A billboard promoting Enbridge Inc. (Susan Demas | Michigan Advance)

Over two days of hearings this week, members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, environmental advocates and experts testified against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granting a permit to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 oil and natural gas pipeline in northern Wisconsin. 

The tribe’s testimony was one of its last chances to prevent the new pipeline from being installed upstream of its reservation — which the tribe says will harm water quality in the watershed, encourage the growth of invasive species and damage wetlands, diminishing the ability to filter pollutants out of runoff before reaching surface waters. 

Enbridge insists the reroute plans do everything possible to minimize the environmental effect of pipeline construction and operation while industry groups and labor unions say the project has been vetted to ensure it isn’t harmful and that the arguments against the environmental effects of construction could be used to slow down any project in the state, not just those the tribe disagrees with politically. 

Last year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued its own permits for the company to build the pipeline with more than 200 added conditions to ensure compliance with state standards. Months after the DNR’s permit decision, a separate pipeline operated by Enbridge in Wisconsin spilled 69,000 gallons of crude oil in Jefferson County. 

The tribe is also challenging the DNR’s permit determination in a series of hearings later this summer. 

For decades, Line 5 ran through the tribe’s reservation and in 2023 a federal judge ordered that it be shut down. Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on a plan to reroute the pipeline, which runs from far northwest Wisconsin 645 miles into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, under the Straits of Mackinac and across the U.S. border into Canada near Detroit. It transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily.

At the hearings this week, the tribe argued that under the Clean Water Act, the Corps shouldn’t grant the permits because the tribe has determined the new pipeline will negatively affect its water quality. 

Tribal chairman makes the case against Line 5

“Our people have resided in the Bad River watershed for hundreds of years,” Robert Blanchard, the tribe’s chairman, said Tuesday. “It’s our homeland. If the U.S. Army Corps grants these permits, Enbridge is undoubtedly going to destroy and pollute our watershed by trenching, blasting and horizontal drilling across hundreds of upstream wetlands and streams. I’m asking the U.S. Army Corps to think of the people and all the living things this will affect, and to deny the permit for this project.”

During Tuesday’s testimony, Blanchard added, “When I look at my homelands, I see it through the eyes of my grandfather, who saw it through the eyes of his grandfather.” 

Blanchard said he wants his grandchildren to be able to see their homelands through his eyes, too. He recounted boating up the Bad River toward Lake Superior as a boy, catching fish with his elders to eat or to sell at the market. His grandfather taught him to hunt and gather and to this day Blanchard gathers medicinal herbs which are used by his community, he said. He remembers the lumber companies that clear cut the forests, and, he said, some of his loved ones have died of cancer after living near an industrial dump site. 

“That was all in the Bad River watershed,” said Blanchard. He stressed that in tribal tradition, all things in nature have spirit, including the water. To the Bad River Band, nature is not only critical to human survival, it is a sacred thing to be protected. 

In their testimony Tuesday, Enbridge consultants and researchers downplayed concerns about how the pipeline reroute could harm local ecosystems. Just over 118 acres of forest will need to be cleared during construction and turned into a managed grassland. Experts testifying for the company said that the underground pipeline will not act as an underwater dam and disrupt groundwater flow, nor will the explosives used to blast trenches for the pipeline present a danger. Other concerns such as radioactive contamination, PFAS pollution (often called forever chemicals) and arsenic are not used by the project, and have not been detected in the area. 

Although Enbridge’s consultants and experts argued that the project would not violate the Bad River Band’s water quality standards, the Band itself disagreed, citing concerns about pollutants, water quantity and quality, hydrology, mineral content and water temperature. 

Connie Sue Martin, and environmental attorney who testified against the project said the Bad River Band “is the expert” on water quality in the area, not U.S. government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Esteban Chiriboga, a geologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, testified that the rerouted pipeline’s distance from the reservation is irrelevant because contaminants can travel. Using imagery from Laser Imaging, Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology, Chiriboga demonstrated that waterways and flow channels between rivers, creeks and wetlands are interconnected. Others who spoke against the project on Tuesday expressed concerns about the potential for increased runoff, soil erosion, and the spread of invasive species as consequences of the project. 

On Wednesday, much of the tribe’s testimony centered around the ways in which the tribe’s members rely on the Bad River and its tributaries. 

“You will not find another community so dependent upon subsistence harvesting and dependent upon the health of our environment,” said Dylan Jennings, a member of the tribe and former appointee of Gov. Tony Evers to the state Natural Resources Board. “Simply put, our community maintains a relationship with the entire ecosystem and not a segmented area, we continue to utilize an entire system approach which naturally extends beyond our reservation boundaries.” 

