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THE CAPITAL TIMES, Monday, March 1, 1971

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HELLO Wisconsin

By MILES McMILLIN
HAYWARD, WIS. - A start is being made here toward what some think is the only solution for this country's problems - give it back to the Indians. About 200 Chippewas gathered here Saturday afternoon and voted to "recapture" the land which was leased out to the Northern States Power Co. 50 years ago and which became part of the Chippewa Flowage, one of the most celebrated havens of fresh water game fish in the world. Northern States dammed the Chippewa River to create the Flowage. Its lease is up in August of this year and the question is what to do with the 20,000 acres in the Flowage
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Hello, Wisconsin!

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- 6,000 of which belong to the Indians.

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THE MEETING WAS a casting directors dream. Wherever one looked in the crowded room of one of Tony Wise's Historyland Buildings you could see perfect types for any role in "Custer's Last Stand," including some of the prettiest Indian girls I've ever seen. They had been called together by Wise, who has long been a champion of the Chipewas in the Hayward area, to make known their wishes to representatives from Sen. Gaylord Nelson's office. The meeting was attended by Louis Hanson, Mellen, Nelson's home representative in northern Wisconsin, and Ron Way, a conservation expert from his Washington office.
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THEY CAME THROUGH Saturday's howling storm over ice slicked roads to vote to recapture their land, to demand compensation for the provisions of the contract they claim have been violated and to set up a steering committee to make their position known to Congress and to the Federal Power Commission, FPC will soon be holding hearings on whether the NS lease should be renewed. Wise was asked to be the co-ordinator for the committee and he accepted. In a nation which has belatedly become environmentally conscious the development is expected to attract national attention.
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NORTHERN STATES wants the lease renewed, of course. But strong opposition has developed, not only among the Indians, but among many of the whites in the area, particularly those with a stake in the recreational aspects of the flowage. IT is charged that the fishing is being ruined by the manipulation of the water level. One of the charges most frequently heard is that the stored water is being released to flush out industrial pollution down stream. This takes the water with the high oxygen content off the top, leaving stagnant, low-oxygen water with the result that the fish are dying off.
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TONY WISE SAYS, "What we're talking about is the greatest buy since the Louisiana Purchase. For about $225,000 the government can get land worth $50 million at least, do something constructive for the Indians for a change and provide assurance that this area will remain one of the great recreational wilderness areas of the world." And he's working with his usual volcanic energy to see that it goes that way.
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THE CAPITAL TIMES will carry stories in more detail on the recapture fight in future editions. I stumbled on to the meeting while on a skiing trip to Mt. Telemark. A call back to the office produced from John Hunter the information that Norb Hill, an old Oneida Indian friend from Stockbridge, with whom I played basketball in high school and who is now with the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, called Madison to advise me of the Hayward meeting. I drove over from Cable for the meeting, leaving Elsie and the children tucked away from the storm at Garmisch, U.S. A. More about the skiing expedition later, including a notable first-skiing in a downpour of rain that approached cloud burst proportions.

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