” his knees, he needed another outlet for his competitive side.
It was around the same time that Belleau was invited out by some his friends to play lacrosse at the Rankin Arena Sunday evenings.
He took them up on their offer, playing in net at the age of 53.
“All the time I played hockey, I didn’t feel right,” said Belleau. “But when I step out on the court to play lacrosse, I feel like I’m at home.”
Belleau is now a lacrosse enthusiast, building his own traditional Anishinaabe lacrosse sticks right from scratch.
“That’s what I like about lacrosse, it knows no colour,” he said. “It just knows love for the game.”
The lacrosse stick workshop was sponsored by Ontario Indian Residential School Support Services and Anishinaabe Initiatives.