‘For Them It’s Just Recreation’: How Expired Land Easements Turned Into a Division Over Land

LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wisconsin — “This is a sacred piece of land because it was given to us by the creator, everything on this land is sacred sustenance; for them it’s just recreation,” said tribal member Tom Maulson in an interview after the town board meeting held on March 11th.

As of the 11th, the barricades on tribal roads in Lac du Flambeau had been up for 39 days. The tribe put up the barricades on Jan. 31 because the road easements—a right-of-way grant allowing people to cross land belonging to someone else—had been expired for 10 years.

Negotiations between the tribe and the title companies responsible for upholding and purchasing these easements started in 2017, after little progress, the tribe has now made the decision to impose physical barricades. 

“Bureau of Indian Affairs representatives have made very clear, through their inactions, by failing to respond to the requests from Tribal leadership, during this period, have demonstrated a sincere commitment to respecting the federal government’s ‘trust’ responsibility, and an utter lack of recognition of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe, as a sovereign nation,” read a statement released by the tribe and their legal representation on February 7th.

Lac du Flambeau is a reservation 12 square miles large in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, covered in a thick dusting of snow this time of year. The first things you can notice when you pass the entrance sign stating “you are now subject to tribal laws” and the small homes tucked between large conifer trees against the Flambeau chain of lakes are the snowmobiles. 

There are recreational snowmobile trails, reserved spaces in parking lots and designated helmet hangers all throughout the reservation. Snowmobiles have been a big part of this area for years but their importance has significantly increased since the barricades have been put up. This is now the primary way for many homeowners behind the barricades to get to town. 

Homeowner Denny Pearson, one of the members of the now paused Behind the Barricades Facebook page, crosses the frozen lake on his snowmobile daily to get to work. A neighbor on the other side of the lake allows him to park his car there in order to get around the barricaded stretch of road where his home is. 

“I don’t know what we’ll do when the lake melts,” said Pearson, stating that he may just have to cross the land if barricades are still in place when the time comes. “We have to go to work.”

Pearson is hopeful that the tribe, the town, the title companies and the homeowners could reach a resolution soon. He met with tribal elders on March 10th, the night before the town board meeting where a 90-day agreement for the barricades to be taken down alongside a 60k dollar settlement to the tribe was proposed.

One of those tribal elders was Tom Maulson, a man who has experience dealing with these issues of land ownership and treaty rights. He was involved with the “fish wars,” as he calls them, in the 1980s. The war over fishing in the area spurred from protests over the Anishinaabe’s right to spearfish the walleye present in the regional lakes. 

“People killed my dog in my yard, tried to kill our people during the fish wars,” said Maulson while talking about those days. 

His son, Fred Maulson, recalls a time when his teacher in school had thrown rocks at them down by the boats and called them racial slurs, “And then I just had to go to class with the same teacher the next day.”

“Having lived through the spearfishing I can see the hatred or the misunderstanding,” said Maulson. “They know nothing about us, but they live amongst us.”

Maulson spoke of a sacred fire burning in the town due to a recent passing of a tribal elder, upset that while there are other things to attend to these issues are always brought to the foreground. 

“They want to stop us from blocking the roads off yet they put up fences and chains to prevent us from walking on the land that used to belong to us, it was stolen from us.”

For the tribal members, this isn’t a new issue, this is only the continuation of an injustice that they’ve been facing for hundreds of years.

Tom Maulson understands both sides, his mother being of native descent and his father being a white man. He wants people to try and understand the tribe’s perspective.

“They never walked in my moccasins, shoes or footprints,” said Maulson. “I wish we could accept the white people as part of the community but those who come in here know nothing about us.”