This summer, 10-year-old Sienna, a member of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, packed her bags for summer camp in Charles City County. She was eager to visit her grandmother, who lives nearby, and reconnect with her culture — the camp is located next to the Chickahominy Tribal Center.
"I like learning about my culture, and I just like learning things that I haven't learned before," she said. "And it's just a fun time being here with my friends and family."
Many Virginia kids go to summer camp in Virginia. For the state's native nations, it's an opportunity to connect younger citizens of the tribes with the varying cultures and give them something meaningful to do while their parents work.
This year's camp enrolled over 40 kids, ranging from ages 5–14, to do traditional Chickahominy crafting and learn their tribe's native language, Algonquian. Campers also take weekly field trips, including to Jamestown and to the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.
Jessica Stewart, a citizen of the Chickahominy Tribe, started this six-week camp for tribal youth in 2023 – inspired by a program she attended growing up.
It was called Indian School, and on Saturdays Stewart and her peers learned traditional crafts like beadwork, leather, pottery and tribal history — until the decadeslong program ended in the early 2000s.
She wanted to give today's tribal youth, which also includes her two children, a similar experience.
"It's something that is very healing to my heart to see these kids come together and be with their native peers," Jessica Stewart told VPM News, "and be proud of who they are and to share that with other people."
Stewart tries to incorporate all of the tribe's history, the good and the uncomfortable, into the camp's lessons. That includes how the Chickahominy ran its own school when segregation-era policies prevented native students from attending schools with white students.
"Helping them to understand that, like, 'Yes, some things were long ago, but also there are some things that weren't so long ago,'" Jessica Stewart said. "We're not gonna harp on the bad stuff. We're gonna use it to fuel us to do bigger and better things."
On a typical camp day, Stewart leads the kids on a morning nature walk around the Chickahominy Tribal Center grounds. She points to elements of cultural significance along the way: including the tribe's powwow grounds. Stewart talks about the importance of blessing the ground — and the drums — with tobacco before the powwow.
After their morning walk, kids head back inside for a beading workshop and language review. Tanya Stewart, another tribal citizen (and Jessica Stewart's distant cousin), teaches Algonquian.
She's been learning the language as part of an intertribal language revitalization project the tribe has led for the past few years. She said it's amazing to see the kids learning so quickly.
"They're like sponges," Tanya Stewart told VPM News. "They're picking it up, they're retaining it."
Eden, 7, lists some of the Algonquian words she's learned so far. Her 10-year-old sister Eliana said the language isn't lost, "it's just been resting."
"So we're trying to bring it back from its sleep, so we can let people know we are still here," she said.
Tanya Stewart teaches the kids native crafts, too: how to make regalia like dance bells, rawhide rattles, and more. She also remembers the Saturday morning Indian School program growing up. Her mother and aunts taught beadwork and pottery there; two of her aunts were master potters.
"That's something to be proud of, and also something to keep up," she said. "Because I don't want that to end with them."
Tanya Stewart told VPM News that the camp helps kids understand their own identities. Personally, she didn't see her culture reflected in textbooks while growing up in Charles City County in the 1980s.
"I know it's a different time," she added, "but still, educational resources haven't caught up.
Several indigenous nations have run summer camps over the last few years. Lisa Brighteyes Richardson Derez, a Rappahannock tribal citizen, directed a one-week camp for Rappahannock youth earlier this summer in Indian Neck, where the tribal center is located. This camp is in its third year, and Derez said it's modeled after a camp the tribe's elders ran in the late 1990s.
Kids from the Chickahominy and Rappahannock tribes got to share one day of camp together this summer. Derez said she hopes the kids carry this sense of togetherness and identity with them throughout the year.
"Because all indigenous kids have probably had this experience where you're sitting in a classroom and someone who's not part of your community tells you about your history and it doesn't feel true, but you're young and you're not sure what to do with that," she said. "That can negatively impact your identity."
Virginia's Upper Mattaponi Tribe has been running a one-week summer camp for the past four years in Prince William County.
Martin Saniga, the tribe's environmental and cultural resource specialist, said the camp is an important way to let young tribal citizens know there are jobs and other leadership opportunities available within the tribe, especially since the tribe's federal recognition in 2018.
"You've got to show kids as they're growing up and starting to think about what they want to do with their lives that, 'Hey, here's all the opportunities you have to work for your own community, to better your community, to create the programs that you wanted to see as a youth or as a young adult,'" Saniga said.
The Upper Mattaponi camp isn't just focused on teaching historical traditions like the game of shinny; kids also learn what they can do to preserve tribal culture and the environment.
Saniga said the Algonquian peoples — including the Upper Mattaponi — have historically depended on fish to survive.
"Fishing and being a waterman is a huge part of a lot of these communities," Saniga said. "And so teaching these kids what should or shouldn't be in the water is just helping them secure that for the next generation."
Campers also made wooden nesting boxes for ducks, and worked with agricultural technicians to learn how to compost and grow food.
On the last day of camp, the Upper Mattaponi kids learned how to weigh and measure fish before heading over to a nearby pond to cast their own lines.
Carrie Fox, the tribe's environmental and fisheries technician, imparted helpful fish handling knowledge, including how to tell the difference between native species — like white catfish and sturgeon — and invasive species like the blue catfish.
The lesson resonated with 8-year-old Piper, whose parents moved to Virginia during the pandemic to be closer to family and the tribe.
"They're very, very slimy," she said. "So you always have to wet your hands before you hold them, or that can make them sick, or you can hurt them if you hold them at a wrong angle."
Piper said her favorite part about this camp is the fishing. The tribe holds regular family fishing nights for tribal citizens..
"When I heard the word fishing my brain just lit up," Piper said.
Piper's not alone.
The fishing day was also a huge hit for 4-year-old Ella, 6-year-old Henry and 7-year-old Luke.
Their dad, Michael Ramsey, said the camp is a good opportunity for his kids to learn about their Upper Mattaponi heritage as well as traditions important to the tribe.
"It's important to keep the kids involved," he told VPM News, "and learn about the tribe and why the tribe exists."
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