Nathan Wright (Spiritual name: Spirit man from the Sun or Giizus Su Win en eh) of the Crane Clan, is a tribal member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians with First Nations ancestry.
Nathan is a descendant of Mide medicine people.
The Midewiwin (also spelled Midewin and Medewiwin) or the Grand Medicine Society is a secretive religion of some of the indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region. Its practitioners are called Midew, and the practices of Midewiwin are referred to as Mide.
Nathan's Great (6 times) Grandfather was Kagayosh a chief who signed the 1836 treaty in the Bahweting Area (Sault Ste. Marie, MI). He was also a spiritual mide leader.
The 1836 Treaty ceded almost half the lands of Michigan was signed. It was this Treaty signing that allowed Nathan to retained the rights to harvest herbs and plants used in Herbal Lodge Products.
Nathan continues his ancestors’ legendary work by harvest medicines from the same areas as his ancestors.
Nathan began learning about Ojibwe medicines as an early teen. His father would give him medicines like wekay (Calamus root) for a cough, cedar teas and other herbal medicines that spark his interest.
Nathan spent a lot of time with him learning about how to transplant and grow medicinal plants from his Father. But Nathan wanted to learn more about the plants and their uses. So he started to seek out more teachings. In his younger years Nathan and his Father would go to meet weekly with Dan Pine Sr. of Garden River who would help Wright navigate some of the trouble times a youth faces during our teenage years. Each time Nathan had a chance to learn more about our culture and medicines, he would learn more and still to this day considers himself as much of a student as a teacher. Part of this humbleness is also part of his culture.
Nathan's Father was, Mike Wright, Founding Editor of Aninishinabe News, the Midwest regions first Native American newspaper. He also was a Native American Activist and took part in taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the early 70’s due to extreme poor treatment of Native Americans at the time. Mike Wright was also a member of the American Indian Movement. He helped the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa with Federal Recognition and was Chairman of Consolidated Bahweting Ojibwe and Mackinac Bands. He taught Nathan Wright many cultural teachings and inspired Nathan's interests in learning more.
Nathan’s Grandfather on his mother’s side was a medicine man. Although Nathan did not have the opportunity to learn directly from him (he died before Nathan was old enough), his Mother, Mary Wright also inspires his interest in medicinal plants. His mother would grow medicinal plants in the yard and use some remedies on Nathan as a child. She also was an advocate in natural health medicines and visited one of the few chiropractic offices that were in the area of Nathan childhood home at the time.
Before Nathan’s Father died, he suffered from really bad Eczema on his legs. Nathan would see his legs all scratched up and wanted to find something that would work. Unfortunately, it was shortly after his Father died that he met Monica Cady, who by chance had a salve that worked great on Eczema Psoriasis, this salve is what we know today as Nojmuk. The idea for Herbal Lodge was born.
Prior to Herbal Lodge Nathan worked for his own tribe as a Webmaster. Prior to this he worked as a Web Developer for a few Minneapolis based companies over a ten year period. He also worked for Internet radio pioneer company NetRadio in the mid 90's. During this time he had an opportunity to meet Mark Cuban (of Dallas Mavericks and Shark Tank personality) on a business trip for NetRadio. Those days with NetRadio, all the entrepreneurs that worked for this startup company gave Nathan the entrepreneurial bug. From that point on Nathan was inspired to create own business from the ground. But Nathan had no idea, something he was so passionate and kept it to himself, would one day become the business he loves and works hard for.
Nathan is a firm believer of his cultural teachings. If you do things in a good way, good things will happen. And vice versa. Herbal Lodge does things in a good way. And will continue to do so!
Nathan Wright resides in Northern Michigan where Herbal Lodge is located where he lives with his Daughter Autumn. He handles many aspects of the company from wild harvesting, production, marketing, sales, to maintaining the website and funding Herbal Lodge.
Bottom left photo by http://www.mchrisleese.com/
