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This final piece in a three-part series explores what has happened since the Ojibwe people and U.S. government negotiated and signed the 1854 Treaty at La Pointe. There are many aspects of the treaty, but the article that has garnered the most attention states that the tribes can continue hunting and fishing on the ceded territory.
These rights haven’t always been upheld throughout the years, and the tribes have fought in court to be able to continue these practices on their homeland.
Experts say the warming climate and more variable weather caused by climate change threaten species in the region that are an intrinsic part of Ojibwe culture, adversely impacting their ability to live off the land.
Waxing and waning
The provision guaranteeing that tribes could continue hunting and fishing on the ceded land is not unique to the 1854 Treaty. Across the land that would become the United States, treaties were created between Indigenous tribes and the U.S. government that included these provisions. And even when these rights weren’t mentioned in a treaty, under a policy called the reserved rights doctrine the tribes still retained any rights not explicitly guaranteed in a treaty.
But these rights haven’t always been upheld. As state governments established their own hunting and fishing regulations, the tribes’ rights waned and many were forced to follow state regulations, which the courts later affirmed violated tribal sovereignty.
In the mid-20th century, tribes pushed back against these regulations and began bringing state governments to court to affirm their rights. The Minnesota Chippewa tribes would join the movement after Curtis Gagnon, a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa who died last winter, shot a moose on off-reservation land in 1984.
Gagnon turned himself in to the game warden and was cited and fined. With other tribes finding success in affirming their rights in court, Gagnon and the Grand Portage band took action.
“It has to be taken to court. It has to be made public,” Gagnon told Minnesota Public Radio News in 2016. “The word has to get out that we are going to stand up for our rights.”
On August 20, 1985, they filed a civil action suit in district court, asking the court to affirm their right to hunt and fish in the ceded territory.
The tribes and state of Minnesota negotiated a settlement that upheld the tribes’ rights, but also defined the manner in how these rights would be exercised and required steps be taken to regulate and conserve natural resources.
After the settlement, an inter-tribal conservation agency – The 1854 Treaty Authority – was created to protect and enforce the Grand Portage and Bois Forte bands’ rights to hunt, fish and gather these natural and cultural resources off-reservation.
The agency regulates and monitors these practices and co-manages resources with the bands. One of the tasks the agency works on is addressing and preparing for the impacts of climate change in the region, which experts say threaten the viability of the resources that tribes hunt, fish and gather.
Members of the Grand Portage, Bois Forte and Fond du Lac bands and the treaty authority gathered created a plan in 2016 to address the threats to the landscape and species in the area and find ways to create climate resilient systems that can protect resources important to Ojibwe culture, history and life.
“Natural resources are an intrinsic part of life on reservations and within the 1854 Ceded Territory,” the finalized plan reads. “These natural resources are of deep cultural and subsistence importance to the bands that retain rights to hunt, fish and gather them. Any disruption to these systems has the potential to cause significant ramifications to the Ojibwe people. One factor of particular concern is climate change.”
Hilarie Sorenson, climate specialist for the 1854 Treaty Authority, said tribes work hard to be good stewards of the environment, of which they are intertwined, and are farther ahead than most in creating plans to help species adapt to the changing climate.
Tribes are unique because reservations and ceded territories have geographically defined boundaries so they can’t migrate as the ecosystem changes and resources such as moose and wild rice dwindle in the region. Wild rice – manoomin – is a sacred food and medicine to the Ojibwe, but is very sensitive and has been declining in Minnesota because of stressors like warmer winters. The tribes have been working with universities and the 1854 Treaty Authority to study its decline and look for adaptation strategies.
“These resources are viewed as beings having their own rights and they need to be protected,” Sorenson said.
An ongoing dispute
The 1854 Treaty has been in the spotlight recently because of the proposed expansion of Lutsen Mountains ski hill on land that was ceded in the treaty.
Tribes serve as co-managers and stewards of that land and have a legal interest in protecting the natural resources, according to Robert Deschampe, chairman of the Grand Portage band, in a letter addressed to the Cook County Chamber of Commerce.
“The expansion of Lutsen Mountains onto these 500 acres will compromise tribal property rights to hunt, fish and gather therein and will conflict with the principle of co-management,” the letter reads. “…Tribal interests include, but are not limited to the sugar maples and old-growth cedar on Moose Mountain. Removal of these stands will constitute an irretrievable loss of accessible culturally significant resources.”
The county chamber of commerce had argued that there is no evidence that the Ojibwe have used or plan to use the area and that it’s unreasonable to prohibit the expansion because of “a remote chance it might at some undefined future date become a focus of an Ojibwe gathering.”
Tribes have been fighting to continue hunting, fishing and gathering on the land since the 1854 Treaty was ratified, despite it being a right Ojibwe people had for countless generations before they negotiated and signed the treaty. Joseph Bauerkemper, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota – Duluth who researches Indigenous governance and federal and state policy regarding tribal nations, said it’s important to remember that the treaty didn’t give Indigenous people these rights, but the rights of the U.S. government and settlers are dependent on the treaty.
“I can live here because of that treaty,” he said. “That permission is fragile though. We are obligated to not do things that infringe on tribal rights or that undermines their resources.”
More visibility
What the 1854 Treaty Authority and others are doing is trying to educate the community about the treaty and the rights established in it. Road signs have been popping up in the last couple months that mark the 1854 Treaty boundaries, including one on Highway 61 near Grand Portage State Park. Former Grand Portage Chairman Norman Deschampe began the process when he requested signs on the boundaries over a decade ago. Levi Brown, director of tribal affairs for the Minnesota Department of Transportation and a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, said the signs are a way to remind people of the treaty and how non-Ojibwe people can live in the region because of it. He said it’s important for the community and state to recognize and honor the rights of the tribes in the territory.
“This helps acknowledge the treaties,” he said. “I hope that visibility encourages discussion about what the treaties are and what they mean.”
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