- [Michael] Tonight on "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories," SUNY Oswego's Great Lakes Institute brings greater awareness to the Great Lakes through education and research.

We'll tell you how.

And an extraordinary child prodigy: At only eight years old, Juliette Leong is a skilled violinist, artist, philanthropist, and a kid who loves to have fun.

Also, meet Pinock Smith, a gifted Algonquin craftsman who builds birch bark canoes, toboggans, drums, and more using traditional tribal methods.

Your stories, your region, coming up right now on "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories."

(vibrant music) - [Announcer] "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories" is brought to you by... - [Announcer] When you're unable to see your primary care provider, the Carthage Walk-In Clinic is here for you, located off Route 26, across from Carthage Middle School.

Comfort and healing close to home when you need it most.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] North Country Orthopaedic Group is there for your urgent ortho or sports-related injuries.

With our onsite surgical center and same or next-day appointments, we're ready to provide care for patients of all ages.

Your health matters to us.

North Country Orthopaedic Group, keeping healthcare local.

- [Announcer] We are the North Country, where protecting one another like family is who we are, and where our tomorrow will always be worth defending.

Find out how we keep the North Country strong at claxtonhepburn.org today.

- [Announcer] Select musical performances are made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.

- Good Tuesday evening, everyone, and welcome to this edition of "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories."

I'm Michael Riecke.

We begin tonight at SUNY Oswego, where students are learning about the importance of one of the region's greatest natural resources: Lake Ontario.

It's part of the university's Great Lakes Institute, providing students the chance to understand how they can be stewards of the Great Lakes and ensure the community can do the same.

(bright music) (birds chirping) (text swooshes) (wave crashes) - [Lu] It is one of our biggest resources of fresh water, and yet, no one knows anything about them.

- [Luke] Having access to one of the five Great Lakes has its benefits, and for SUNY Oswego, that lake is right in their backyard.

For educators like Lisa Glidden, it's been the topic of environmental research.

- My research in the last few years has shifted to climate resilience and adaptation, and how we can more effectively use policy and have communities work together to ensure that they can deal with all the changes that are coming to our region, more rainfall, flooding, and we're not really prepared for it.

- [Luke] This research inspired her to help found SUNY Oswego's latest initiative, the Great Lakes Institute, to bring greater awareness of the five Great Lakes to students, faculty, and collaborators.

- We are working together to collaborate across campus, bring together people who have been informally collaborating with each other over the last few years, but trying to make sort of more official channels and more regular communication between a number of different departments.

- New York is a very uniquely positioned state because we connect the oceans with the Great Lakes.

And so, for faculty, this is a really excellent place to study and to expand on their research portfolios.

One of the things that's really important for SUNY Oswego is that we engage students in that research.

- [Luke] That student engagement starts in the classroom, learning about the issues affecting the Great Lakes and how to take action.

- I didn't know Lake Erie was one of the most environmentally damaged lakes.

So learning about how much the lakes provide for the communities around the lakes or how much it really does for the world politically is really interesting.

- We have a lot of other courses that count for our Sustainability Studies Program that deal with the Great Lakes, Great Lakes Environmental Issues, which is a general education upper division course.

We have some environmental sociology, environmental justice out of our Criminal Justice Department.

- [Luke] What students take from their classes, they apply to their projects, working closely with researchers to understand and mitigate lake deterioration.

- We did a lot of lab research over the summer here to basically genotype larval coregonines to see what species they are, because it is very hard to tell between larval coregonines.

So when there is more diverse prey fish, it's like stuck, so if one crashes, the whole ecosystem doesn't crash, and it'll still be fine if one does decrease, one species of the prey fish does decrease, because then it'll fill the niche with another species of coregonine.

- SUNY Oswego is well positioned to communicate that research project or the research projects associated with my vision, in that we can use journalists, we can use communications majors, to help talk about the science that's being done to survey the Great Lakes, in terms of invasive species, in terms of the native fish community.

- [Luke] Pollution, climate change, invasive species, all issues being explored across campus departments.

With Oswego's portion of Lake Ontario now designated as a national marine sanctuary, doors are open for more student opportunities and expanded research.

- There are 16 national marine sanctuaries.

We are the newest in that, and our national, the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary, has been created basically because of the marine archeological artifacts, all the shipwrecks.

- There are 41 shipwrecks and an aircraft.

We believe it's gonna be really powerful to be able to not just put this region on a national or global map, but to really share this gem that we have in Lake Ontario with the rest of the world.

