Issue 004
The Weekly Brief
For the week of May 31, 2026
The dominant thread this week runs through northern Wisconsin water: a federal judge halted portions of Enbridge's Line 5 reroute construction through Bad River's ceded territory, while GLIFWC's summer Mazinaigan arrived packed with evidence that the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR is killing manoomin at submerged and floating-leaf stages across fourteen Wisconsin lakes. Meanwhile, the Lac du Flambeau Band's ongoing legal tangle with the State of Wisconsin deepened as the state filed suit over tribal fishing restrictions on reservation waters, and the 9th-round LCO v. Voigt stipulation quietly modernized treaty harvest rights for all six Wisconsin Ojibwe bands. Off the water, a Fourth Circuit ruling confirmed that NAGPRA applies to children's remains, giving the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska a clear path to repatriate two boys who died at Carlisle — a ruling with direct resonance for every Wisconsin nation whose children were taken to federal schools.
Listen to this issue
Spoken by Deepgram Aura. The written brief above is the canonical version.
Across the Twelve Nations
A busy fortnight in northern Wisconsin, from courtrooms to rice beds to the sugarbush.
Federal Judge Halts Portions of Enbridge Line 5 Reroute Construction Through Bad River Territory
A federal judge this week ordered work stopped on sections of Enbridge's proposed Line 5 reroute in northern Wisconsin, a significant if partial legal victory for the Bad River Band. The ruling keeps the Band's federal lawsuit — which argues the reroute would cross ceded territory without tribal consent — alive and consequential while the broader case proceeds. WPR's coverage, the preferred source here, frames the legal landscape clearly without flattening the sovereignty stakes. This is the same dispute the brief tracked when Bad River asked the court to halt construction outright; the judge's partial halt is the first concrete relief the Band has won.
State of Wisconsin Sues Lac du Flambeau Over Tribal Fishing Restrictions on Reservation Lakes
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.
Six Wisconsin Ojibwe Bands File 9th-Round Voigt Stipulation, Modernizing Ceded Territory Harvest Rights
The six Wisconsin Ojibwe bands expect to file a joint 9th-round biennial stipulation in LCO v. Voigt, consolidating and updating six previous filings dating to 2001. Key changes include a tribal fee waiver for state park access in the ceded territory and expanded harvest opportunities. This is the kind of incremental, durable treaty-rights work that rarely makes mainstream news but shapes daily life in the ceded territory for generations. Mazinaigan carries the full picture.
Wisconsin Now Protects Native Students' Right to Wear Tribal Regalia at Graduation
Governor Tony Evers signed 2025 Wisconsin Act 222, protecting the right of Native students who are tribal members, descendants, or eligible for membership to wear traditional regalia at graduation ceremonies. The Oneida Nation's Kalihwisaks covered the signing with community pride — Oneida graduates are among those directly affected. This is the kind of legislation that looks small on a legislative calendar and lands large in a family's memory.
One Menominee Family's Long Road: MMIW Advocacy After the Murder of Linda Dickenson
ICT's coverage of the annual MMIW rally near the Menominee Nation puts a specific family's grief and advocacy at the center, exactly as it should be. Linda Dickenson's murder is one case among many the movement tracks, and her relatives' presence at the rally is the kind of ordinary-people-doing-extraordinary-things story Patty's journalism ethics demand. The piece is careful not to reduce advocacy to statistics.
Forest County Potawatomi and Sokaogon Join Forces for May 5 MMIP Day Observance
The Forest County Potawatomi and Sokaogon Chippewa communities marked May 5 together, beginning at the Potawatomi Community Center with educational displays and a shared walk. The joint observance between two neighboring Wisconsin nations reflects the pan-tribal momentum around MMIW that Patty noted when Bad River established its own task force. The Potawatomi Traveling Times carries the community voice here.
Oneida Nation Holds Annual MMIR Walk, Community Members Speak at Oneida Nation Elementary School
The Oneida Nation's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Walk on May 9 drew community members from the Recreation Center to the Elementary School, where Sarah Wunderlich and Sue Doxtator spoke. Kalihwisaks names the speakers and the route — the specificity matters. The walk is now a recurring community ritual, not a one-time event.
Treaty Rights, Water, and the Rice Beds
ProcellaCOR and the Voigt stipulation both arrived in the same issue of Mazinaigan. That is not a coincidence — it is the shape of treaty-rights work in 2026.
ProcellaCOR Herbicide Killing Wild Rice at Critical Growth Stages in Fourteen Wisconsin Lakes, GLIFWC Data Shows
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.
Wisconsin Tribes Escalate Opposition to ProcellaCOR Use in Ceded Territory Waterways
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.
Wisconsin Signs $125 Million PFAS Funding Package; Tribes Among Those Eligible for Well Grants
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.
USDA Forest Service Reorganization Raises Treaty-Rights Alarms for GLIFWC and Ojibwe Bands
The Trump administration's unprecedented reorganization of the USDA Forest Service is generating serious concern at GLIFWC, whose member tribes hold off-reservation treaty rights across millions of acres of National Forest land in the ceded territory. Proposed changes could reduce research capacity and interagency coordination that tribes depend on to monitor and defend those rights. Mazinaigan frames this as a structural threat, not a bureaucratic shuffle.
