Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Sioux Indians originally controlled the current Ojibwa reservation. Astrategic location
at a midpoint between the Montreal River route from the Wisconsin River to Lake Superior
aswellastheChippewaRivertotheMississippi,itwasfinallywrestedawaybytheOjibwa
around 1650. Lac du Flambeau (“Lake of the Torches”) is what the bewildered French first
said when they saw the Ojibwa spearfishing in birchbark canoes in the inky black night, lit
onlybytheirtorches.ThelargestNativeAmericangroupnevertobeforciblyremovedfrom
theirstateterritory,theOjibwareservationstatuswasestablishedin1854withtheLaPointe
treaty, signed on Madeline Island. It became a general case of federal mismanagement, as
usual. The Depression-era WPA guide to Wisconsin took the government to task for condi-
tions on the reservation:
In a report published in 1934 the Land Planning Committee...discusses this as
an outstanding example of mismanagement of Indian affairs. ... For 25 years
the reservation was held in trust by the Government, which permitted outsiders
to log off the timber, thus depriving the Indian owners of the only valuable
property they had. By 1914 lumbering ceased, and the Indians were left unem-
ployed on denuded land. Eventually each Indian received a small tract, virtually
worthless for farming, not large enough to be used for grazing or forestry.
Life on the reservation is better today, though certainly not perfect, judging from the events
surroundingspearfishingsites.TheOjibwapopulationtodayhoversaroundthe2,500mark,
with tribal enterprises including a well-respected traditional Ojibwa village, a cultural cen-
ter and museum, pallet manufacturing, a mall, a fish hatchery, and a casino.
MM
Waswagoning
In2005,vandalstorchedagreatdealofoneofnorthernWisconsin'smostwondrouscultur-
al offerings,
Waswagoning
(wa-SWAH-gah-ning, 715/588-3560,
www.waswagoning.us
)
,
a meticulous re-creation of an Ojibwa village spread over 20 acres along Moving Cloud
Lake on the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation. In a credit to the founder, the young ar-
sonists underwent cultural sensitivity training in lieu of a harsh jail term. Hate, in essence,
will not be allowed to soil this place.
It remains today an amazing place after a rebuild, devoid of tackiness—and quite pos-
sibly the most significant cultural attraction in the north—with a name that means the same
as the Francophone Lac du Flambeau. Various birchbark lodges dot the landscape, con-
nected by trails, each lodge offering demonstrations on aspects of Ojibwa culture—winter
maple camps, tanning, birchbark canoe building, wigwam making, and specialty dances