- The opportunities I've been given have really advanced, like my resume and my future work.

Like, I would love to go work at like USGS or a federal agency, or like DEC or Water Quality, like something along those lines.

But I think that being an intern this summer and getting this experience really helped my future.

- My hope for the Great Lakes Institute is that we can work really closely hand-in-hand with the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary, that we can work really closely with our, some other regional changes that are happening with the creation of a national park or a national monument at Fort Ontario, but that we can work really closely with our community so that when people think of the Great Lakes, they're not just thinking of sport fishing, they are also thinking about the broader ecosystem, their role in it, and our responsibility to take care of this lake, which provides so much for us.

- 'Cause there's gonna be a lot more research happening, I feel like on campus.

We're gonna be more involved with the community and how we can help these problems that arise from the Great Lakes.

And I also feel like the Great Lake Institute coming to SUNY Oswego is going to help students come here as well.

They'll be really interested in some of the research we have going on here.

It's gonna really boost the attendance, and I really feel like it's gonna really make this community stronger.

- [Luke] In Oswego for WPBS Weekly, I'm Luke Smith.

(bright music) (text swooshes) - At only eight years old, Juliette Leong is a force to be reckoned with.

Based in Sparks, Nevada, Leong is a skilled violinist, art prodigy, philanthropist, and a kid who loves to roller skate and just have fun.

Here's her story.

(bright music) (swooshes) (bright playful music) - My name is Juliette Leong, and I'm eight years old.

My most favorite thing to do is play with my friends.

Second is reading.

I like graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction.

I love reading so, so much.

I get in trouble for reading.

And I love painting.

(bright playful music continues) I started painting when I was eight months old.

My parents put me on the dining room table and gave me paint and paper to play with.

I guess they wish they didn't really do that because I made a mess on my table.

I just like splatted my hand in the paint, and like, basically fingerprinted the whole table.

(bright playful music) I use colored pencils, acrylic paints, watercolor paints, and gouache paints.

And I tried oil paint, but it took forever to dry, and I don't like waiting forever.

I'm impatient.

(chuckles) (bright playful music continues) Gathering materials is kind of the first step of painting, but an idea is really the first step.

I paint landscapes, abstracts, animals, and portraits.

Oh, and abstract realism.

Sometimes I feel stressed when I'm doing it in live competitions, where I have to like paint in person with other people that are not kids.

But when I'm just painting for fun, I feel happy and excited.

I donate the proceeds from the sale of my paintings to raise money for nonprofit organizations that help others, such as AADP or Asian American Donor Program, Race to Erase MS, Ladies Who Rock 4 A Cause, and many more.

It makes me feel great helping people and trying to save their lives.

(bright gentle music) When I'm not painting, I'm usually playing my violin.

(bright gentle music) I first saw a violinist play at San Francisco City Hall when I was about two years old.

And then, after I saw Ray Chen perform, then I really wanted to play the violin.

So that's what got me started.

(gentle violin music) I love practicing my violin while roller skating.

(gentle violin music continues) You learn how to hold your bow straight.

And it has to be straight and not like crooked, because then it'll go off the fingerboard.

It'll be all over the place.

(robust music) I got to play with the Reno Chamber Orchestra because I won the concerto competition in March.

And it was so exciting.

(audience applauding and cheering) They like made a big box for me to stand on.

(laughing) That was funny.

(laughs) (vibrant music) My favorite concerto is the Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3 in G major.

(vibrant music continues) The Reno Chamber Orchestra is a really fun orchestra.

I get to meet some of the solo violinists.

They always come out, and I love the Reno Chamber Orchestra.

(sentimental music) I wasn't nervous because I just think of it as another public performance or if I'm practicing at home.

(jubilant music) I love performing so much.

To me, an artist is a person who has an idea in their head, and they just share it with the world.

(jubilant music) (audience applauding and cheering) (text swooshes) - You can find out more at julietteleong.com.

Next up, we meet Pinock Smith.

Working with only raw materials and traditional tribal methods, this gifted Algonquin craftsman builds birch bark canoes, toboggans, snowshoes, drums, and more.

He has a passion for preserving and sharing ancestral skills through courses, demonstrations, and workshops.

You may have seen him on TV before.

He appeared in the television series, "Bushcraft Survival," which airs on Discovery.

Take a look.

(text swooshes) (bright music) - I can't get this from Amazon or Walmart or any other place.

I gotta go into the forest to get it.

- [Yatile] For Pinock Smith, making canoes doesn't come from just any materials.

