Madeline Island & the Chequamegon Region

66 Pages·1974·2.459 MB·English

by  John O. Holzhueter

MADELINE ISLAND
and the Chequamegon Region

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J O H N O. H O L Z H U E T E R
F O R E WO R D B Y S T E V E C OT H E R M A N
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WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS
Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Publishers since 1855
© 1974 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin
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Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holzhueter, John O. 1935–
Madeline Island & the Chequamegon region
ISBN 978-0-87020-146-2 1. Chequamegon region, Wis.—History. 2. Madeline Island,
Wis.—History. I. Title.
F587.A8H64
917.75(cid:0)21
74-20919
∞The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
FOREWORD
M
ORE than forty years have passed since Madeline Island and the
Chequamegon Region was first published. The island and region,
and our understanding of their history, have changed sig nifi -
cantly in that time, but other than a few articles, archaeo logical
reports, and reprints, no major new account has been published.
In thinking over the changes of the past forty years, two threads
stand out.
The first of these is alluded to at the beginning of Holzhueter’s
book in the 1970 creation of the Apostle Islands National Lake -
shore. By preserving the land and water and setting them aside
for recreational use, the national lakeshore formalized an unspo-
ken agreement between the region and its government and peo-
ple that had already been in place for decades.
For most of its modern history, the Chequamegon area had
been seen through the lens of its considerable natural resources,
which could be extracted to support residents and turn a profit.
This focus on resources began with the early explorers and
traders, who came in search of the prized beaver pelts that were
buttressing the economies of the American colonies of France
and Great Britain. As Holzhueter makes clear, the same economic
impulse underlay later ventures in brownstone, timber, and fish
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To these adventurers
and entrepreneurs—from Radisson and Groseilliers to John
Jacob Astor—the Chequamegon region was valuable because it
could be mined for economic gain. By 1930 the landscape was af-
fected to such an extent that one National Park Service employee
declared its virgin beauty “irrevocably destroyed.”
Holzhueter closely traces this economic activity, charting the
deeds of early fur traders and businessmen and documenting the
changing fortunes of firms like the American Fur Company. Yet
the resource-based economy was fading long before the first
printing of Madeline Island and the Chequamegon Region. According
to historian James Feldman in A Storied Wilderness: Rewilding the
Apostle Islands (University of Washington Press, 2011), large-scale
extraction of timber, fish, and rock had ended by the 1960s. As
v
Holzueter indicates, a shift to tourism took place in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. Instead of rocks and trees,
tourists came to consume views and build summer homes, partic-
ularly on Madeline Island.
As the twentieth century progressed, the importance of preserv-
ing the area’s natural resources became more evident. The
creation of the national lakeshore in 1970 formalized this under-
standing, mirroring larger trends toward conservation in contem-
porary American society and foreshadowing the more sensible land
use policies of the region today. In place of resource extraction
came a renewed interest in sustaining and protecting the natural
environment, an emphasis taken further in 2004 with the creation
of the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area within the Apostle Islands
National Lakeshore. Today the protection of natural resources is a
primary component of the region’s development efforts.
Madeline Island was notably excluded from both the national
lakeshore and the wilderness area, but sustainable land use has
become an important focus there as well. La Pointe Town Park
and Big Bay State Park are examples of local and state gov ern -
ment conservation efforts on the island. Similarly, Madeline
Island Wilderness Preserve was founded in 1987 to ensure some
land remains wild and available for public use. Managed by a pri-
vate nonprofit trust, the preserve now holds 2,500 acres of forest
and wetlands in various locations across the island. The town of
La Pointe also runs a very sophisticated recycling center. Instead
of creating landfills, town and island residents have elected to re-
cycle as much waste as possible. At the recycling center, you can
find just about anything you need, proving once again that one
person’s trash is another’s treasure. These changes go a long way
in preserving the natural resources of Madeline Island for gener-
ations to come.
More conscientious use of natural resources is also seen in gov-
ernmental agencies and others who have come in to steward the
area. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, for exam-
ple, has managed Wisconsin’s Lake Superior fisheries since the
early twentieth century. Its stewardship resulted in 1962 in the
halting of all commercial trout fishing in the region. Though com-
mercial fishing resumed later that decade, it was more restrained,
with fewer commercial licenses and only after the trout population
had rebounded—management strategies that continue today.
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These efforts, along with those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service,
the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, and the Lake Superior Bi-
national Program, among other organizations, have helped main-
tain Lake Superior’s place as the most pristine of the Great Lakes,
not least of all in the waters of Chequamegon Bay and the Apostle
Islands.
These conservation efforts are aided by the Great Lakes Indian
Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC). As a protector of treaty
rights in the Great Lakes area, representing eleven Ojibwe tribes,
the GLIFWC is involved in natural resource management, con-
servation, and public education through monitoring mercury lev-
els in fish, tracking commercial fishing by tribal members, and
working to reduce invasive species such as the sea lamprey.
The work of the GLIFWC brings us to the second thread of
historical change worth noting: the rise of Native American con-
