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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AMERICA'S NATIVE TRIBES: THE ORIGINAL ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDS

MADISON, Wis. (Feb. 15, 2008) - Wisconsin has the most Native tribes - 11 in all - of any state east of the Mississippi. Those tribes include the Ho-Chunk Nation; the Forest County Potawatomi Community; the Lac Courtes Oreilles, and Lac du Flambeau and Red Cliff bands of Lake Superior Chippewa; the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians; the St. Croix Chippewa Community; the Sokaogon Chippewa Community; the Menominee Nation; the Oneida Nation; and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans. 

The state's original inhabitants were the Winnebago, Dakota (Sioux) and Menominee. The earliest known pottery found in Wisconsin dates back to 700 B.C., made by Woodland Indians. 

The Menominee Nation's residency in Wisconsin dates back 10,000 years. As ancient gatherers, hunters and fishers, their name means "People of the Wild Rice." An Algonquin speaking tribe, the Menominee originally had five clans. Bear, Eagle, Moose, Wolf and Crane. These clans controlled more than 9.5 million acres of land stretching from central and mid-eastern Wisconsin north into the upper peninsula of Michigan. 

Today, 95 percent of the finest old stands of hardwood, pines and hemlock in the Great Lakes region are on the Menominee's 234,000-acre managed forestland, and the tribe is world-famous for its sustained yield forest practices. 

All 46 of Wisconsin's timber varieties grow and are harvested on Menominee land, and the logging service and lumber mill owned and operated by the tribe is a designated Wisconsin State Heritage Tourism site. Additionally, more than 24 miles of the Wolf River, a federally designated wild river and one of the last pristine rivers in the state, runs through the Menominee Reservation. 

More than 95 percent of the 124,234-acre Bad River Chippewa Reservation along the shores of Lake Superior in northwest Wisconsin remains undeveloped and wild. The Bad River Chippewa have been living there for hundreds of years. The Kakagon and Bad River Sloughs, comprised of 16,000 acres of high quality Lake superior wetlands, have been called Wisconsin's Everglades. 

Members of the Ho-Chunk Nation have been in the territory that would become Wisconsin since before the past two glacial ice ages. Called the Winnebago Tribe by French Explorer Jean Nicolet when he arrived in the Green Bay area in 1634, the tribe legally changed its name back to Ho-Chunk, or People of the Big Voice or Sacred Language, in 1994. 

The Ho-Chunk Nation has more than 6,100 tribal members, but doesn't have a typical reservation land base. The majority of tribal members live within a 14-county area in west central Wisconsin, where the nation owns about 5,400 acres of land. Large numbers of tribal members also live in Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago. 

However, the Ho-Chunk and other Native American tribes are still key stewards of Wisconsin's natural treasures, working to promote economic development and diversification while practicing sustainability. The Intertribal Bison Cooperative is a project designed to reintroduce the bison herds that once roamed the Midwest. 

The Potawatomi, or Keepers of the Fire, moved to Wisconsin from northeast America. About half of Wisconsin's 1,200 tribal members live on 12,000 acres the tribe purchased in the Northern Highlands of Forest County near Crandon in 1913. The Potawatomi raise red deer for market on their tribal ranch and nearly 100 percent of each animal is used. 

The Lac Courtes Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa own tribal lands in northwest Wisconsin, where their traditions of harvesting wild rice, fishing, hunting, forest living and water travel could be preserved. They are descendent of the Ojibwa Nation that originally occupied the northeastern woodlands of America. 

Nearly half of the tribe's 6,000 members live on 84,000 acres on Lac Courtes Oreilles land in the Chippewa Flowage just southeast of Hayward. The area's beautiful rock formations are habitat for bald eagles, blue herons, loons, geese, swans and ducks. The tribe operates schools and a community college to educate children from its 23 community villages, along with a cranberry marsh and living cultural center that offers tours. 

The Lac du Flambeau reservation in central northern Wisconsin has 260 lakes, 65 miles of streams, lakes and rivers and 24,000 acres of wetlands. These waterways have been restocked for the past 30 years with over 200,000 fish annually from the tribal fish hatchery. 

Members of Wisconsin's Oneida Nation now number more than 15,000. One of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy, Oneida people live in the present with a reverence for the past and a responsibility to the future. Called the "People of the Standing Stone," the Oneida believe lifelong wellness encompasses the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of life. This means they are in constant celebration with Mother Earth and natural medicines. Their tribal wellness center, Tsyunhehkwa, which means "providing life for us," is on an 80-acre organic farm on Oneida land and open to the public. It offers Native American alternative medicines, 140 different herbs, oils for healing and aromatherapy. 

Wisconsin's Red Cliff Tribe is descended from the Madeline Island Chippewa Tribe. More than 1,000 tribal members live on the 14-mile by one-mile wide reservation north of Bayfield. Since 1994, the Red Cliff Tribal Fish Hatchery has focused on the reproduction and stocking of Lake Superior coaster brook trout and walleye, annually restocking more than 750,000 walleye, trout and whitefish. It is the only hatchery in the United States to breed the Lake Nipigon strain coaster brook trout. 

Wild rice, a staple in the Chippewa diet, is a prehistoric vegetable that could be considered the oldest agricultural crop in the nation. It is grown on a 320-acre mineral-rich lake on the Sokaogon (Mole Lake) Chippewa reservation. More than 1,260 Sokaogan tribal members live in the 4,900-acre Mole Lake community, where growing wild rice and spear fishing are tribal traditions. Scientists have determined that wild rice is the only naturally occurring grain in North America. 

The St. Croix Waters Fishery in Danbury is owned by the St. Croix Tribe and specializes in aquaculture - the science, art and business of cultivating fish and shellfish. The $17 million state-of-the-art 170,000-square-foot facility has an aquaculture system that circulates 500 gallons of ground water per minute. The St. Croix Chippewa release an average of one million walleye fingerlings into 33 lakes across five counties. The facility also produces about 3.3 million pounds of yellow perch each year. 

The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans settled in the heart of Wisconsin more than 100 years ago coming from their homeland along the Mahicanituk, or Hudson River, in the state of New York. Known as the "People of the Waters That Are Never Still," their history embodies their search for a home along a trail leading from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, through the states of New York, Ohio and Indiana to Wisconsin, where they finally settled. Their 46,000-acre reservation in Shawano County includes 16,000 acres held in trust for tribal members. Wisconsin's Stockbridge-Munsee tribe now has more than 1,500 members and has developed a comprehensive community, including a health and wellness center, a family center, community-based residential facility, day care and elderly housing and senior programs. 

For free Wisconsin travel information and travel-planning guides, including the 2008 Wisconsin Spring/Summer Event Guide or the Wisconsin Activity Guide, visit www.TravelWisconsin.com or call the Wisconsin Department of Tourism's toll-free number 1-800-432-TRIP/8747. Travelers can also obtain guides and information at the Wisconsin Welcome Centers, located in select state-border cities.

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