It's something he learned early in life as an Algonquin in Kitigan Zibi.

- I am Anishinaabeg.

I am a Native person, I'm an Indigenous person.

It's a reservation that's connected to the town of Maniwaki.

Maniwaki is better known than Kitigan Zibi suburb, but we're connected right to it.

- [Yatile] A nation that embarked on birch bark canoeing the Algonquin way.

- I hung around older people a lot.

So I went in the bush a lot to harvest material, so I picked up on what materials we were looking for and how to manipulate these materials to make things that we needed.

- [Yatile] While it is a reservation, some thought of it more like a guardhouse.

- At one point, before my time, we had to have written permission to leave the res, you know?

And then the Indian agent was the warden of that prison, and the RCMP were the guards of that prison, and they would arrest you if you didn't have a note.

So I call it a prison is what we were living in.

- [Yatile] People might believe that the history of the reservation is linked to igloos or teepees, but Pinock says tepees has nothing to do with their region.

- Tepees come from the Midwest.

We up here made wigwams covered with birch bark, and they were built in many different forms depending on what material we had on hand to build them with.

But I think what they're expecting to see is what the media portrays us as, wearing feathers, beads, and living in wigwams, or teepees, or whatever.

So they kinda get that disappointed look when I tell 'em that, "You are on the res," you know?

It's because they don't expect us to be living there.

We're not supposed to be in a house, I guess.

- [Yatile] Kitigan Zibi was not a wealthy community, but they were rich in resources.

- If you wanted to go fishing, you have to make a canoe, you know?

And then if you wanted snowshoes, you made your snowshoes, sleighs, toboggans, cradleboards, baskets, tanning hides, all kind of things.

So I was exposed to that as a child when I was growing up.

- [Yatile] And now he's grown up, building canoes like this one.

No nails, no glue, no screws, just nature.

- First you gotta find birch bark, which is the shell of your canoe.

It comes from the white birch tree.

Cedar for all the interior, except for the thwart, is ashwood.

And the only thing that holds this canoe together is your spruce root here.

And then we use spruce gum to seal it to prevent water from coming in.

The bark itself is naturally waterproof.

You don't have to apply anything to the bark, you should leave it as it is.

- [Yatile] Algonquins take great pride in their canoe rides, embracing its North American Native design.

- That's not a German, French invention.

My ancestors invented this.

- [Yatile] Today, Pinock is keeping that design alive.

- It was always the environment that dictated our lifestyle.

Our mode of transportation, habitation, food, medicines, everything was dictated by the environment we're living in.

So it changed from nation to nation.

But we were nomadic peoples.

- [Yatile] Crafting these canoes does come with challenges.

In this case, the difficulties come from the environment.

- Climate change is doing a lot of damage to everything: the trees, the air, the works.

But it's not just the climate change.

There's a lot of different aspects that come into it.

Lumbering is one very bad, bad thing that we have.

- [Yatile] Lumbering also has an effect on the amount of birch trees available.

Material is now limited.

- A lot of people approach me and ask me to show them how to harvest materials and stuff in order to make things.

And it's embarrassing for me 'cause I bring 'em in the bush and I can't find the trees, or at least good trees to show them what it used to be like.

My ancestors had the right mentality.

They took from nature what they needed, not what they wanted.

We, on the other hand, do just the opposite.

We take what we want, even if we don't need it.

- [Yatile] Pinock is proud to craft canoes in his homeland tribe, but if you think canoes are his only specialty, you're wrong.

- Like, I make snowshoes, I do trail boards, paddles, assorted drums, tanning hides, canoes, baskets, a little bit of everything that would've been used for day-to-day use.

The physical part of the culture is what I do.

Canoe building gives me great pride in my ancestors.

People say that the Algonquins made the best canoes.

I like to believe that 'cause I'm an Algonquin, but I think the real reason is 'cause we had the best material.

- [Yatile] In Gatineau Park for WPBS Weekly, I am Yatile Patterson.

(bright music) (text swooshes) - Finally, tonight, a segment that makes me think about my childhood and all those music lessons I took.

For me, it was piano and trumpet.

At some point, though, I knew I was never going to be a performer, at least not that type of performer.

That's why we're so lucky to have folks like Sal Sarmiento of Potsdam.

He's a singer-songwriter, and tonight, he shares his original tune, "Barton."

(upbeat jazzy music) (text swooshes) - I'm Sal Sarmiento, and I'm a singer-songwriter.

