Ganondagan holds Native American Winter Games

VICTOR, N.Y. — There’s not much snow on the ground right now but that didn’t stop the folks at the Ganondagan historic site from celebrating their winter traditions.

They hosted the Native American Winter Games on Saturday. The activities are the same ones that the people of the Seneca Nation used to occupy their time in the winter for generations.

“I think people tend to think of indigenous people as a monolith and not really having much understanding about the culture,” said Ansley Jemison, cultural liaison of Ganondagan state historic site. “All you learn about indigenous people is going to be in a fourth grade class unless you have a natural curiosity and want to dig and find more information about us, we provide that here at Ganandogan.”

Saturday’s activities included dog sledding and maple sugar making demonstrations and the game known as Snow Snake, where players compete to see how far they can throw a javelin.