CRANDON, Wis — The Wolf River, a federally designated wild river, has
always provided for the people of Wisconsin and for the sturgeon, wild
rice, muskrat, the maple and the deer. It has always protected its children
like a wolf. In one story, the water spirit drums on the rocks, calling the
sturgeon, the most ancient of freshwater fish, back to their spawning
pools.

“It has always been the waters that protected us, and they are fierce. That
is why we consider them sacred,” said Menominee Tribal Historian Dave
Grignon.

Reflecting the spirit of the river, the Sokaogon Chippewa Mole Lake Band
has put its future on the line to protect it, by committing $8 million to
buy out the Nicolet Mineral Co. and its Crandon Mine located in the Wolf
River headwaters area. The Forest County Potawatomi invested the remaining
$8.5 million.

Tailings from the mine operation would have devastated not only the Wolf
River watershed but also those of the Mississippi and Great Lakes with
heavy metals and acids from the mining of copper, zinc, silver and gold.
This is the largest metal-sulfide deposit in North America, estimated at
about 1 million metric tons of copper and 4 million of zinc, and valued
with mineral rights at $91 million.

The purchase of the more than 5,000-acre headwaters area ended a 30-year
battle to thwart a succession of different multinational corporate owners
from the mining the site. The battle was waged by a coalition organized by
the Mole Lake Chippewa, the Forest County Potawatomi, the Menominee, the
Stockbridge-Munsee and the Wisconsin Oneida.

The coalition was the broadest-based anti-corporate movement in the history
of the state, including factions that had violently opposed American Indian
spearfishing treaty rights, because the interests of so many were
threatened — sports fishermen, urban vacationers and rural communities.

Mole Lake is a relatively small and isolated tribe in Wisconsin. With $7.75
million due by spring, they are launching a massive fund-raising campaign
as the wild ricing season begins.

A two-day concert was held beginning on the evening of Aug. 26 for the
benefit of the Wolf River Protection Fund, which was set up by the Mole
Lake to fund their commitment.

“The biggest single benefit of this concert is for all citizens to
understand the importance of protecting the precious water and resources
that we have in the Great Lakes area,” said Richard Ackley, Mole Lake
marketing director. “We hope that this concert will develop into something
better next year because we want to make this an annual event. We want the
whole nation to know we have protected the entire Mississippi basin clear
to the Gulf of Mexico.”

BHP Billiton, the loan holder and previous mine owner, is the largest
mining corporation in the world, with profits of over $3.4 billion in 2004,
selling 11.1 billion pounds of ore in the first half of the year. Mole
Lake’s 1,700-acre reservation and material resources pale in comparison.
Yet the mismatch is not physical. The resolve of the Native people of
northern Wisconsin and all those associated with them have prevailed to
this point.

“This is the last remaining beautiful country here. This concert is a labor
of love,” said organizer for the fund and Indian Country Today
correspondent Abbey Thompson of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa. Thompson slept little more than two hours each night while
putting everything together, coasting on pure adrenaline.

The organization lined up the bands Indigenous and Jerry Garcia, Cree/Metis
singer Wayne Lavallee, and Menominee musician Wade Fernandez and his Black
Wolf Band, among others.

The battle for the life of the Wolf is not over. The sturgeon are still
hampered by dams. There is talk of a nuclear waste facility. There are core
holes that need to be filled at the Crandon Mine site. But the momentum
seems to be flowing with the river, with anti-poaching and recovery
programs for the sturgeon, the return of traditional ceremonies, the
approval in mid-August by the state to purchase and protect 18,000 acres of
timberland bordering the Upper Wolf River Fishery Area and the Nicolet
National Forest from development, and the generosity of a multitude of
people who made the fund-raising concert a success.

For more information, visit www.wolfriverprotectionfund.org.