cerns in the last forty years. This change is seen particularly in the
renewal of Indian efforts to defend treaty rights and in a growing
interest in traditional ways among both tribal members and non-
Indians.
In his preface to the third printing, Holzhueter mentioned the
flood of new historical research then shattering assumptions
about Native American involvement with European traders and
explorers. In the 1970s and 1980s, scholars such as Bruce Trigger
and W. J. Eccles were pioneering a history of early North America
that elevated the roles and initiative of Native people in determin-
ing their own fate. These insights were part of a larger change in
how we represent history today. No longer do we rely on the
voices of the culturally dominant, such as the mostly white and
male fur traders and missionaries discussed by Holzhueter, as the
only source through which to understand the past. Instead, we in-
terpret history with the help of vernacular and women’s perspec-
tives. Holzhueter’s book examines women’s roles in the region
only minimally and gives a superficial telling of Ojibwe history.
Today, historians and educators work with the Ojibwe whenever
possible to tell their story in their own voice, and that voice is de-
cidedly different from the traditional Eurocentric one.
This new perspective in history writing coincided with a strug-
gle for rights within Wisconsin’s Native community. Though
Native rights have been a point of contention and struggle for
hundreds of years, the 1970s through 1990s were a significant
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period during which Wisconsin’s Indian Nations came into esca-
lating conflict with surrounding communities—particularly sport
fishermen and hunters—as they pressed their rights to use land
and resources as they wished. Tensions increased so much that in
one episode, known as the Wisconsin Walleye War, angry protests
against tribe members spearfishing walleye caused the state to
send police in riot gear. The ultimate remedy for Wisconsin’s In-
dian Nations came in the federal courts, which in 1991 upheld
the rights of tribes to regulate their own members and put a halt
to further protest. The GLIFWC, created in 1984, is itself a result
of this initiative among Indian Nations. Its stewardship of natural
resources and documentation of harvests protect the rights of Na-
tive populations to manage and live off the same land their ances-
tors have for hundreds of years.
The past thirty years have also seen a rediscovery of traditional
ways within the Native community. On Madeline Island in the
1970s, influenced in part by the tenor of the times and the fledg -
ling American Indian Movement, local residents and mem bers of
the Indian community created Ojibwe Memorial Park in the
vicinity of an early Indian village and burial ground, fur trading
post, and Catholic mission. By doing so, they put a halt to the de-
velopment of an enlarged marina and condominium complex.
Ojibwe have also taken a great interest in the small reservation on
the northern tip of Madeline Island. Today annual gatherings are
held on the island each Memorial Day to honor veterans, and again
in late September to remember the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, on
which the modern right to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded
ter ri tories is still based.
Annual gatherings, the use of the island’s reservation land, and
the creation of Ojibwe Memorial Park are examples of a tribal
effort to “reclaim” the island and region—not to own it in the way
non-Indians understand property, but to reestablish the tribe’s spir-
itual connections to it. Among a handful of “historic” places on
Madeline Island, the 1835 Saint Joseph Catholic mission cemetery
is now treated with much greater respect than in years past. Histor-
ically referred to as the “Old Indian Cemetery,” it was promoted as
a tourist draw even as late as the 1970s. Today it is recognized for
its historical significance, and casual visits are discouraged in keep-
ing with traditional Ojibwe beliefs. In addition, there have been
two large Anishinaabeg Gatherings on the island since 2009, and in
viii
2012 traditional Ojibwe lacrosse was played on the island for the
first time in almost one hundred years. This renewed focus among
the Ojibwe has affected how we view the region’s history. Working
with Ojibwe elders, historians, and artists, the Madeline Island Mu-
seum has made a commitment to accurately interpret the Ojibwe
past on the island and to provide opportunities for the public to ex-
perience Ojibwe culture firsthand.
The revival of Native American history and culture has ex-
tended beyond the borders of the island and reservations as well.
In 1990 the Wisconsin legislature passed a law requiring Native
culture and history to be taught in all public schools. In the larger
literary world, prominent authors such as Louise Erdrich and
Gerald Vizenor have envisioned Madeline Island’s past in fiction
and nonfiction, giving a voice to its early inhabitants in ways his-
torians never could. Many artists, both Indian and white, view
Madeline Island as a sacred place, and the island is now pictured
as such through literature, the visual arts, and even music, as the
traditional Ojibwe flute of Red Cliff’s Frank Montano exemplifies.
Throughout all these changes, whether ecological or cultural,
Madeline Island and the Chequamegon region remain a vibrant
part of Wisconsin, with a dynamic history that extends further back
than in almost any other section of the state. The story Holzhueter
tells is of a region and people often shifting and working to meet
new challenges. The Huron and Ottawa came to the western Great
Lakes under pressure from other Indian Nations. Later, the Ojibwe
migrated to the western shores of Kitchi Gamiin search of the place
where food grew on water, discovering wild rice where they
stopped. French, British, and American explorers, fur traders, and
missionaries recognized in northern Wisconsin a region rich in
natural resources and indigenous culture. Nineteenth-century im-
migrants used those rich resources to make homes for themselves
in the New World. And since the 1890s, summer visitors have mar-
veled over the region’s rugged beauty and brought with them a
local economy based on tourism and, increasingly, sustainable nat-
ural resource use. Throughout all these changes, Madeline Island
and the Chequamegon region have held on to their significant
place in Wisconsin and American history.
Steve Cotherman
Site Director
Madeline Island Museum
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