Person

Wayne Valliere (Mino-giizhig)

Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe master canoe builder NEA National Heritage Fellow 2020. Built the canoe at Northwestern.

Coverage in The Weekly Brief

Issue 016 · August 23, 2026

Red Cliff Elder Builds a Birchbark Canoe the Way His Ancestors Did, and WPR Is There to Watch

Wisconsin Public Radio's Native American bureau followed a Red Cliff elder through the process of constructing a birchbark canoe using traditional methods, a practice that connects directly to the Anishinaabe relationship with the Great Lakes watershed. This is the kind of story Patty, you have argued for your entire career: craft as living knowledge, not museum artifact. Wayne Valliere at Lac du Flambeau has been the most prominent public face of this tradition, but Red Cliff elders carrying the same knowledge deserve equal visibility.

Issue 011 · July 19, 2026

Menominee River Dugout Makes Its Maiden Voyage: 'We Made History'

A dugout canoe carved over the course of a month was launched on the Menominee River this week, the first such voyage in recent memory, ICT reported. The effort, rooted in Mamaceqtaw tradition, was led by water protectors who see the canoe as both a cultural reclamation and a living act of sovereignty on a river the Menominee have stewarded from time immemorial. Wayne Valliere's work reviving Ojibwe canoe traditions at Lac du Flambeau gives this story a Wisconsin-wide resonance: across the Anishinaabe and Menominee worlds, the paddle is back in the water. The Wisconsin Watch version (candidate 279) also ran this week; ICT is linked first as the Native source.