Nareh VartanianICT + Marquette University
MILWAUKEE – The smoky scent of sage wafted around the Waukesha Expo Center, signifying that the Indian Summer Festival’s Spring Powwow and Native Art Market was about to begin. Walking past the 24 vendors at 8:30 a.m. while they set up their booths, the excitement was palpable. After a seven year hiatus, the festival was finally back.
The festival kicked off with a huge ribbon cutting ceremony as the volunteers, sponsors and Waukesha City Mayor Shawn Reilly, stood behind the yellow ribbon. Hundreds of community members watching in anticipation, anxiously waiting for the event they’d missed to return.
“Without [help from] everybody here and their persistence and consistency, we aren’t able to come together,” said Lloyd Ninham, citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and CEO of the Indian Summer Festival.
The original festival ran from 1980 to 2019, and served as a way to unite Milwaukee’s 14,000 American Indian/Alaska Native residents each summer. Community members missed the original event so much, they set out to recreate its magic, Ninham said.
Ninham and others began planning to re-start the organization and festival two years ago.
“It’s just been one massive labor of love,” Ninham told ICT.
This spring version of the summer festival still found a way to recreate buzzing summer energy in the indoor expo center. The Indigenous artists set up stands filled with their work on the first and second floors of the building. Hundreds of attendees walked slowly alongside one another, asking artists about creating drums and just how much time that goes into beadwork. Meanwhile, children slid their newly-bought new toys across the floor in front of the center’s bleachers.
The Milwaukee Indian Summer festival in late-march provided space for dozens of Indigenous vendors to sell their artwork. Credit: Nareh Vartanian, ICT + Marquette University
Along with the art market, the Indian Summer Festival hosted a powwow led by the Forest County Potawatomi Color Guard. Nearby, girls sat in the bleachers braiding each other’s hair in preparation for the powwow, and community members continued to soak in their first gathering since 2019.
Thirteen-year-old Braxton Woskeski, a citizen of the Oneida Indian Nation of Wisconsin, said he had dual motives for volunteering at the festival. Woskeksi’s mom, who runs the Off the Trail food truck, had fond memories of attending the festival as a child, and this year the family planned to return as vendors.
“I’m just really glad to be here and help out,” Woskeski said.
Credited by his peers as being a great ambassador for his culture, Woskeski likes to involve his friends in events like these.
“If they’re Native or not; I like to show them how we do it around here,” he said.
Lawrence “Butch” Roberts, citizen of the Oneida Indian Nation of Wisconsin, said he’s very familiar with the impact that the festival tradition had on his community.
The Milwaukee Indian Summer festival in late-march provided space for dozens of Indigenous vendors to sell their artwork. Credit: Nareh Vartanian, ICT + Marquette University
“Indian Summer was a point where people would come down every year, and I’d see family, friends and meet new people,” Roberts said. “So it was really a family slash community gathering.”
Even with the gap in years that the Indian Summer Festival has been hosted, Roberts said he believes that the amount of enthusiasm remained just as high as if the festival had never ended. The future of the event seems bright, he said.
“Indian people are very resourceful and resilient, and we’re seeing that again with the development of this Indian Summer,” Roberts said.
Looking to the future, the three day upcoming fall festival in late September will operate off of the money generated from the March edition of the Indian Summer Festival.
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