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Fond du Lac Arts is a series exploring the stories, creative expression, and craftsmanship of Fond du Lac artists from a range of disciplines.
This project is produced by AMPERS, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities in partnership with WGZS, the Radio Voice of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
INTRO: You are listening to Fond du Lac Arts: Community through the Creative Arts.
NARRATOR: Janis Fairbanks loved the sound of her grandma’s voice. Music
JANIS FAIRBANKS: I would just get her to tell me a story.
NARRATOR: Especially the one about how her grandma was born at a sugarbush camp in a dugout pit lined with cedar.
[Sound element: nature sounds]
JANIS: And then afterward, her mother just cleaned herself up and wrapped my grandma up and went back to making sugar.
NARRATOR: She never got tired of hearing that story, often in the Fond du Lac house where grandma lived most her life.
JANIS: We'd get up really early in the morning, and she'd be fixing the fire to cook breakfast. And while she was doing that, she sent me to the mailbox, and when I came back, I had to tell her a story about what I saw. “Oh, I saw a really pretty rock in the road. I saw a tree.”
NARRATOR: Even after her grandma passed on, Janis Fairbanks continued telling stories, writing them down.
[sound element: Music]
JANIS: And I have never really stopped.
NARRATOR: In 2025, she collected some of those stories in Sugar Bush Babies: Stories of My Ojibwe Grandmother.
OUTRO: Fond du Lac Arts is produced by AMPERS and WGZS, the radio voice of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.