Fond du Lac reversal

Lake Vermilion’s reputation as one of the state’s premier walleye lakes dodged a potential bullet this past week, thanks to the efforts of the Bois Forte Tribal Council.

As first reported by the Timberjay last Friday, Bois Forte officials met with members of the Fond du Lac Tribal Council on April 16 and urged them to reverse their plans to net walleye on Vermilion this year.

Bois Forte officials were clearly in the best position to make the case for reconsideration, and they had been pushing Fond du Lac to meet with them for months. In the end, their persistence and their persuasiveness paid off, much to the relief of everyone who benefits from the Lake Vermilion fishery.

Among other arguments, Bois Forte tribal officials appealed to Fond du Lac’s sense of fairness, noting that Lake Vermilion is a key resource for the Bois Forte, a relatively small band that does not currently exercise its 1854 treaty rights elsewhere in northeastern Minnesota. That means the rights of the band to net walleye is essentially limited to waters in the vicinity of the Vermilion Reservation, where the band has sustainably netted walleye in the spring, for centuries, without any significant issue or conflict with other lake users. During that time, Vermilion has consistently maintained one of the strongest walleye populations in the state. It’s been a boon for the Bois Forte, who benefit from a sustainable source of high-quality fish for band members, as well as the dollars that walleye anglers bring to Fortune Bay Resort Casino. It’s been a boon, as well, to the lake’s resort industry and area fishing guides, who profit from the lake’s productive fishery. And it’s certainly a boon to the tens of thousands of anglers who visit the area each year to ply Vermilion’s waters.

It’s been a win-win situation for everyone for many years, which made the prospect of Fond du Lac’s intervention highly unsettling. While the band proposed to take a relatively modest amount of walleye this year, there was nothing to prevent them from significantly increasing their take in future years— particularly given the devastation that’s already occurred to the once-venerable Mille Lacs Lake walleye fishery, where Fond du Lac and other bands have been netting for a number of years. With Mille Lacs failing to produce, it was not surprising Fond du Lac is looking for other lakes to exploit.

According to some of the Bois Forte band members who spoke out at a meeting on the subject last week, longstanding tradition among the region’s Chippewa bands called for honoring the resource rights of neighboring bands, and Bois Forte officials and band members alike made it clear they weren’t happy with Fond du Lac’s plan to encroach on their primary resource base. The prospect that Fond du Lac netting, this year and in the future, could seriously diminish Vermilion’s walleye population was understandably as frightening to Bois Forte officials and residents as it was to resort owners and other lake residents and users.

And Bois Forte band members were justifiably nervous that netting by Fond du Lac threatened to undermine the friendly and constructive relationship they have enjoyed for years with the area’s non-Indian residents. While the springtime netting by the Bois Forte is, undoubtedly, a sustainable harvest, if Fond du Lac’s netting began to tip the balance, there is little doubt that at least some of those upset by a diminishing walleye population would spread the blame with a broad brush.

We have avoided that situation, at least for one more year. Fortunately, Bois Forte tribal officials plan to meet with their Fond du Lac counterparts later this year to discuss a longer-term arrangement. Hopefully, they’ll be able to make the case that there’s too much at stake on Lake Vermilion. With thousands of lakes in the 1854 treaty territory, Fond du Lac should be able to find lakes to net that don’t threaten to harm a thriving local economy as well as fellow Chippewa who have long relied on this critical fishery.