May 10, 2003
by Nick Vander Puy
"My father, in the country we sell you, we wish to hold-on to that which
gives us life—the streams and the lakes where we fish, and the trees from
which we make sugar."
—Maghegabo of Leech Lake Pillager band (1837).
The Namekagon River still gives us life. For thousands of years natives
canoed, fished, trapped, and fought along the river from its source near
present-day Cable, Wisconsin, west to the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.
During the 1800s, the river floated immense pine logs.
Now, the 21st century’s harried suburbanites and country dwellers alike
visit the
still-sparkling river for joy and peace of mind.
These people and others will come together on May 10 for the Namekagon River
Gathering in Springbrook, Wisconsin, for a ceremony to honor the river and
the warriors who have protected it. The ceremony and the gathering will be
infused with the history that surrounds the pristine river.
The Namekagon has a long list of defenders. In 1953, a judge denied a
utility company a permit to build a 22-foot dam across the river and
remarked upon the Namekagon’s unique features. "The canoeist has the
illusion of being in the forest primeval, far from civilization," the judge
wrote.
Former Wisconsin governor and U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson is one of the
scheduled
attendees at the Namekagon River Gathering. Before he founded Earth Day,
Nelson helped save the Namekagon River with the federal Wild and Scenic
Rivers Act.
In 1968, faced with development pressures to build two coal-fired electric
plants near Stillwater, Minnesota, Nelson championed the act and Congress
passed it overwhelmingly. President Johnson signed it, and the Namekagon and
St. Croix became the first rivers east of the Mississippi to benefit from
this official protection.
The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act intends "to protect for posterity, the
river's free flowing
character, water quality, and the natural, scenic, aesthetic, cultural, and
recreation values of the river." More than 3,000 properties lining the river
way were purchased and dismantled at a cost of $21 million to restore
pristine quality. Billboards were banned. Adjacent property owners gave up
rights to use their land for public utility purposes or for any industrial
or commercial activities such as mining, quarrying, or sand gravel removal
operations.
Senators Nelson and Mondale, and other conservationists, feared that
utilities might stake out a claim that would result in more smokestacks.
Even today, the Louisiana Pacific plant on the outskirts of Hayward tears up
the forest like a beast from Mordor stinking like formaldehyde. There are
hideously lighted signs and shopping malls almost everywhere in this
northern Wisconsin resort town, but the Wild and Scenic Namekagon River
buffers the worst of the industrial order. According to longtime progressive
activist Martin Hanson from Mellen, "If the Namekagon hadn't been protected,
Hayward would be a real mess."
The utility dragon returned a few years back, belching even more noise and
stink, when Governor Tommy Thompson's handpicked Public Service Commission
gave American Transmission Company the go-ahead for its plan to build a
10-plus story high voltage transmission line between Duluth and Wausau, 250
miles across the heart of northwest Wisconsin and the Namekagon River.
The current Public Service Commission under the Doyle-Lawton administration
is taking a closer look at whether or not the budget-busting Arrowhead line,
crossing the Namekagon, is really necessary. The King Weston route, to name
just one alternative, would cost less and run along an existing right of way
between Eau Claire and Wausau.
The threats against the Namekagon are real and do not seem to go away.
The National Park Service also grapples with the choice between the public's
right to preserve the Namekagon in its natural condition and the apparent
need to generate ever more electricity. After an environmental impact
review, the Park Service will decide to allow or prevent the line from
crossing the Namekagon in northwest Wisconsin. If the transmission line is
buried in the proposed location, it will be close to an underground gas
line. If the high voltage transmission line were to corrode and ignite the
gas line this could result in an ecological disaster.
Former Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources secretary George Meyer is
scheduled to attend the Namekagon River Gathering along with Gaylord Nelson
and the rest of us on May10th. Several Chippewa drums have been invited.
There will be free food and music along with the history and the spirit of
the place.
Come on down to the river and pray.
Nick Vander Puy lives 10 miles from the Namekagon River and is a senior
producer with the Superior Broadcast Network.