February 3, 2004
by Nick Vander Puy
Dancing and feasting with brothers and sisters at an early December pow wow in Green Bay, celebrating the Crandon mine victory, I thought about the anti-mining movement. Ever since the mighty Exxon Corporation, back in the nineteen seventies, announced their zinc, gold, and silver discovery, less than a mile upstream from the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa homeland, both Indian and non-Indian activists from a wide background have educated ourselves and mobilized against the dangers of metallic sulfide mining.
Some voices stand out from the struggle. The stalwart UW Lacrosse sociology professor Al Gedicks says that the Wisconsin environmental community got an outstanding education in the critical role native communities in Wisconsin and around the world play in protecting the land and clean water for seven generations. Mole Lake tribal judge Fred Ackley and wife Frannie Van Zile acknowledge Gedicks early efforts to alert the people to Exxon's plans to extract millions of dollars in gold and silver, draw down the water, and leave behind a toxic waste dump the size of 350 football fields. Ackley and Van Zile were tireless, over the years, fighting the mine with ceremony and even traveling to the Exxon shareholder meeting in Houston to tell their story.
A Trout Unlimited leader and resort owner downstream on the Wolf River, Herb Buettner says the victory over the Crandon mine is a lesson to people fighting injustice around North America and maybe the world. He adds the victory will be in vain unless the people in Wisconsin hold the government to account for the Public Trust Doctrine.
Twenty years ago was a critical point between Indian and non-Indians in Wisconsin. Anglers and Indians in northern Wisconsin were coming to blows over Chippewa treaty spearfishing. It got pretty intense! Nails at the landings, pipe bombs, gunfire in the night, and millions spent on security. Gov. Thompson, like most Republicans, got elected making not-so-subtle appeals to white boat landing racism.
But enough people concerned about the fish, the animals, and Water emerged from the struggle to unite in the movement against the Crandon mine.
A Menominee tribal member Ken Fish led a well financed and Spirited public relations campaign about treaty rights and opposition to the Crandon mine. Fish says, "It was simple math. One plus one equals two. Two plus two equals four. Eventually, more than a thousand marched in Rhinelander against the Crandon mine. It was difficult for the mining company to stand against truth, especially on the technical difficulties of mining."
Back in the nineteen eighties and nineties, I was working as a Fishing guide and freelance journalist in northern Wisconsin. I was probably the only non-Indian fishing guide in Oneida and Vilas Counties who supported Chippewa treaty rights. I was blackballed, spit upon, and received death threats. Someone destroyed my truck by dumping gasoline in the crankcase.
I was looking for allies when I attended a Protect the Earth Gathering near Ladysmith on the banks of the Flambeau River. Sandy Lyon had organized a music and talking circle event trying to stop Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) from building a gold and copper mine 140 feet from the Flambeau River.
The music, the food, the prayer, the coming together Indian andnon-Indian at Protect the Earth was something I'd never experienced until then. I remember standing in a circle by the river, holding tobacco, talking from the heart, and vowing to protect the water. I met a Mole Lake tribal member Ron Smith who invited me to the Mole Lake reservation to see the wild rice. I eventually made my way to Mole Lake with a canoe on top the truck, when Robert Van Zile, Frannie Van Zile's younger brother, taught me wild rice needs clean water which a proposed upstream metallic sulfide mine would probably destroy. I started fasting and attending ceremonies.
I left guiding, became a public radio reporter, and a devoted ricer. I covered the mining saga, writing dozens of stories, culminating with the celebration pow wow last week in Green Bay. It felt good dancing in a circle around the drum with many Different people, all sharing one heart and mind.
Nick Vander Puy is senior producer for the Superior Broadcast Network In northern Wisconsin. His work airs on WOJB and WXPR, is available on CD, and can be heard on the web at www.superiorbroadcast.org.