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| " ... a four-year old cow moose ..." |
WINTER FUN #I
Ole Dahlin
(1863-1930)
Olla Olof Olsson was born februari 10, 1863 to Olla Olof Anderson (1830-1873) and Hed Maritt Jonsdotter (1826-1901) in Yttermalung, Sweden. He was 25 when he emigrated to the United States, coming to the Warren, Minnesota area in June 1888. By fall, he was in the growing village of Malung, while it was still a part of Kittson County. Apparently the large number of Olsons was causing name confusion, so Olla changed his name to Ole Dahlin.
Ole first lived in south Stafford Township near Bush Erik Erickson, but later moved to north Stafford Township with Halvor Erickson (Bush Erik’s brother), and lived there until Halvor’s death, at which time he sold the homestead to Emil Olson in 1918.
Ole had a good relationship with Native People and always spoke highly of Chief Mikinaak. There were several of their burial mounds in the yard west of Ole’s house which the Ojibwe decreed should be left undisturbed.
Enduring one of their first winters in what would later become Roseau County, Ole and his two friends, Erik Erickson, and Nate Eilertson, spent their time hunting and trapping.
Ole had written a story of when they had skied and snowshoed-down a four-year old cow moose, in deep snow, that they lassoed, and then brought home alive on a crudely constructed tobaggan. The moose was later taken by wagon box to Drayton, North Dakota, and from there, shipped to a zoo in England.
Ole never married. He died in 1930 at the age of 67.
This post was resourced from the Roseau County Heritage Book; and originally compiled by Irene Olson of Roseau.
WINTER FUN #2
The Inter-Tribal Nations Snow Snake Festival, held on Feb. 5, 2022, on Mooningwanekaaning-minis (Madeline Island) Wisconsin, is a winter game that is being revived among northern tribal communities by the Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Oneida and other northern tribal nations.
The snow snake game, along with many other traditional winter games lost over the years, is a competition in which wooden poles up to 10 feet long, resembling snakes, are hurled down a straight iced channel of about 100 yards cut through a mound of snow. The distance traveled by the snake determines the winner. Winners received bundles of donated items from wild rice, to money, to a new snow snake.
Reintroducing the snow snake game is one way for tribal nations to renew their traditional winter activities of sports, winter storytelling, and string games. Like lacrosse, snow snake games, were once used at times by the Ojibwe judiciary to resolve conflicts that could not be resolved by other social means. (Now that's an idea...)
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/they-played-snow-snake-at-madeline-island
Snow snakes are not available on Amazon, but it looks like a pool cue would work.
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact that you could break it down into short sections would make it easier to carry too. You might have something there, CJ.
DeleteI did have one observation as I viewed the video, "What if a person could use an Atlatl assist on it, somehow? That would really accelerate the snow snake in my opinion. It'd shoot that sucker all of that 100 yards and then some, I'd reckon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHgUMUk3YwY
Would shooting a snow snake from a cannon be frowned on?
DeleteI'd think, as a non-Native ignorant of the game rules and all, that if one could get their cannon to the snow snake site, and not negatively impact the iced channel in any way, it may (or may not) be allowed in competition should others have the same advantage (a drastically important equalization). One would hardly think that a hand hurtled snow snake would be comparable to a cannon-fired snow snake. Perhaps that would be a different classification; I'm just unaware at this juncture.
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