Wayne Valliere
From our president
Wayne’s Bio
Birchbark canoes are a pinnacle of Anishinaabe culture—both beautiful and among the most sophisticated inland watercraft in the world. Mino-Giizhig (Wayne Valliere) is one of the few Native birchbark canoe builders in the U.S., dedicating his life to preserving this art and his culture.
Born with a white streak in his hair, Valliere’s grandmother said it signified a “spirit of an old Indian” within him. From a young age, he immersed himself in Anishinaabe traditions, starting with painting scenes of Ojibwe life. Over time, he sought to create the crafts he depicted, learning from elders and reverse-engineering historical techniques.
Valliere’s artistry spans beadwork, quillwork, drums, pipes, and more, but he is best known as a birchbark canoe builder, a skill he learned with his brother Leon. Building a canoe requires deep knowledge of the forest to gather materials: birchbark for the hull, cedar for ribs, spruce roots for stitching, and pine pitch for tar. Canoes, historically vital for transport and hunting, remain integral to Anishinaabe life, symbolizing their worldview. In Ojibwe, the canoe’s bow and stern—niigaan jiimaan and ishkweyaan jiimaan—also mean future and past, reflecting life’s journey.
As a teacher at Lac du Flambeau Public School, Valliere mentors apprentices and supports Native communities to keep this tradition alive. Recognized with awards for his work, Valliere’s canoes embody culture, identity, and the future of the Anishinaabe people.
By Tim Frandy, Western Kentucky University
A Message from Wayne
Niigaan means the future. And as Anishinaabi people, we are always looking towards the future, way far in the future. If you can imagine a baby sitting in a cradle board, way down the road, so far you can barely see it. That represents Ge Ondaadizijig, the ones who are not yet born. The things we do today, if it’s good enough for that baby way down there, it is good enough for us to do today.
With that said, we’re always thinking about the ones not yet born. And the great changes that have happened to the Anishinaabe, the history is their story. It isn’t our story. And how we have a story, we have a culture, we have a language, we have a worldview. And it’s beautiful.
And so the message and the mission is cultural, environmental, it’s about resiliency for the ones not yet born, Ge Ondaadizijig. In thinking about the tracks that we’re leaving, or where our tracks come from, a lot of times our elders tell us that we can know a lot about a tribe or a people by where their tracks come from.
And that’s the truth, because you only leave one track. There again, it’s thinking about Ge Ondaadizijig, our grandmother, the earth, and the importance of finding similarities in cultures, rather than differences, building upon them as a strong human tribe.
So Oshki Anishinaabe is about the new Indians. And guess what, those Indians aren’t born yet. That’s why we’re planting seeds through filming the cultural activities that happen throughout the year, the Industrial Year. It’s about planting seeds and new tracks to follow, tracks where everybody’s feet can fit in. And they all head in the same direction.
That one single powerful word, debwewin? Debwewin means to speak the truth, to live the truth, to act the truth, and to think the truth. All four things.
Wayne Valliere
Wayne Valliere