Libby Library hosting tribal speaker June 16

The Libby Friends of the Library is hosts Montana Conversation “Living with the Land” with guest speaker Louise Ogemahgeshig Fischer on Tuesday, June 16. 

The program is at the Libby Library at 1 p.m. The presentation is free and open to the public. Funding for the Montana Conversations program is provided by Humanities Montana.

“Living with the Land,” means more than the universe… more than the earth and skies…. “Living with the Land” covers medicinal plants and their uses, Indian history, ways of life, hunting, fishing, foods, clothing, gatherings, stars, storytelling, Indian games and so much more. This talk is an exciting look into the past, as artifacts are brought into the audience’s view. Louise sings an Indian song now and then, and has lived in the old ways.

Ogemahgeshig Fischer is Anishinaabe Indian, and a cultural and spiritual leader as well as an artist. An elder from the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Chippewa) Tribe. Louise has been a speaker for Humanities Montana for over 20 years, traveling to many parks, museums, schools and other places throughout the state. 

She is an artist and a drum maker and has created well over 150 drums. She leads sweat lodge ceremonies and talking circles for the Veterans Administration at Fort Harrison, helping out the PTSD veterans. 

Louise has traveled to many states to do sweat lodge ceremonies for the veterans, VA staff, tribes and other groups.

Louise is also an artist and mural painter and has shown at the Museum of the Plains Indians in Browning, Montana and the Holter Museum in Helena. She painted a wall mural at St. Peter’s Hospital in the smudging room and has painted plaques in the state recreation site near Helena, called Devil’s Elbow, for the Lewis and Clark Bi-Centennial.

For more information, please call the Libby Library at 406-293-2278.