Location: Poletown, Waawiyaatanong (Detroit/Windsor) – Banks of the Bloody Run
Project lead: Hadassah GreenSky Meshekey (LTBB Odawa)
Mission
To nurture cultural reconnection and continuity through land-based learning for Anishinaabe people, their Indigenous kin, and their allies. To live in balance by healing our community and local ecosystem through land re-matriation and ancestrally-rooted lifeways.
Reclaiming Land and Legacy in Poletown, Detroit
Noojimo’waning (The Nooj’), Anishinaabemowin for "The Place of Healing," is an Anishinaabe-led land back* initiative on five city lots in Poletown, Detroit, created in partnership with Arboretum Detroit (The Arb) and The Flicker Exchange.
Arboretum Detroit is a non-profit organization dedicated to building and maintaining, in perpetuity, an internationally recognized arboretum spanning the city and inspiring visitors with the love and stewardship of trees. Their mission is to demonstrate reforesting Detroit’s landscape with stands that exhibit the form and diversity of trees, educating about the cultural, ecological, aesthetic, and economic role that trees play in our lives locally and globally.
The Nooj’ expands the Arboretum's mission of ecological restoration through Indigenous-rooted land stewardship. Guided by Akinomaage – Anishinaabemowin for “learning from the land which you are on;” The Nooj’s programming provides access to skills and knowledge built by the Anishinaabe culture over millennia, restoring human-land relationships for Native and Non-Native peoples alike. Offerings have included workshops on traditional crop pairings, hominy processing through nixtamalization, and traditional storytelling events.
Led by Hadassah GreenSky, an Anishinaabe, Detroit-based artist, musician, organizer and cultural worker; Noojimo’waning serves as a vital space for Indigenous ceremony, environmental stewardship through land re-matriation, and a land base for cultural preservation, addressing Detroit's complex history of land dispossession under colonization.
* Noojimo’waning defines Land Back as the return of Indigenous land taken through genocide, land theft and manipulative tax laws to Indigenous stewardship for the purpose of building a world premised on Indigenous values of interspecies responsibility and balance.
Timeline
2024- First discussions about tangible Land Back between Hadassah Greensky and The Arb
Mnookmi (Spring) 2025- Community work days to begin clearing land, plant cedars and sequoias, first meadow seeds planted, paths laid
Niibin (Summer) 2025- Corn and beans, ground cherries, tobacco planted, managing invasive species, fundraising for a 20ft tipi, held several community work days and a mid-summer gathering
Dagwagin (Autumn) 2025-Corn, bean and ground cherry harvest, gathered poles for the tipi, community work days, tipi-raising, held an Indigenous People’s Day Gathering, planted sage and tobacco seeds
Biboon (Winter) 2025-2026- Winterized the land and the tipi, Winter Solstice Gathering in tipi
Mnookmi 2026- Nurtured our native meadow plants, tended to the trees planted, invasives management
Niibin 2026- Community work days, Summer Solstice Gathering, invasives management
Vision for the Future
Tipi painting woodland art installation by Hadassah GreenSky
Community talking and prayer circles
Deer Hide Camp
Expanding to nearby lots for potential tiny home village aka urban tribal housing
Continued community programming and workshops
Development of Akinomaage -a traditional bushcraft school in an urban setting, rooted in Anishinaabe land-based learning
Building a strawbale free herbal clinic and apothecary
Acquiring adjacent lots to create Baawaajiganing- The Place of Dreams, a strawbale craft resting place and private ceremonial space
Upcoming Offerings
09/15 @ 6pm Hominy Workshop: The Process of Nixtmal
TBD Community Work Days
10/12 @ 6pm Indigenous People’s Day
Call to Action
Noojimo’waning presents a powerful opportunity to support Indigenous self-determination, environmental justice, and community healing in Detroit. By investing in this project, you are contributing to the restoration of cultural identity, the revitalization of a historically harmed community, and the creation of a much-needed space for connection and reconciliation.
We invite you to join us in making Noojimo’waning a reality, contributing to a future where land is stewarded with respect, history is honored, and healing is possible.
Anishinaabe 1000 Year Tobacco
Hadassah planting Seneca Red Stalker corn
Interdependence Day Workday
Corn beds looking towards the prayer fire pit
Corn harvest 2025, traditionally braided for drying
Corn, beans, ground cherries and tobacco
