The health of the lake is of grave concern to the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. We look beyond the resource as it exists today, and instead take the approach and responsibility of preservation that considers the next seven generations. Regardless of the method of catch, we must continue to jointly agree that we can only remove a set amount of walleye from the lake. The safe harvest allocations agreed to by the state and tribes is a ceiling, but tribes have not harvested our full allocation for many years. We believe a fish only becomes ours when it is harvested, and we make sure we do not exceed our agreed upon allocation.
My comment is this: You can take fish AFTER they spawn like everybody else, or there won't BE any fish for ANYBODY.
"Hundreds of years ago, our Anishinabeg ancestors began a migration from the northeast. They were guided by a vision and were told to follow a trail of sacred shells until they came to a place where the food grew on the water. When they found manoomin (wild rice), their journey was over. This is how the ancestors of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe came to settle around Lake Mille Lacs and the east-central Minnesota region."
This is certainly a great story but that vision they were guided by were the French who forced them from the Ojibwe's east coast homeland. In a History Of The Dakota People In The Mille Lacs Area by Thomas Dahlheimer he states: "They traveled west to escape the White civilization. They went west on the Saint Lawrence River, then across the great lakes to the southern tip of Lake Superior where they settled and then made frequent peaceful journeys to the Dakota's Wakan/Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages. The Dakota Sioux were the original inhabitants of the Mille Lacs area.
The French then instigated fights between this band of Ojibwe (now known as the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) and the Mille Lacs Lake Dakota. The final Mille Lacs Lake area Ojibwe/Dakota "fight" occurred around 1750. The Ojibwe used French guns and gun powder to force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland. The Ojibwe then, temporarily, took possession of the Dakota's stolen Mille Lacs Lake homeland. Later, many white "settlers"/invaders entered into the area and took possession of the Dakota's stolen Mille Lacs Lake homeland. The area's Ojibwe were then given some of the white people's Mille Lacs Lake area stolen Dakota land to live on and have some "treaty" rights too. The white people forced the area's Ojibwe (red pagans) to live in a subjugated state of existence. "
The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe were pawns of the French to remove the Dakota Sioux from their homeland by arming the Ojibwe with modern firearms of the time.
............and don't forget horses. So much for the great "heritage" of netting.