GLIFWC and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University Launch Bachelor's Degree in Treaty Natural Resources
GLIFWC and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University signed an MOU to launch the Nanda-gikenjigeng Program, a new Bachelor of Science in Treaty Natural Resources that integrates Ojibwe worldview with Western scientific methodologies. The program is designed to train the next generation of tribal natural resource managers — the people who will be monitoring those rice beds and fish populations for decades to come. This is mino-bimaadiziwin in institutional form.
Bad River and Lac du Flambeau Help Conserve 1,051 Acres on the Gile Flowage in Iron County
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.
Indian Country: Federal Policy, Courts, and Sovereignty
Fourth Circuit Rules NAGPRA Applies to Children's Remains, Clearing Path for Winnebago Tribe to Repatriate Carlisle Boys
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit confirmed that NAGPRA applies to children's remains held by the U.S. Army at Carlisle Barracks, ruling in favor of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska's effort to repatriate two boys who died at the school. NARF, which litigated the case, calls it a victory for every tribe whose children were buried far from home. The ruling has direct implications for Wisconsin nations — the Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Oneida, and Ojibwe bands all had children taken to federal boarding schools, and Carlisle held some of them.
National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Celebrates Fourth Circuit NAGPRA Victory
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition marked the Fourth Circuit ruling as a historic affirmation that the federal government cannot indefinitely hold the remains of Native children who died in its custody. The coalition's statement, carried by Native Sun News, grounds the legal victory in the ongoing work of healing — the ruling is a tool, not an endpoint. Read alongside the NARF piece above for the full picture.
Kinship Care Rule Changes Boost Number of Native Foster Homes, Oregon Officials Say
Adjustments to kinship care reimbursement rules in Oregon are allowing more Native families to access support when caring for relatives, resulting in a measurable increase in Native foster homes. ICT's coverage frames this as an ICWA-adjacent story: keeping Native children with Native families is the law's core purpose, and administrative rule changes that make that easier are worth tracking. The pattern may be replicable in Wisconsin.
A Pascua Yaqui Foster Youth Who Became a Tribal Secretary: Rosa Alvarez on Why ICWA Protection Is Personal
Rosa Alvarez, tribal secretary of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and a former foster youth, shared her family's multi-generational experience in the child welfare system with The Imprint, and ICT carried the story. Her account is exactly the kind of ordinary-voice testimony that makes ICWA's stakes concrete: not a legal abstraction but a family's survival. Patty, you flagged ICWA as important to all nations — this is the human face of that policy.
Supreme Court Sends Turtle Mountain Voting Rights Case Back to Eighth Circuit, Vacating Earlier Loss
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Eighth Circuit's previous ruling in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe, a North Dakota voting rights case that had stripped private individuals of the ability to bring Voting Rights Act claims. NARF celebrated the decision as restoring a key enforcement mechanism for Native voters in states where tribal members face systematic disenfranchisement. The ruling lands the same week that Wyoming's governor is facing tribal condemnation for attacking Native voting districts on Wind River.
U.S. Army Begins Ninth Year of Disinterments at Carlisle Barracks, Returning Native Children to Their Nations
The U.S. Army announced it will begin its ninth consecutive year of disinterment operations at Carlisle Barracks in September 2026, continuing the process of returning Native children's remains to their families and nations. The operation runs alongside the Fourth Circuit NAGPRA ruling this week — the legal and logistical work of repatriation are advancing together. Native News Online carries the announcement; the substance is significant enough to include despite the source's mixed record.
People Worth Knowing
Ann McCammon Soltis Retires After Nearly 33 Years Defending Ojibwe Treaty Rights at GLIFWC
Ann McCammon Soltis retired from GLIFWC in early 2026 after nearly 33 years as director of intergovernmental affairs, a career that included central roles in the Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band litigation and decades of legal and policy victories for the six Wisconsin Ojibwe bands. Mazinaigan's tribute names her specific contributions — the kind of institutional memory that rarely gets acknowledged in mainstream coverage. Her retirement is a genuine transition moment for the organization that has been the operational backbone of Ojibwe treaty rights since the Voigt Decision aftermath.
Anishinaabe Hockey Player Abby Roque Leads Montreal to Women's Professional Championship
Abby Roque, Anishinaabe from Sault Ste. Marie, led the Montreal team to the Professional Women's Hockey League championship this spring, one of two prominent Indigenous players in the finals. ICT's coverage foregrounds her identity without reducing her to it — she is a championship-winning athlete who is also Anishinaabe, not the other way around. This is the kind of story Patty's journalism ethics call for: Native people doing extraordinary things in ordinary arenas.
Retiring Oneida Councilman Kirby Metoxen Reflects on Intergenerational Service — and His Father's Farewell
Retiring Oneida Business Committee Councilman Kirby Metoxen published a farewell column in Kalihwisaks that includes a reprinted farewell message written by his father, Russell Metoxen, upon completing his own council term. The intergenerational echo is the story: two generations of Oneida civic leadership, the son inheriting not just a seat but a way of understanding public service. This is the Studs Terkel principle in action — history as how families live through institutions.
Long Read
One piece worth fifteen minutes.
GLIFWC Member Tribes Oppose Federal Rollback of Roadless Area Protections Across 60 Million Acres of National Forest
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.