Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Wisconsin's tribal nations and commercial gambling interests are at odds over a state legislative proposal to legalize online sports betting, with tribes arguing the bill would undercut the exclusivity provisions in their gaming compacts. WPR has been tracking this story, which sits at the intersection of sovereignty, economic development, and the state's long-standing compact relationships with tribal governments. The compacts were hard-won; any erosion of exclusivity has real fiscal consequences for nations whose governmental programs depend on gaming revenue.
Background
· 2024
· WPR Native American coverage
With fewer than one percent of tribal members functional in the Menominee language and one living first-language speaker left in an unbroken chain, Menomini yoU Inc. broke ground on the 10,000-square-foot Wāsecewan Language Campus near Keshena. The campus will house immersion classrooms, an outdoor cultural space, and the operations of a revitalization movement that took shape during the COVID pandemic through online courses.
Background
· 2023
· tribal-college-journal
On December 22, 2023, the Menominee Indian Tribe marked 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed the Menominee Restoration Act, reversing the 1961 termination that had stripped federal recognition, dissolved the reservation into Menominee County, and pushed the people into poverty. The restoration was won by DRUMS, the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders, founded by Jim White and Ada Deer. The College of Menominee Nation marked the date with a year of programming.
Background
· 2023
· Wisconsin Examiner
Ada Elizabeth Deer of the Menominee Indian Tribe died August 15, 2023, in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, at age 88. The first Menominee to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1957), the first Native American to earn a Master's in social work from Columbia, the first woman to chair the Menominee tribe after restoration, and the first woman to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1993-1997), Deer was the throughline of every Menominee chapter the third edition would build on.
Background
· 2023
· college-of-menominee-nation
Dr. S. Verna Fowler (July 1, 1942 to August 12, 2023) founded the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 in her home's basement with classroom space borrowed from a public high school and an initial cohort of 42 to 49 students. She retired in 2016 after 24 years, having grown the institution to more than 130 faculty and staff, 1,100 alumni, and an annual economic impact of $37 million. The library at CMN now bears her name.
Background
· 2022
· earthjustice
In June 2022, the Michigan State Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously to support the nomination of Anaem Omot, the Menominee cultural landscape bisected by the Menominee River between Wisconsin and Michigan, to the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes burial mounds, garden beds, and dance rings. The vote followed years of advocacy by Menominee historians, scientists, and tribal leaders, and arrived alongside the tribe's defeat of the Back Forty open-pit mine on the same river.
Background
· 2021
· earthjustice
The Menominee Nation's seven-year legal and political fight against the Back Forty open-pit mine along the Menominee River produced a decisive 2021 ruling. Aquila Resources withdrew its Michigan wetlands permits after the tribe's challenge and a court ruled the project would have a probable negative effect on Menominee sacred sites. In December 2021, Aquila was absorbed by Gold Resource Corp; Chairman Ronald Corn Sr. responded that the merger did not change the tribe's opposition.
Background
· 2020
· wikipedia
Apesanahkwat (born January 19, 1949) served as tribal chairman of the Menominee Indian Reservation eight times and is widely considered one of the foremost originators of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. A Vietnam Marine Corps veteran, he is also a champion northern traditional dancer and singer and has acted in Wind River, Northern Exposure, Stolen Women, and Babylon 5. He remains one of the most active orators on tribal sovereignty, education, and language revitalization.
Background
· 2020
· menominee-tribal-enterprises
Menominee Tribal Enterprises continues to operate the only Native American forest dual-certified by both the Forest Stewardship Council and Scientific Certification Systems. The Menominee Forest, sustainably managed by the tribe for more than 150 years, was among the first to receive FSC certification after the council's 1993 founding, and won United Nations and presidential awards for sustainable development in 1995 and 1996. Three decades on, MTE remains the global reference.
Background
· 2018
· american-forests
Marshall Pecore has served as forest manager for Menominee Tribal Enterprises across the decades that turned the Menominee Forest into the world's reference for sustainable Indigenous forestry. The son and grandson of loggers, Pecore co-authored the canonical Menominee Forestry: Past, Present, Future and is among the most cited Indigenous foresters in North America. The 235,000-acre forest he stewards remains the only Native American forestland with dual FSC and Scientific Certification Systems certification.
Background
· 2018
· us-climate-resilience-toolkit
The College of Menominee Nation's Sustainable Development Institute has built a national reputation since 2009 for tribal climate adaptation research, anchored by an Indigenous six-dimension sustainability framework (land and sovereignty, natural environment, institutions, technology, economy, human perception). SDI led a U.S. Forest Service-supported climate study on the Menominee Forest and now sits at the hub of the Center for First Americans Forestlands partnership, plus the Northeast Climate Science Center.
Background
· 2016
· Indianz.com
In 2016 the Menominee Tribal Legislature elected an executive council of women in all three top posts, with Joan Delabreau as chair. Delabreau has served as chairwoman of the Menominee Tribal Legislature four times across the post-Ada Deer generation. Gary Besaw and Ronald Corn Sr. have also held the chair since restoration.
Background
· 2015
· indian-community-school
The Indian Community School, born from the 1971 AIM takeover of the abandoned McKinley Coast Guard Station on Milwaukee's lakefront, moved in 2007 to a $35 million, 178-acre campus in Franklin, about thirteen miles from downtown. The Forest County Potawatomi's twenty-year lease and the gaming revenue that followed funded the move and helped sustain the school. ICS serves about 364 Native students K-8, and every kindergartner commits to daily language instruction in Oneida, Menominee, or Ojibwe — a quiet but radical bet on the next generation.
Background
· 2014
· wisconsin-academy
Patty followed Indian Nations of Wisconsin with Native People of Wisconsin (2003), a social studies text for younger readers, and Seventh Generation Earth Ethics (2014), profiles of twelve Indigenous Wisconsin stewards including Joe Rose, Dot Davids, and Walter Bresette, which won the Midwest Book Award for Culture. Her PBS documentary Way of the Warrior aired nationally in 2007 and 2011, drawing on her grandfather Edward DeNomie's WWI service with the 32nd Red Arrow Division. The decade between INW editions produced the body of work the third edition now sits alongside.