BIG CYPRESS — “Earth Day the Native Way” kicked off on a sunny, slightly breezy day at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum on the Big Cypress Reservation April 17 with vendors, workshops and performances to celebrate nature with the community.

Museum director Gordon Wareham said the idea started about four years ago, and along with celebrating Earth, they want to celebrate their place in nature and how Seminole beliefs and traditions fit into that.

“From that idea, from that celebration, it just kept on growing and growing and growing, until we got a lot of schools wanting to come out here and participate. We got a lot of interest in coming out,” Wareham said.

“We call this: celebrate ‘Earth Day the Native Way.’ It’s not just coming out to celebrate Earth, but to bring those traditions of what makes a Seminole, what makes an Indigenous, and bring that knowledge and what we can share to the public. We want to have that cooperation, especially with surrounding communities,” Wareham said.

Students from surrounding areas and community members milled around food and arts and crafts vendors while workshops of dancing, beekeeping and other performances took place. Wareham said the celebration brings generations of knowledge to young people, so they have those memories and takeaways from the event for years to come.

“This is a perfect day. [When] you have an outdoor event, you don’t know whether or not you’re going to have rain or what the elements are going to be,” Wareham said. “When the weather is perfect, and you know the rest of the world is looking at Florida like, ‘We want to be there.’ Yeah, you want to be here, this is where you want to be. This is the perfect day. … To have an event outdoors, with the world looking, and us trying to teach what it means to be Indigenous, that’s my favorite part.”