(gentle upbeat music) ♪ The sun was heating up as he started to drown ♪ ♪ Barton could feel it all around ♪ I'm Sal Sarmiento, ♪ Even heating up the sound ♪ and I'm a singer-songwriter.

♪ As the cool waves ♪ kept tumbling down ♪ Hot frequencies did abound ♪ It gives me a way to normal.

I feel like it's sort of difficult to encapsulate and define who or what a musician is, you know, what they do, their ins and outs.

One musician's definition isn't the same as another.

Sort of like people, we're all individual.

So it gives me a diverse platform, but also allows me to encapsulate who I am in a way that's presentable and digestible.

Performing is an honor because somehow I think it's like the whole world, the whole community, the whole neighborhood, the whole village, the whole city doesn't get to just play music all day, you know?

So for people to give me the chance to stand up and play music, when I feel like a lot of people, it's their dream to do that, you know, it feels like a real privilege to embody that for them in that moment.

And maybe some people don't think I do, but it's still an honor to take the chance.

"Barton" is one of my most recent songs to date.

The inspiration behind it probably has to do with my girlfriend's kids and being around them.

I thought it'd be cool to write a song about a superhero kind of guy using his music as his superpower.

So yeah, I just wanted to make something happy.

And I really love those pirate-like sea shanty songs.

There's a little yo-ho-ho in there.

(chuckles) You know, stuff like that just, it's fun.

It makes it, I think.

And that's part of, hopefully, what I can do for audience, you know, make them laugh.

I'm Sal Sarmiento, and this is "Barton."

(gentle upbeat music) ♪ The sun was heating up as he started to drown ♪ ♪ Barton could feel it all around ♪ ♪ It was even heating up the sound ♪ ♪ As the cool waves kept tumbling down ♪ ♪ Hot frequencies did abound ♪ ♪ Ample to surround ♪ ♪ That's why Barton was brought here now ♪ ♪ To be crowned by the singers of the town ♪ ♪ Could have been too much to chew ♪ ♪ Why'd he have to get so blue ♪ ♪ Don't let it get to you ♪ ♪ Don't let it get to you ♪ ♪ You got to push on through ♪ ♪ You got to push on ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (guitar chimes) ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ All of a sudden, there was a bubbling giant ♪ ♪ I kid you not, it lit on fire ♪ ♪ Barton came shooting out from the center of it ♪ ♪ He flew higher and higher, like the bullet, he did ♪ ♪ And all of the crowd, they felt so proud ♪ ♪ They knew their hero wasn't dying ♪ ♪ He was just acting like a clown ♪ ♪ Nobody cared he gave everyone a scare ♪ ♪ They just stared in amazement as he flew through the air ♪ ♪ He'd been practicing this wild technique ♪ ♪ Which he read about in a scroll that he found ♪ ♪ At the bottom of the sea ♪ ♪ While he was out fishing ♪ ♪ And his lure got carried to the darkest of the deep ♪ ♪ By a hideous creature that no one had ever seen ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (guitar chimes) ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Yo-ho-ho ♪ (bright music) - Well, that does it for this Tuesday night.

Join us next time for a fresh look "Inside the Stories."

We're back in the kitchen of Johnny Spezzano with a New England-themed clam recipe and a New Englander to help him out.

And the incredible power of books.

They're so much more than entertainment.

Discover how the right read can change everything.

Meantime, if you have a story idea you'd like us to explore, we would love to learn more.

All you need to do is drop us an email at wpbsweekly@wpbstv.org, and let's share it with the region.

That's it for tonight, everyone.

We hope you have a safe evening.

We'll see you next episode.

Take care.

(vibrant bright music) - [Announcer] "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories" is brought to you by... - [Announcer] When you're unable to see your primary care provider, the Carthage Walk-In Clinic is here for you, located off Route 26, across from Carthage Middle School.

Comfort and healing close to home when you need it most.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] North Country Orthopaedic Group is there for your urgent ortho or sports-related injuries.

With our onsite surgical center and same or next-day appointments, we're ready to provide care for patients of all ages.

Your health matters to us.

North Country Orthopaedic Group, keeping healthcare local.

- [Announcer] We are the North Country, where protecting one another like family is who we are, and where our tomorrow will always be worth defending.

Find out how we keep the North Country strong at claxtonhepburn.org today.

- [Announcer] Select musical performances are made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.

(upbeat music) ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho-ho ♪ (upbeat music continues) ♪ Yo-ho-ho ♪ (bright music)