Issue 008 · June 28, 2026
A federal judge has continued the injunction blocking Lac du Flambeau from enforcing its fishing restrictions on the lakes that cross allotment-era roads at the center of the ongoing easement dispute. The ruling keeps the band's access-control strategy on hold while the broader road-dispute litigation works through the courts, and it sits in direct tension with the tribe's sovereign interest in managing its own lands. WPR's coverage, the Native source of record on this beat, is the right place to start.
Issue 008 · June 28, 2026
The National Indian Law Library has released a curated water-resources guide through NARF's Headwaters Report, covering federal Indian water law, tribal water rights adjudications, and the intersection of treaty rights with water infrastructure disputes. For anyone updating a chapter on Wisconsin Ojibwe treaty rights or preparing for a keynote on sovereignty, this is a practical reference tool, not just a press notice. The guide is particularly useful alongside the ongoing Line 5 and manoomin litigation.
Issue 007 · June 21, 2026
A federal court has continued its order blocking the Lac du Flambeau Band from enforcing fishing restrictions on nearly twenty lakes in ceded territory, extending a legal standoff that began when the band closed access over allotment-era road easements. The ruling keeps the treaty-rights and road-dispute threads tightly braided: the same land-access grievance that produced the road closures is now shaping how the band can exercise its own regulatory authority over the fishery. WPR's coverage is the source to follow here, and the note Patty flagged on the earlier ruling still applies: this belongs in the LdF section of the Ojibwe chapter, in direct conversation with the road dispute story.
Issue 007 · June 21, 2026
The Native American Rights Fund has posted a direct call to action: Michigan is currently accepting public comment on Enbridge's proposed Line 5 oil tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, and tribal nations and Indigenous communities have long documented the risks the project poses to the waters, fisheries, and natural resources of the Great Lakes. NARF's framing is clear that this is a treaty-rights issue, not merely an environmental one. For Mashkiiziibii, which has fought the Wisconsin segment of Line 5 through the courts, the Michigan permitting process is the next front. Patty, the comment window will not stay open long.
Issue 007 · June 21, 2026
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a jurisdictional challenge to the White Earth Nation's permitting process, in a case that tested whether a tribe or the state holds regulatory authority over water use on non-Indian fee land within reservation boundaries. NARF's case review frames this as part of a growing conflict with direct implications for Wisconsin Ojibwe bands, whose ceded-territory water rights face similar pressure from non-Indian landowners. The ruling is a quiet but significant win for tribal water sovereignty, and the legal reasoning will matter to anyone tracking manoomin protection cases.
Issue 006 · June 14, 2026
The Eighth Circuit dismissed a challenge to the White Earth Nation's authority to regulate water use on non-Indian fee land within reservation boundaries, a ruling that NARF's case review frames as part of a growing conflict between tribal regulatory power and non-Indian landowners. The decision matters well beyond Minnesota: the same jurisdictional question sits underneath Wisconsin Ojibwe water governance disputes, including the ongoing tensions over manoomin protection and sulfide mining near rice waters. NARF's analysis is the right place to read this one.
Issue 005 · June 7, 2026
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe marked the return of approximately 3,400 acres known as the Cloquet Forestry Center through Minnesota's state bonding bill, a transfer that tribal leaders called historic. Native News Online covered the signing ceremony, which brought together tribal and state officials for what amounts to one of the larger land returns to a Lake Superior Ojibwe band in recent memory. The Cloquet land sits within the Band's ceded territory and has ecological significance for manoomin and other traditional resources. For Patty, this story sits at the intersection of several beats she tracks closely: land back, Lake Superior Ojibwe treaty territory, and the slow, grinding work of restoring what removal took. It is also a useful counterpoint to the pipeline and mining fights: sometimes the land comes back. The piece is worth reading in full alongside the NARF voting rights and IHS funding stories this week, as a reminder that sovereignty is exercised in many registers at once.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
The State of Wisconsin filed suit against the Lac du Flambeau Band on April 30, 2026, after the Band issued fishing restrictions on nineteen reservation lakes citing documented declines in walleye and muskellunge populations. The Band's position is straightforward: tribal resource managers are doing exactly what conservation science demands, and the state's lawsuit challenges that authority. Mazinaigan, GLIFWC's publication, is the right source here — it carries the tribal conservation framing that mainstream outlets routinely miss. Patty, this sits directly alongside the earlier federal ruling blocking LdF from restricting off-reservation fishing; the two cases together define a complicated moment for the Band's resource sovereignty.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
Preliminary studies and field data from fourteen Wisconsin lakes show that the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR causes elevated mortality in manoomin at submerged and floating-leaf stages — the most vulnerable points in the rice's life cycle. Tribes including the Menominee Nation and GLIFWC member bands are pushing back against continued use of the chemical in ceded territory waters. Mazinaigan carries the data; this is the kind of story that will not appear in mainstream Wisconsin media until the damage is done.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
The Voigt Intertribal Task Force chair and GLIFWC member tribes are formally pushing back against ProcellaCOR applications in regional waterways, citing potential harm to wild rice, fish, and other subsistence resources. This is the advocacy side of the same story as the field data above — the two pieces together show both the scientific concern and the political response. Mazinaigan again.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
Governor Evers signed a $125 million package to address PFAS contamination in Wisconsin water supplies, with private well owners and tribes explicitly among those eligible for grant funding. Mazinaigan notes that some of the highest PFAS levels in the state have been documented near tribal lands. This is a water-sovereignty story as much as an environmental one — tribes have been raising PFAS concerns in their water monitoring work for years.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
Iron County, with support from GLIFWC and the Bad River and Lac du Flambeau Bands, purchased 1,051 acres of undeveloped shoreline, uplands, and islands on the Gile Flowage from Xcel Energy for permanent conservation and public access. The acquisition protects waters within the ceded territory and keeps the land from development. Mazinaigan carries the story with the tribal conservation framing it deserves.
