Up North Issues
Issues that affect the community of our Lake Superior homeland.
By clicking on the links below you will be able to hear and see more about each story.
Community Radio by the community, of the community, for the community
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In 1987 community radio station WOJB won an award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. The award was the highest award NFCB has. It is called the Golden Reel Award and was issued for "The Sounds of Community Radio" category. For over 20 years WOJB has remained to be the voice of it's community, thanks to the dedication of the volunteers and staff of this very important radio station. |
having survived the treaty wars, now LdF faces a cash crisis
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Is the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians in a financial crisis or not? Community meetings were held in Lac du Flambeau last weekend to discuss the situation, along with a proposed referendum to mortgage tribal lands. The tribe is the largest employer in a four county area. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network attended the meetings and files this report. |
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Nick Vander Puy explores the issue of "White Privilege" in this culture. |
American Transmission Company transmission line steals the hunt
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LCO tribal hunter says, "we
are sad because of the long term loss to Lac Courte Oreilles reservation
hunting territory this pipeline and transmission foreshadow."
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nuke waste may soon find its way to your backyard
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Professor Al Gedicks opposes the nuclear power resurgence in Wisconsin because it’s dangerous, does little to reduce global warming, and harms Indian communities. May 10th this year State Representative Phil Montgomery (R-Green Bay) is introducing a bill, trying to lift Wisconsin’s block on building new nuclear plants. Nick Vander Puy and Sandy Lyon from the Superior Broadcast Network talk with anti-mining activist Dr. Al Gedicks who thinks nuclear power is not green or clean. |
the public gets a chance to speak and be heard at the public hearing
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The RTZ/Kennecott Mining Company is attempting to certify in state court that the Flambeau Mine near Ladysmith has been successfully reclaimed....... But the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and several conservation groups are challenging the giant mining company. They argue the mine is polluting the water. |
conservationists work together over the generations to save the trees
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Walt Goldsworthy was a Three Lakes conservationist. Goldsworthy died seven years ago, but during his life helped preserve the Thunder Lake marsh and the Sam Campbell Memorial trail. Goldsworthy helped save with the 1930’s CCC log shelter houses at Franklin Lake campground and set up Franklin Lake interpretive nature trail. Goldworthy was also instrumental in saving some big trees on the Military Road. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network talks with Walt’s widow, Doris Goldsworthy, about her husband’s accomplishments. |
A maple syrup producer says sugar bush production is changing because the spring is coming earlier
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After cold nights and warm days in the spring the sap runs from maple trees. There are thousands of harvesters across Wisconsin who tap maple trees to make syrup and sugar, but many are finding changing weather patterns are upsetting the rhythm of the season. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network talks with a third generation producer Joe Polak (Pollock) at Maple Hollow Sugar Bush about this year’s harvest. click here to see pictures and listen to the story
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fierce small furry animals helping protect the wild forest
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About the size of a housecat the marten is a small, dark member of the weasel family. The marten dens in mature maple and yellow birch trees. By the nineteen twenties the creature was almost destroyed by trapping and logging. But since marten indicate a healthy forest… the US Forest Service and Wisconsin DNR, over the past thirty years, re-introduced several hundred animals to the Nicolet/Chequemegon forest. But marten are declining and a biologist and technician from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission think they know why. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network accompanies Dr. Jonathan Gilbert and Ron Pariesin (Pah-rhees-in) on a live trapping expedition to find marten and a healthy forest. |
walk in peace
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Peace North walked through Hayward earlier this week mourning the 3000 American soldiers killed in the Iraq War. The group also remembered the thousands and thousands of Iraqis killed in the war. Besides the death count, we spend about seven billion dollars a month in Iraq. They weren’t many marchers at the Hayward event, but their message was emphatic. Get out of Iraq now, change United States energy policy, and work towards peace. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports. |
swans mate for life
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Trumpeter swans are some of North
America’s most elegant waterbirds. The birds are all white with long
flowing necks, they stand up to four feet tall with a large wingspan.
