Ojibwe Fish Decoys
Lac du Flambeau, WI
Vocabulary
Auger: (sounds like, AWE-grr) A tool that looks like a large corkscrew used to drill holes.
Boughs: (rhymes with, cows) Tree branches.
Chisel: A hand tool with a blade on the end to cut into something.
Decoy: An artificial animal used to lure game to a particular place.
Eye-screw: A small screw with a metal loop at the top.
Game: Wild animals hunted for sport or food.
(to) Illuminate: (sounds like, e-LOO-mi-nate) To brighten with light.
Insulation: (sounds like, in-sue-LAY-shun) Something that stops heat, sound, or electricity from moving from one place to another.
Jigged: Moved up and down.
Jigging stick: A small stick about a foot long that is tied to a fish decoy.
Lac du Flambeau area: North-central Wisconsin.
Lures: Like decoys but with hooks.
Melted lead: Lead that has been heated so that it liquid and can be poured.
Minnow: A small fish that bigger fish like to eat.
Muskellunge: (sounds like, MUSS-ka-lunge) The state fish of Wisconsin, also called muskie.
Prowling: Moving around secretly looking for prey.
Reservation: An area of land set aside for a particular group of people, like American Indians.
Shore lunch: A mid-day meal prepared on a shore with the freshly caught fish of that day.
Tight-grained: Wood with fibers that are very close together.
Rudder: A piece of metal or wood used to steer a boat.
Unwary: Easily surprised, not alert.
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Journal Questions
 What is the land like where you live? Are there lots of tall buildings or do you live near woods? Can you see hills
from your house or is the land near you flat? How do your surroundings affect the kinds of activities that you do?
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Resources For Teachers
 Traditional Ojibwe Fishing (WDSE-TV, Duluth) is a 30-minute video featuring spear fisher Ben Chosa of
the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Order by contacting WDSE TV,
1202 East University Circle, Duluth, MN 55811, (218) 724-8567 phone, (218)
724-4269 fax.
Spear Fishing in Context Winter spear fishing is one type of fishing in traditional Ojibwe culture. Help your students understand the context of winter spear fishing by understanding its
history and cultural role.
 The Milwaukee Public Museum’s Indian Country: Wisconsin gives a good overview of Ojibwe
fishing practices.
Great Lakes Indian
Fish and Wildlife Commission posts the regulations for spear fishing. Click
on "Harvest Regulations" and then "Winter Spearing and
Fishing" for ice fishing regulations or "Open Water Spearing" for
warm weather spearing.
For a general video on Lac du Flambeau traditions and government, see the 60-minute video, Enduring
Ways of the Lac du Flambeau People (Wisconsin Public Television).
Spear Fishing and Treaty Rights The struggle for Ojibwe bands to conduct off-reservation spring spear fishing is a recent illustration of the erosion and restoration of treaty rights. After
being banned in 1908, Ojibwe bands regained their legal standing to spear fish off-reservation in 1983. Investigate this recent history with older students with the help of these resources.
Charlie Otto Rasmussen's Ojibwe Journeys: Treaties, Sandy Lake & the
Waabanong Run (Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission Press, 2003) tells the history
through words and photos of Ojibwe rights to harvest resources in the ceded
territories of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the use of runners in the legal
battle to regain those rights.
The topic of off-reservation fishing rights is included in the Ojibwe chapter of Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories
of Endurance and Renewal by Patty Loew (Wisconsin
State Historical Society New Badger History, 2001).
 Use the CD-ROM Maawanji’iding-Gathering Together: Ojibwe Histories and Narratives from
Wisconsin (hup!multimedia, 1998) to hear from Ojibwe people about spear fishing and treaty rights. The on-line web quest, “The Right to
Hunt, Fish and Gather,” provides a guide to the topic using the CD-ROM.
See Wisconsin’s Past and Present: A Historical Atlas by The Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild (University
of Wisconsin Press, 1998) for more information about Native Land & Resource Conflicts.
Use Mapping Wisconsin History: Teacher Guide and Student Materials by the Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild and
Bobbie Malone (Wisconsin
State Historical Society New Badger History, 2000), a valuable companion to the Atlas.
The article, “Treaty Rights and Responding to Anti-Indian
Activity” by geographer Zoltan Grossman fits the Wisconsin spear fishing controversy of the 1990s in national and historic contexts.
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Resources For Students
Visit the Great Lakes Intertribal Council’s page on the
Lac
du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Learn more about Ojibwe people, culture and history by exploring these websites: Indian
Country Wisconsin: Ojibwe and The Ojibway Story.
Meet other Ojibwe role models.
Find out more about Native-American
Ice Fishing in Wisconsin.
Kitaq
Goes Ice Fishing tells the story of a Native Alaskan boy who goes
ice fishing for the first time with his grandfather. Does Kitaq do things
differently or the same as Brooks?
Want to learn about Wisconsin fish? Explore these Fish
Profiles by UW’s Sea Grant Institute.
Learn the difference between three similar fish: muskies, northern pike and tiger muskies with this guide
from the Sea Grant Institute.
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Credits
Text written by Rick March, edited by Jamie Yuenger and Anne Pryor.
Sources consulted include fieldwork with Brooks Big John by Rick March (1997), Wisconsin Folks (1998), a video produced by Dave Erickson for Wisconsin Arts Board and Wisconsin Public
Television, and Fish Decoys of the Lac du Flambeau Ojibway, by Art and Brad Kimball, Boulder Junction, WI: Aardvark Publications, Inc., 1988.
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