Issue 004 · May 31, 2026
The Trump administration is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which has protected approximately 60 million acres of National Forest land — including significant portions of the Ojibwe ceded territory in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan — from road construction, timber harvesting, and mineral leasing. GLIFWC's Mazinaigan lays out the tribal opposition with the specificity that the issue demands: these are not abstract wilderness acres but the forests where Ojibwe families hunt, gather, and exercise treaty rights that predate the National Forest system itself. The rollback would open ceded territory forests to the same extractive pressures that the Roadless Rule has held at bay for a quarter century, and GLIFWC's formal opposition letter frames it explicitly as a treaty-rights issue. For the third edition of Indian Nations of Wisconsin, this is the kind of federal policy shift that belongs in the environmental and treaty-rights sections of every Ojibwe band chapter — the Seventh Generation lens applies directly here.
Issue 003 · May 24, 2026
A federal judge has ordered a partial stop to construction on Enbridge's Line 5 reroute through the Bad River watershed, the latest turn in a legal fight that Mashkiiziibii has been waging to protect its manoomin beds and treaty-protected waters. The ruling does not halt all work, and the legal landscape remains unsettled, but it is the kind of concrete, court-ordered pause the Band has been pressing for. We tracked Bad River's original motion to stop reroute construction in an earlier issue; this is the follow-on. Watch WPR for updates as the injunction scope becomes clearer.
Issue 003 · May 24, 2026
The State of Wisconsin filed suit against the Lac du Flambeau Band on April 30 after the tribe imposed fishing restrictions on 19 reservation lakes, citing documented declines in walleye and muskellunge populations. The tribe's position is straightforward: the fish are struggling and the Band has both the sovereign right and the ecological obligation to act. Mazinaigan, which broke this story in the Ceded Territory press, notes that the state's lawsuit arrives even as tribal fisheries data drives the conservation concern. This is the inverse of the usual posture, and it sits directly alongside the road-dispute litigation that has already strained LdF-state relations.
Issue 003 · May 24, 2026
Governor Evers signed a $125 million package to address PFAS contamination in Wisconsin's water supplies, with tribes explicitly named among those eligible for grant funding to address private well contamination. Mazinaigan notes that some of the highest PFAS levels in the state have been found near tribal communities. The intersection of water quality, treaty-protected resources, and tribal sovereignty makes this more than a general environmental story.
Issue 003 · May 24, 2026
Tribes including the Menominee Nation and GLIFWC member bands are escalating their opposition to ProcellaCOR, an aquatic herbicide being used in Ceded Territory lakes, citing preliminary studies showing elevated mortality in manoomin at submerged and floating leaf stages. Voigt Intertribal Task Force Chair is quoted directly in Mazinaigan's coverage, which also notes field data from 14 Wisconsin lakes suggesting harm to wild rice beds. The Seventh Generation question here is not abstract: manoomin is both a treaty-protected resource and a living relative, and the data is pointing in a troubling direction.
Issue 003 · May 24, 2026
The current federal administration is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which has protected roughly 60 million acres of National Forest land from road construction, timber harvesting, and mineral leasing. GLIFWC and its member tribes have formally opposed the rollback, arguing that roadless areas within the Ceded Territory are integral to the wild rice, fisheries, and gathering resources that treaty rights guarantee. The connection to sulfide mining risk in northern Wisconsin is direct.
Issue 002 · May 17, 2026
A federal judge ruled against the Lac du Flambeau Band's attempt to restrict non-tribal fishing on nineteen reservation lakes, finding the tribe had not met the legal standard for such restrictions. The Band had cited declining walleye and muskellunge populations as the basis for the closures. The ruling lands in the same week as the DOJ roads brief, compounding pressure on the Band from multiple federal directions.
Issue 002 · May 17, 2026
Mazinaigan, GLIFWC's newspaper, reports that Wisconsin filed suit against the Lac du Flambeau Band on April 30 after the tribe issued fishing restrictions on nineteen reservation lakes, citing walleye and muskellunge declines. The tribe's conservation concerns are real: GLIFWC data shows long-term population stress in some northern lakes. This is the Native-source account of the same dispute the federal court ruling addressed.