The birds pledge as mates for life and are devoted parents. Signs at the
lakes warn about shooting the protected birds, but early last week a
bird showed up dead on Seven Mile lake with two .22 caliber slugs in
it’s carcass. The DNR is investigating. Sandy Gillum is a local
biologist who cares for the birds. She talks with Nick Vander Puy from
the Superior Broadcast Network about the dead swan. |
James Howard Kunstler "The Long Emergency"
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Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
According to social critic James Howard Kunstler, the author of “The Long Emergency,” Americans are woefully unprepared for the end of the cheap oil era. Kunstler observes the American way of life—now virtually synonymous with suburbia---runs only on reliably cheap oil and gas. As oil gets more expensive Kunstler thinks we’re going to have to make other arrangements. Click here to hear the radio story and see pictures. |
final victory at Mole Lake NO MINE EVER
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There was joy
this spring in the Mole Lake Sokaogon (Sah-kah-gun) Chippewa
community. Ending an almost thirty year war over proposed metallic
sulphide mining the Mole Lake Tribe and the world’s largest mining
company, Australian-based BHP-Billiton exchanged gifts and agreed to
leave the minerals underground. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior
Broadcast Network reports. |
a mother bear and cubs lying in dangers path
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There’s a sleeping bear and her cubs lying in the path of the Arrowhead Weston transmission line. Superior Broadcast Network’s producer Nick Vander Puy walked into the woods with two other men, to view the bear. |
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians protects water
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The Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians is seeking authority to establish strict new water quality standards because water is essential to life. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network provides several stories about efforts to protect water on the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa reservation. |
what is "hornography?!"
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A retired, nationally known DNR deer biologist Keith McCaffery thinks our hunting heritage is under assault because commercialization and privatization brings more disease, illusions, and less access to hunting grounds. |
Free Speech
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When two internationally known peace activists Kathy Kelly and Cecilia Zarate talked with students at Rhinelander High School some local Veterans groups complained. But a high school student wrote a letter to the editor, saying that both Kelly and Zarate had been unfairly maligned. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network talked with T.J. Click Here to listen to this radio story and to see pictures |
a Minneapolis man returns home to Iraq to help his people
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An Iraqi-American Sami Rasouli wants the Americans to leave Iraq because it’s a colonial war and the country is not being rebuilt. Last year Rasouli sold his popular restaurant in Minneapolis and journeyed to Fallujah with the Muslim Peacemaker team to clean the city after the battle. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports. |
Murder (racism?) in the Northwoods
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Both the jury foreman and Wisconsin’s
Attorney General say race was not a factor in the conviction of Chai
Vang for murdering six Rice Lake, Wisconsin deer hunters. Last year’s
shootout between the Hmong hunter and a group of whites
over trespassing brought national attention to northern Wisconsin. But
an Oneida-Anishinaabe journalist and publisher says most tribal hunters
in the territory were willing to give Chai Vang the benefit of the
doubt. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports, Click Here to listen to this radio story and see pictures. |
northern Wisconsin peace group stages "Arlington North" peace demonstration
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Two soldiers represent different perspectives on the Iraq War because one has fought in Iraq and the other has not. Ashland Veterans for Peace sponsored an Arlington North display. Arlington North refers to the cemetery in Washington DC honoring the war dead. The Arlington North display in Ashland showed white crosses, representing almost two thousand American and more than twenty five thousand Iraqi killed since March 2003, when the second Iraq War started. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network talks with two soldiers. |
Taking Apart the Mine
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Dismantling mining equipment in Crandon, several people both Indian and white, were united in their concern to protect the land and water. After almost a thirty year struggle, two years ago, the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa and Forest County Potawatomi Tribes purchased the mine from Nicolet Hardwoods Corporation. Through the deal the Mole Lake Chippewa owe BHP-Billiton eight million dollars. The payment is due next year. But this year in Crandon the mining equipment was sent to recycling. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports. |
Legislation To Destroy Local Control
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A northwestern Wisconsin democrat legislator Gary Sherman says a bill, allowing the state Public Service Commission to take public land for utility hi-voltage electric lines, threatens democracy and local control. The American Transmission Company, Minnesota Power, and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation are trying to build the Arrowhead-Weston electric line between Duluth and Wausau. |
Good Bye to the Suburbs......Hello to Local Community Building
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Does the end of cheap oil mean the end of
Suburbia? Some republican energy investment bankers like Matthew
Simmons agree the end of cheap oil suggests alarming consequences for
the American way of life. An interview with Barry Silverthorn, the producer of the hit video, “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream.” Click Here to listen to this radio story and see a few more pictures. |
For more issues that have affected the Lake Superior region, go to...