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Ojibwe Gichigami (“Ojibwa’s Great Sea”): an intersecting history of treaty rights, tribal fish harvesting, and toxic risk in Keweenaw Bay, United States

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Abstract

Ojibwe Gichigami (“Ojibwa’s Great Sea”) is the spirit name for Lake Superior; it is also the homeland of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) where Gichigami fishing has sustained the people for nearly a millennia. As signatories to the 1842 Treaty With The Chippewa, the KBIC retain rights for hunting, fishing, and gathering, and worship within ten-million acres of ceded land and water territory. However, due to elevated levels of toxics such as methyl-mercury and polychlorinated-biphenyls (PCBs), Lake Superior is currently under numerous fish consumption advisories that inform the public of harmful contamination levels. Thus, harvesting provides socio-cultural and spiritual wellbeing for the KBIC, and simultaneously, places their physical health at great risk. By using ethnographic methods and oral histories, this article illustrates how an intersecting history of KBIC treaty rights, tribal fish harvesting, and toxic risk is the center of their water story. Over the course of several decades, they have encountered dire consequences due to federal assimilation policies, state regulatory control over their harvesting, and environmental degradation and contamination. KBIC present-day perspectives of toxic risk are rooted in this history. In 1971, the Michigan Supreme Court presented a landmark decision: the People v. Jondreau reaffirmed 1842 treaty rights for the KBIC. This precedential decision was followed by Great Lakes states issuing the nation’s first fish advisories. The KBIC historical context is imperative to understanding present day environmental policy and its relevance (or irrelevance) for those most at-risk, emphasizing how social injustices are manifested through a people’s water history.

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Notes

  1. Scholars have documented the legal history of fisheries for some regions and indigenous people groups, highlighting the legal, social, and environmental complexities surrounding debates on rights concerning access, harvesting and fishing tools, and also, the management of the fisheries. For case study examples, see P Blair’s Lament for a First Nation: The Williams Treaties of Southern Ontario (2008); Michael Thoms’ An Ojibwa Community, American Sportsmen, and the Ontario Government in the Early Management of the Nipigon Fishery (1999); AF McEvoy’s The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in California Fisheries 18501980 (1986); DL Boxberger’s To Fish in Common: The Ethnohistory of Lummi Indian Salmon Fishing (2000); D Newell’s Tangled Webs of History: Indians and the Law in Canada’s Pacific Coast Fisheries (1994); and D Harris’ Landing Native Fisheries: Indian Reserves and Fishing Rights in British Columbia, 1849–1925 (2008).

  2. For a collection of laws and rulings applicable to the Ojibwa people, see GLIFWC’s (2009) publication Fulfilling Ojibwe Treaty Promises—an overview and compendium of relevant cases, statutes, and agreements.

  3. The representation put forward by Wilkinson (2005) is but one version of the precise events and social relationships that led to the People v. Jondreau case and outcome.  Other variations of the story, by the KBIC families involved in this case, do exist.

  4. In 2010, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) provided a surge of unprecedented funding for the NRD in the form of tribal capacity and program grants. Prior to GLRI, NRD staff and programs were minimal.

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Acknowledgments

This work is based on MS research conducted while part of the Environmental Policy graduate program at Michigan Technological University (2009–2011); and continued PhD research in the Environmental and Energy Policy graduate program at the abovementioned University (2013–2015). Student funding assistance has been provided by Michigan Tech’s Social Sciences Department (2009–2011); National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Global Watershed Fellowship (2011–2013); and National Science Foundation’s Coupled Human-Natural Systems Research Assistantship (2013–2016). The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s Tribal Council, Culture Committee, and Natural Resource and Forestry Departments are deeply acknowledged for their acceptance and guidance during fieldwork and writing, with sincerest gratitude to the late Todd Warner, and also to Gerald Jondreau, Pamela Nankervis, and Evelyn Ravindran who extended their friendship alongside their expertise. To Carol MacLennan, my advisor and friend, your constant review and constructive feedback continually improved the focus of this manuscript; I thank you for your invaluable contribution. Finally, to Keweenaw Bay Indian Community fishing families, you all receive my utmost thankfulness for entrusting me with your stories.

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Correspondence to Valoree S. Gagnon.

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Gagnon, V.S. Ojibwe Gichigami (“Ojibwa’s Great Sea”): an intersecting history of treaty rights, tribal fish harvesting, and toxic risk in Keweenaw Bay, United States. Water Hist 8, 365–384 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-016-0185-7

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