Trader Mike and Dutchie’s Story Becomes the Heart of a Potter County Powwow

By Jess Kenley, Monarch Media

The steady beat of the drum could be heard long before the dancers came into view.

It rolled across the hills like a heartbeat—ancient, familiar, and impossible to ignore. Around the open field, men, women, and children gathered as brightly colored regalia caught the afternoon sunlight. Long ribbons fluttered in the breeze. Feather bustles fanned outward with every graceful turn. Intricately beaded moccasins rose and fell in rhythm, while tiny jingle cones stitched onto dresses created their own shimmering music, answering the drum with every step.

The dancers were not performing for an audience.

They were telling stories.

Some dances honored warriors. Others celebrated family, thanksgiving, healing, or the gifts of creation. Young children carefully copied the movements of their parents and grandparents while elders watched with quiet smiles, seeing traditions carried forward into another generation.

At the center of it all sat the drum circle. Their songs drifted across the grounds, weaving through vendor tents where artisans displayed handcrafted beadwork, dream catchers, leather goods, traditional medicines, and other pieces of Native culture and history.

For four years, Mike and Nancy Wolfram have opened their 150-acre property to host the gathering, known as the Wolf Pack Festival. The name is fitting. Not only does it reflect the Wolfram family name, but many of the Native Americans who return year after year are known collectively as the “Wolf Pack.”

The event, formerly held at the Austin Dam, found a new home when the Wolframs moved to Potter County in 2022.

The property itself serves as a sanctuary. Hunting is not permitted, making it a safe haven for elk, deer, foxes, bears, coyotes, and countless other native Pennsylvania wildlife species. Fishing, however, is welcomed.

As the afternoon unfolded, Nancy’s young granddaughters splashed through a sprinkler in their bathing suits, shrieking with laughter alongside Riley, the family’s Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

“Everyone is really respectful and just has fun,” Nancy said. “They clean up after themselves so well, you wouldn’t even know they were here.”

That spirit of welcome seemed to define the entire gathering.

People exchanged stories as freely as they exchanged smiles. Children darted between booths clutching treasures they had discovered. Families gathered beneath shade trees. Old friends embraced. Complete strangers struck up conversations that quickly felt like old acquaintances.

Among those sharing their heritage was Don Hazzaru, a Bradford native whose mother, the late Catherine Holes, was a citizen of the Seneca Nation.

Dressed in striking red-and-black face paint and an elaborate headdress adorned with feathers and animal hides, Hazzaru’s display table featured intricate beadwork, dream catchers, knives, tomahawks, and traditional war clubs.

When asked about the difference between the latter two, he offered an unexpected answer.

“War clubs are more effective,” he said matter-of-factly, explaining that close-quarters combat often favored the simpler weapon.

A military veteran who joined the Army after high school, Hazzaru laughed while describing his own adventures.

“I get paranoid when I go up a ladder, but I can jump out of planes, no problem,” he joked.

Asked whether being a member of the Wolf Clan made him a warrior by nature, he nodded.

“Yep,” he said. “If you can’t fix it or fight it, walk away from it.”

Beside him, his wife offered handcrafted healing salves made from ingredients such as bentonite clay, charcoal, burdock, plantain, almond oil, and other natural materials. Each batch, she explained, is a little different from the last, reflecting both tradition and experience.

Yet among all the stories shared that day, none seemed to capture the spirit of the gathering more than the love story of Trader Mike and his wife, Dutchie.

When introducing her, Trader Mike’s face immediately softened.

“This is my wife,” he said proudly.

The couple had known one another for nearly forty years. Life carried them in different directions as each married and built a family. Decades later, after both experienced the loss of their spouses, fate quietly brought them back together.

Last summer, surrounded by friends and Native tradition at Lake Canadota, they were married.

“We knew each other for 40 years,” Trader Mike recalled. “Her husband passed. My bride passed. We had a Native ceremony… He called me up, and said, ‘Well, you wanna get married?’

So now we’re running around here,” he said, smiling at Dutchie.

The couple acts as if this is the most natural thing in the world, a man asking for a woman’s hand in marriage, out of the blue, 40 years later.

Sometimes love waits.

Sometimes it finds its way home.

As Dutchie shared their story, her blue-green eyes sparkled as she reached across to touch Trader Mike’s arm.

Years ago, before life had separated them, Trader Mike had given her a ceremonial dance rattle used to help keep time during traditional dances. She treasured it and kept it displayed on a shelf in her home.

Every week or two while dusting, she would pick it up, turn it over in her hands, and give it a shake, producing its sharp, familiar rhythm.

Trader Mike insists that somehow, no matter how many miles separated them, he always heard it when she did.

Whether taken as a mystery, a memory, or simply a testament to a connection that never truly faded, the story drew smiles from everyone within earshot.

Perhaps that is why their story felt so perfectly at home at the powwow.

Like the songs echoing from the drum circle, it was a story about endurance.

Like the dancers moving in time to traditions older than memory, it was a story about continuity.

And like the gathering itself, it was a story about finding connection.

Late in the afternoon, a new drumbeat rose from the dance circle and the announcer called for a Two-Step, describing it as “a love dance, kinda—like a friendship dance.”

Laughing, he informed the crowd that if a woman asked a man to dance and he refused, he owed her ten dollars.

Soon, couples, friends, families, and newcomers stepped into the circle together.

Some knew every step.

Others simply followed along.

As the final Friendship Dance began, Trader Mike reached for Dutchie’s hand.

Around them, children who had spent the afternoon learning songs, watching dancers, and discovering pieces of Native culture joined grandparents, veterans, visitors, and friends in the circle.

For a few moments, there were no spectators.

Only the drum.

Only the dance.

Only a community remembering where it came from and choosing what it hopes to carry forward.

Watching Trader Mike and Dutchie smile at one another, it was hard not to believe that history can do more than teach us about the past.

It can heal.

It can reconnect old friends.

And it can remind us that every culture carries stories worth preserving, so that future generations understand not only where they came from, but also how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Perhaps that is the greatest gift of a powwow.

Not simply preserving tradition, but reminding all of us that the heartbeat of a people never truly disappears as long as someone is willing to listen.