"On Earth Day 2008, Hank Bailey, a natural resources staffer with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians gathered dozens of children—Native and non-Native alike—and other volunteers, armed them with more than a thousand red osier dogwood sprouts and black willow saplings, and sent them off on a mission that, if successful, will still be giving back seven generations from today. Bailey told the volunteers to plant the young shrubs and trees on several degraded waterfront sites from Northport to Traverse City. The trees will take root, stabilize stream banks, filter toxins from runoff, clean the air and look just plain beautiful.

Notions of nature, time passing and connections to generations future and past come naturally to Bailey. His great-great-great-grandfather Cabmoosa was a signatory on the 1836 treaty that ceded land from the area’s tribes to the United States government. “He was the only chief to sign the treaty who cried when he did so,” says Bailey. How many Americans even know the names of their great-great-great-grandfathers, let alone about a moment when they cried?

The trees that Bailey’s crew planted on Earth Day 2008 were not just any trees, either. They, too, make a statement about taking a long view when it comes to our interaction with the natural world. Bailey sourced the trees from David Milarch of the Copemish-based Champion Tree Project. David Milarch is not a Native, but is one of the legions of environmentalists inspired and guided by the Natives’ ancient principles of sustainability.

Ingrained in the traditions of the tribes of Northern Michigan is the philosophy of the Seventh Generation: that decisions today should be made based on their effect on children seven generations in the future, rather than on what would best satisfy our immediate needs, create short-term profit or impress investors at the close of next quarter.

Milarch has dedicated his life to restoring what he calls the planet’s lost “Mother trees”—the eastern white pine, redwood, black willow and many others. By taking cuttings from the largest known species of such trees and growing sprouts from them, Milarch serves as an archivist of tree genetics. He says the trees have the ability to draw, filter and, in some cases, break down industrial poisons."

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Grand Traverse Bands' Seven Generations Philosophy Sees the Planet in Long Term (My North August 2010)