[Music] thirty years ago susan foss saw a field and had a dream she and her husband rodney were retired from dairy farming and sue told him she needed five acres well he wanted to know what i wanted to do with the field and i told him i wanted to make a giant goose sue designed an foot long goose that would become a garden to teach people about the ojibwe culture [Music] artistically a goose is a simple figure and to do something this large you have to have a simple design also we adopted an oji
bwe daughter when she was just a baby and her name was anna goose and so it all fits together i started my planning in 1989 and i started planting in about 1991. i planned the garden according to the mature height of the trees and shrubs that i planted in here this is about three-fourths of the way it's grown now in its maturity it actually will become a 3d goose i've got birch trees here that's the white part of the goose and on the flanks i have more birch on both sides for the flanks of the g
oose where it's white wild roses form the spine of the goose and beside it there is a nest with three mounds for eggs and a baby gosling planted with you and hazelnuts i thought that would be the kind of brushy look that a baby goose is many of the 300 plant and shrub species in goose garden have medicinal properties used by ojibwe tribes to treat ailments prickly ash for toothaches ironwood tea for arthritis and rheumatism and bittersweet to treat just about anything they use the boiled root fo
r ointment and the berries for stomach trouble diuretic cancer store sores that wouldn't heal the inner bark for thick soup stock for skin eruptions acne all the troubles that we've got now they had them then and they had treatment for wild peas in here and they would use the wild pea plants to feed the ponies because that would make them more lively so this is the medicine wheel the tobacco and sweetgrass and cedar and sage were all used and very sacred it focuses on three main tenets balance h
armony and respect listening to one's inner spirit and learning from life experiences and boy we could all use some of that now couldn't we after sue identified all the plants she wanted in goose garden a vision came to her i was sound asleep in my bed and all of a sudden i thought i need animals and i need the totems that the ojibwe used because this is all based on ojibwe culture and history to make each totem rod welded together a metal stick figure susan wrapped it in wire and covered it wit
h cement after it dried she stained and sealed the sculpture the first one i did was a rattlesnake i just was trying out to see can i do this and it worked out he was the totem for the music makers and that's why i have the drum here animal totems represented ojibwe clan's responsibilities fish clans were teachers in caribou deer and moose clans with the caregivers and comforters the moose was a challenge to get his body right and i even had our neighbor come over and take a look at him because
he's shot a few moose in his day i really like the moose i talk to him when i go by and sometimes i kiss him on the nose the lynx clan were the warriors the protectors war strategists they broke new ground as the tribe traveled west to the great lakes the wolf clan would take care of the people who were injured in battle and they would also be warriors the red tail hawk that was another totem spiritual leaders so they were like the priests and ministers of the clan to help people with their emot
ional and problems of life it was all there everything that we look at in psychology today they had it all figured out already and the loon clan were some of the leaders and decision makers they had a really interesting government whereas they didn't really have a chief they had leaders whom the people respected the highest quality of a leader was how he was generous to his people if they decided that oh i think we'll go to war we have to do this if you didn't want to go you didn't go they didn'
t make you go it was your decision the bear clan is one that is still in [Music] progress today and the bear clan was so big and is so big you could be a bare ear you could be a bear paw you could be a bare nose and a lot of bear clan people today will not eat bear meat because that's the relatives some of the more than 60 sculptures in sue's garden commemorate people such as frances densmore who devoted her life to studying and recording native american music a boy with a feather represents 30
000 children taken from their families and forced into boarding schools the most personal structure is a spirit house that rod built over the buried ashes of their daughter laura also named anna goose [Music] when sue opened goose garden in 2013 she had no advertising money but her children helped with print and online marketing and the word spread most people just really enjoy it they come back again they bring other people the most touching one i had this year and it was written by a native pe
rson who said the great spirit spoke to me that really touched me it's it's all on donation because i can't afford to have somebody at the gate to take admission and it is a 501c3 non-profit susan foss hopes that someday someone with her passion for the ojibwe culture will take over the minnesota goose garden every tree that they or shrub that they took to use every animal that they had to kill for their use was always offered tobacco as an offering and it's a beautiful way to live so this is my
this is my offering to them [Music]
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