Last updated: December 10, 2024
Place
Three Sisters Garden at Grand Portage National Monument

NPS Photo / GM Spoto
Benches/Seating, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Restroom - Accessible, Restroom - Seasonal, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Toilet - Flush, Water - Bottle-Filling Station, Wheelchair Accessible, Wheelchairs Available
Three Sisters Garden
Because Grand Portage was a major hub of the fur trade, seeds and other items passed through en route to other posts. This planting style is thought to originate with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) and traveled west with the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe). The Anishinaabe Oodena at Grand Portage hosts one as a teaching tool.
The Three Sisters: corn, squash, and beans, are grown together and mutually beneficial. Corn is a heavy nitrogen user. Planted around the corn mounds, beans convert atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, which feeds the corn. The beans grow up the corn stalks like a trellis. Squash grows between the corn mounds, shading the soil, reducing moisture loss and weed growth. The Three Sisters Garden at Grand Portage also hosts sunflowers to distract birds and provide another food source. In 2024, the garden also successfully grew asemaa (tobacco).
Asemaa (Tobacco)
Some Three Sisters Gardens included tobacco, traditionally used among the Indigenous peoples of this continent for a variety of purposes.