Medicine Rock and Strawberry Island are two of the most sacred sites on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation.
Recently, there have been multiple reports of disrespectful and destructive behavior at both places by non-Native people.
Medicine Rock and Strawberry Island on Flambeau Lake are two of the most sacred places on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation.
Medicine Rock, or Gichi Mashkiki in Ojibwe, has been held sacred for generations, since Chief Kishkemun first brought the band to the area in 1745.
He told his people that as long as they took care of and protected this rock, they’d be here.
Carol Brown is an elder in the community and Chief Kishkemun’s descendent on her father’s side.
“It's not a place for parties. It's not a place for picnics, although it's beautiful. And it's got a sandbar,” she explained.
Strawberry Island, whose artifacts and remains have been dated as far back as 200 BC, is both the site of the last territorial battle between the Ojibwe and the Sioux in 1745, as well as a coerced land sale between the US government and the Ojibwe.
In 1887, the Dawes Act employed a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy to assimilate Native communities by breaking down communally-owned tribal land and parceling it out to individual tribal members, who needed money to survive and ended up selling their land to homesteaders. Many Native people lost their land due to trader and tax fraud.
Strawberry Island was allotted to a 5 year old Ojibwe boy, whose name was Harold Whitefeather, around the late 1800's. It was then sold to the Mills family in the early 1900's by Harold's parents.
The Mills family left the Island undisturbed until the son of the original purchaser subdivided the Island in the 60's and then in the 90's pursued development. It was this individual who fought the Tribe on zoning use, which the Tribe eventually won in the Court of Appeals.
Eventually, in 2014 the Tribe bought Strawberry Island, and since then, they’ve kept it as a protected area, strictly not to disturbed.
“Our elders and our before then have have told us ‘don't go on to the island, you need to respect that area. That's where spirits lie.’ And we've always respected that,” said Brown.
Brown explains that she believes all things are connected and everything has a spirit.
She says that Strawberry Island and Medicine Rock remind the tribe of their traditions, language, and stories.
“When someone tramps around on it, drinks and parties around on it, which we have seen, and just in general treats it like a picnic/party spot, it feels like someone is disrespecting all of our spirits,” she explained.
Patty Schwalenberg is her sister and another elder in the community.
She explained how she used to love riding around the reservation with her mom, but as the years went by, more and more non-Native people started building houses and putting up “no trespassing” signs.
“Every time we'd want to go down a dirt road, there'd be a fence. So it makes you angry because you don't have any control over it. So you have those last, sacred places that nobody knows about. All of a sudden, the one most sacred, important place, people are partying, they're going to the bathroom, they're leaving litter, and it's heartbreaking,” she said.
She said the disrespect to their sacred places adds to the already traumatic experiences they’ve had under colonialism.
In a press release, the tribe said they’re seeking solutions to avoid this issue in the future.
