Hopes for peace in the North Woods sank like a stone in water when the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa voted down an agreement last month to halt spearfishing in exchange for $49.7 million in state aid and services.
The rejection of this solution to the rift between the Chippewa and sports fishermen has resulted in anger and frustration over what to do next. In Washington, at least one Wisconsin congressman threatened to remove the welcome mat for tribal leaders seeking federal assistance. In the North Woods, a sheriff predicted all-out war at the boat landings next spring.
But behind the rhetoric and speculation, some things are quietly in the works that could reduce the possibility of violence. Strife, say positive thinkers in the middle of the issue, does not have to be inevitable on Wisconsin`s northern lakes each spring.
Yet it has come to seem that way. Tribal spearsmen, self-described
”Walleye Warriors,” are determined to exercise their treaty-given rights as members of a sovereign nation. So they poke about in lake shallows for fish to fill their galvanized tubs-weeks before hook and line fishermen get their chance.
Meanwhile, protesters concerned about over-fished lakes and dwindling tourism converge noisily on the boat landings. They are joined by bored teens, local tavern louts, treaty rights supporters, and growing numbers of reporters and law officers.
The cycle has been self perpetuating: The louder the protest, the more determined the Lac du Flambeau are to spearfish. The more they spearfish, the bigger the protests.
Tom Maulson, leader of the Lac du Flambeau spearfishers, says the chaos will continue until protesters accept treaty rights. Dean Crist, spokesman for Stop Treaty Abuse, says it will continue until Congress legislates an end to
”outdated” 19th Century treaty rights that allow the Chippewa to hunt, fish and cut timber off the reservation.
Last spring it cost more than $2 million to pay the overtime salaries for hundreds of police officers brought in from throughout the state to keep peace. Gov. Tommy Thompson projects that cost may rise to $6 million a year in the future. No one has been able to uncover a measurable loss to tourism, but the notoriety has detracted from the area`s pristine image.
Thompson, a conservative Republican who likes to tackle problems head-on, determined to put an end to the spectacle. He chose negotiations with the Indians, rather than take on the thornier task of browbeating the anglers into accepting the ethical realities of treaty law.
But his efforts were swept aside by the tribal vote Oct. 25 rejecting the proposed settlement.
In 1983, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found that the Chippewa had not given up their off-reservation fishing, hunting and gathering rights in 1854 when they ceded their territory-virtually the entire top third of the state.
Last March, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled the tribes could take 100 percent of the safe allowable catch, which would put an end to all but catch-and-release hook-and-line fishing on the lakes. (Lac du Flambeau spearfishers agreed last spring to take no more than 54 percent.)
Yet to come is a ruling on deer hunting, and even more controversial, a ruling on timber harvesting. Then the court will consider whether or not to award damages for all the years the Chippewa were prohibited by the Department of Natural Resources from spearfishing on off-reservation lakes. Only when these matters are resolved can the state file an appeal.
In the meantime, there are other hopeful courses to pursue. Thompson has not ruled out further discussions. It is likely he and several state legislators will meet with members of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission by the new year.
The commission, which represents all the state`s Chippewa tribes, hopes to discuss co-management of natural resources in the ceded territory. Co-management, an approach taken in Washington state, has its supporters in Wisconsin, including some Democratic members of the state legislature and some environmental groups.
Thompson already has ruled out co-management because Judge Crabb`s decision gave the state`s Department of Natural Resources authority over resources. But he will likely discuss ”cooperative management,” which would give the Chippewa at least some input.
The governor has said he may also discuss economic help for the Lac du Flambeau, a gesture that could help ease the way for the tribe to quietly curtail their spearfishing-once assured their treaty rights were not threatened.
State Rep. David Lepak (R., Muskego) has proposed creating a seat on the Department of Natural Resource`s board for a Chippewa representative and making interference with treaty rights a state crime. In return, he hopes the tribe would agree to take no more than 10 percent of the safe catch in a lake. Meetings already have been held with leaders of the two protesting groups, Stop Treaty Abuse, and Protect Americans Rights and Resources. Both have agreed to declare moratoriums on protest activities until the beginning of spearfishing season in April.
State Sen. Donald Stitt, chairman of the state`s Republican Party, is convinced that tensions will not be as great next spring because new lines of communication have been opened.
”We didn`t have a dialogue last spring. There was lot of mistrust and no communication.,” he said. ”That`s changed. People are talking. Conditions are nowhere near as volatile as last spring.”
Meanwhile, the governor is expected to promote the idea of emulating the so-called Lac Courte Oreilles model in the Lac du Flambeau-Minocqua area.
Resort owners and businessmen around the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation near Hayward in western Wisconsin invited tribal council members and their wives to dinner. There have been other dinners and joint activities since. The tribe has joined the resort association. No lakes are in danger of being overfished. And there are no notable protests.
”They told us, `You keep your radicals in line, and we`ll keep ours in line,` ” said Kenneth Poebe, president of the resort association. Poebe considers the situation in the Lac du Flambeau-Minocqua area tragic.
”I think what happened there was a lack of moral courage from white community leaders,” he said.
The Minocqua area is the seat of protest in the region, with good reason. The Lac du Flambeau are the biggest and most resolute spearfishers, taking almost 60 percent of all the fish speared by Wisconsin`s Chippewa, and forcing the state Department of Natural Resources to reduce the bag limit on hook and line fishermen last spring.
With the protest groups determined to find an answer by urging the federal government and the courts to redefine treaty law, concessions may not be likely on their end.
Instead, the answer ultimately may lay with the Lac du Flambeau tribal council, which fully supported the failed agreement.
The spearfishing issue came home to roost on the reservation on the day of the referendum Oct. 25. The Wa-Swa-Gon (”torch” in Ojibway) Treaty Rights Association campaigned vigorously against the agreement. Its members, spearfishing proponents and militant traditionalists, knocked on doors, cast suspicion on the white man`s motives, beat their drums, smoked, prayed and sang.
Inter-tribal tensions rose to a point that tribal leaders received death threats. A tribal office was trashed, and a takeover of tribal headquarters was rumored. Chairman Mike Allen had to call in the sheriff to stand guard as voters cast their ballots.
The issue revealed a schism in the tribe, but not in the tribal council. Now things have settled down, and the council has as its option a simple course of action that previously has not received much attention: a council-imposed bag limit on tribal spearfishers who go off the reservation. It would be a limit somewhere between the 54 percent of total allowable catch now observed, and the 10 percent proposed by Lepak.
”Even some of the people who voted `no` are talking of a bag limit,”
said Betty Graveen, a council member who said the idea has wide support among her fellow council members.
”We`re sovereign, and if so, we should regulate,” she said.