Issue 002 · May 17, 2026
Mazinaigan reports that the Menominee Nation and GLIFWC member bands are escalating their opposition to ProcellaCOR, an aquatic herbicide used in Ceded Territory lakes, citing preliminary data showing elevated mortality in manoomin at submerged and floating-leaf stages. The Voigt Intertribal Task Force is involved, and field data from fourteen Wisconsin lakes is raising red flags. This is a manoomin-protection story that sits squarely in Patty's treaty-rights and wild-rice beats.
Issue 002 · May 17, 2026
Governor Evers signed legislation directing $125 million to address PFAS contamination in Wisconsin's water supplies, with tribal communities explicitly included among those eligible for grant funding. Mazinaigan notes that some of the highest PFAS levels in the state have been documented near tribal lands. The funding is meaningful but the contamination problem it addresses is not going away.
Issue 002 · May 17, 2026
WPR's interview with a northern Wisconsin tribal leader makes the case that the priorities of the Ojibwe bands and their neighbors are distinct from the rest of the state, organized around treaty rights, manoomin, and the particular ecology of the Northwoods rather than the policy concerns that dominate Madison and Milwaukee. The framing, 'north of Highway 29 is its own country,' is a useful shorthand for what Patty's Ojibwe chapter has always argued. Lead with the tribal voice here.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
A federal judge ruled this week that the Lac du Flambeau Band cannot restrict non-tribal fishing on approximately twenty lakes within its territory, a decision that touches directly on the ongoing tension between tribal resource management authority and off-reservation public access claims. WPR reported the ruling. The legal reasoning matters here: whether the court grounded its decision in treaty rights, state law, or something else will shape how far the ruling reaches and whether it invites further challenges to tribal fisheries management across the ceded territories.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
WPR's conversation with a northern Wisconsin tribal leader this week surfaced the persistent frustration that state and federal policy is made by people who rarely travel north of Highway 29, let alone understand what treaty-protected resources mean to communities whose livelihoods and spiritual lives depend on them. The framing is one Patty, you will recognize from your own fieldwork: the geography of neglect is not accidental. The piece is worth reading alongside the Line 5 and fishing-restriction stories as a reminder of the political context in which those legal fights unfold.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Native Sun News Today flags that South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson's federal bills to expand Missouri River water use for the state do not address the question of who actually holds water rights in that river system, a question that implicates multiple Oceti Sakowin nations whose treaty territories the Missouri runs through. The piece is a good example of the kind of story that only a Native publication is likely to frame this way: the mainstream coverage of the same bills would almost certainly not lead with tribal water rights.
Background
· 2022
· indigenous-climate-resilience-network
Research across the Great Lakes region has confirmed that manoomin is now declining roughly 5 to 7 percent annually due to drastic precipitation shifts and rising temperatures, and the species has been deemed the most vulnerable food throughout Anishinaabeg territories. The Bad River sloughs, which hold the largest remaining coastal wild rice bed on the Great Lakes, face accelerating heat, lake-level fluctuation, and algal blooms. Tribal nations are leading restoration grounded in Traditional Ecological Knowledge while agencies belatedly learn from elders.
Background
· 2021
· doe-indian-energy
In May 2021 the Bad River Band completed Ishkonige Nawadide, a 500-kilowatt solar array paired with more than 1,000 kilowatt-hours of battery storage powering the Health and Wellness Center, the wastewater treatment plant, and the Chief Blackbird Administration Building. The project was a direct response to the July 2016 flood that knocked out power across the reservation for days and damaged critical infrastructure. Funded through the Department of Energy's Office of Indian Energy.
Background
· 2015
· ICT (Indian Country Today)
On March 24, 2015, Gogebic Taconite president Bill Williams pulled the company's preapplication for the 4.5-mile open-pit iron mine that would have produced eight million tons of taconite annually over the Bad River watershed. Six Wisconsin Ojibwe bands, led by Bad River, had organized the EPA review and grassroots resistance that surfaced the wetlands the company claimed did not exist. Williams cited 'unexpected extensive wetlands' and EPA permit uncertainty.
Background
· 2012
· ramsar
On February 2, 2012, the Kakagon and Bad River Sloughs received Ramsar designation as a Wetland of International Importance, the first such site owned by a tribal nation in the United States. The 16,000-acre complex holds the largest natural wild rice bed on the Great Lakes and the last extensive coastal manoomin bed in the region, critical to the genetic diversity of Lake Superior wild rice. Designation came after years of stewardship work with the Wisconsin Wetlands Association and partners.
Background
· 2003
· itep
In a closing chapter of the long Crandon Mine fight, the Forest County Potawatomi Community partnered with the Sokaogon Chippewa Community to purchase the proposed mine site from Nicolet Minerals, ending decades of threat to the wild rice waters between Mole Lake and the Wolf River headwaters. The tribes hold the land in trust. Walter Bresette's organizing coalition, the Midwest Treaty Network, had built much of the resistance that made the buyout possible.