Medicine Fish Is leading the way to heal, build, and inspire Menominee youth through the wild and scenic Wolf River: An interview with Bryant Waupoose Jr., Founder of Medicine Fish

Abstract

From a bird’s eye view, the Menominee Reservation is a forested oasis in sharp relief from neighboring landscapes of dairy farms spanning northeastern Wisconsin. The Menominee people have cared for the land and waters for over 10,000 years, and the land and waters have given life back to the people (Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin 2004). Garden beds where early Menominee people planted traditional first foods and elder plants - plants that sustained the Menominee culturally, spiritually, and physically - as the last glaciers retreated are still visible across their lands today and represent a modern marvel of integrated farming (Morales 2017). Today, the Tribe operates a successful timber company, and their management practices are widely recognized for increasing the quality of their forest (Buckley 2023). But the land represents much more than economic and environmental opportunity - it is the embodiment of self-determination for the Tribe and one that Tribal members do not take for granted.

Citation

Waupoose, Bryant, Jr.; Redmore, Lauren. 2023. Medicine Fish Is leading the way to heal, build, and inspire Menominee youth through the wild and scenic Wolf River: An interview with Bryant Waupoose Jr., Founder of Medicine Fish. International Journal of Wilderness. 29(2): 24-37.