Derek Nicholas
Follow Derek Nicholas and his journey as an AIFEP recipient, an Oyate Leadership Network alum., and an Indigenous food educator.
Derek is Red Cliffe Ojibwe and founded Wiisinig LLC to promote healthy Indigenous food sovereignty and advocacy.
Eating with the Seasons is a field guide to eating seasonally, and was created because Derek said it’s something that he could have used growing up. The Oyate Leadership Network grant allowed Derek to hire an illustrator to create images to go along with Anishinabemowin and 24 recipes.
In 2020, he released Eating with the Seasons, Anishinaabeg, Great Lakes Region. Eating with the Seasons is a field guide to eating seasonally and includes the Ojibwe language throughout the book. Derek had wished he had something like this growing up, so he created it. Oyate Leadership Network played in a role in the making and publishing of the book. After participating in the cohort, Derek received an Oyate grant that allowed him to hire an illustrator and promote the book.
Since released in 2020, 30,000 copies have been distributed to date and has been added to many school curricula.
This past year, Derek was able to increase his video production with the help of AIFEP. During the pandemic, many Indigenous educators turned to video as a way to share teachings with their community, including Derek.
Derek is working on creating his next book, a cook book with Indigenous-led recipes, foraged recipes. The upcoming book will also include travels to other Indigenous communities from around the world and the conversations he had about present and future of Indigenous food systems.
“Whitefish Bone Broth” was created to share medicines for Indigenous maternal support. Shashana Craft, an Indigenous lactation counselor at the Division of Indian Work, joined the video to share about importance of the maternal medicine.
You can find an entire video resource library on his website, including three that were produced with his new technology.