Union members testify in favor of Line 5

During the public comment period of the hearing Wednesday, a number of labor union representatives defended the project as a source of local jobs and environmentally safe. Chad Ward, a representative of the Teamsters Local 346, said members of his union will work on the project and live locally, so they take “very seriously our commitment to the community and the environment around the construction site.” But, he said, the tribe’s complaints could be made about any construction project in the area. 

“I and others have grave concerns that the assertions made by the tribe could have impacts well beyond the Line 5 project itself,” Ward said. “Construction practices considered industry and regulatory best practices for environmental protection are cited as reasons by the tribe for why this project should not proceed, practices that are standard use all over the country” 

“They are practices the Band has been fine with for dozens of projects in the same area,” he continued. “This leaves the impression that these concerns are more based on the political views of the project than the construction method themselves. And while they’re entitled to their political views, it is the job of the permitting process to determine if the laws and regulations are being followed, not weigh the political arguments.” 

After Wednesday, the Army Corps will accept written comments on the permit approval for 30 days and then can make a decision any time after that. The hearings on the legal challenge to the DNR permits begin Aug. 12 in Ashland.

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A sign protesting Enbridge Line 5 in Michigan. (Laina G. Stebbins | Michigan Advance)

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is preparing to argue against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issuing a permit to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin. 

For years, the tribe has fought against Line 5, which runs from far Northwest Wisconsin 645 miles into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, under the Straits of Mackinac and across the U.S. border  into Canada near Detroit. It transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily. 

An underground section of the pipeline currently passes near a bend in the Bad River on the tribe’s reservation. In 2023, a federal judge ruled that the company was trespassing on tribal land and gave Enbridge three years to shut down the pipeline. 

Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on rerouting the pipeline about 41 miles away from tribal land. That proposal requires permits to be issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

The tribe is also currently challenging the state’s permitting process. Hearings will be held in August, September and October in Madison and Ashland in which an administrative law judge will hear arguments against the DNR’s decision to issue permits for the project. 

Army Corps approval of Enbridge’s plan to replace a separate section of the pipeline on the floor of the Straits of Mackinac has been fast tracked under President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency, but the Bad River section of the pipeline is still moving forward under the normal approval process. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Bad River Band and its attorneys will present to the Corps their finding that the proposed rerouted pipeline, which would pass the Bad River upstream of the reservation, threatens the tribe’s water quality and therefore violates the Clean Water Act. 

The tribe’s presentation is scheduled to take all day Tuesday and some of Wednesday. Members of the public will then be able to provide public comment during a virtual hearing and send written comments for 30 days after the hearing. 

Robert Blanchard, the tribe’s chairman, says he’s working to protect the tribe’s resources and way of life by bringing the challenge. 

“Ultimately, we are protecting our resources. We’re downstream from this project. If it were to go in, were to happen, there’s a lot at stake just with how this will affect our waters,” he says. “We have one of the biggest wild rice areas on the Great Lakes. We have a lot of medicines that I and members of my community collect that have been around for hundreds of years, and we have hunting and fishing rights that will be affected. You know, if we can’t use those because of what’s happening upstream, then that will affect our way of life.” 

Juli Kellner, a spokesperson for Enbridge, says the hearings this week are an important step for completing the project, which she adds won’t affect water quality. 

“Extensive and thorough analysis by leading, third-party experts has confirmed that construction impacts will be temporary and isolated, have no measurable impact on water quality, and will not violate the Bad River Band’s water quality standards,” Kellner says. “The project will have environmental protections and restoration plans in place, as approved by state regulators. State permits were issued last fall. We’re confident the Corps is close to completing its process which has included more than five years of public input, expert studies, and rigorous review. In fact, this is one of the most studied projects in Wisconsin’s history.” 

Under the Clean Water Act, if the Corps finds that the project will adversely affect a downstream jurisdiction’s water quality and there are no conditions that can be put on the permit to ensure water quality standards aren’t violated, the permit cannot be granted, according to the tribe’s attorney, Stefanie Tsosie. 

“We are presenting evidence to the Army Corps that the band’s water quality standards will be affected, and there are no conditions that they can put on the project permit such that they can issue it,” she says. “So, I think our hope here is one, to show how much the project is going to impact the advanced water quality, but then two, urge the Corps to not issue the section 404 permit eventually.” 

But the hearing is taking place as the Trump administration has worked to encourage more extraction of natural resources, boost the oil industry and go easier on polluters. Last week, the climate-focused news outlet Grist reported that under Trump, the EPA has practically stopped enforcing the country’s environmental laws. 

Tsosie says all the tribe can work with is what the law says. 

“Well, the standard in the Clean Water Act is pretty clear,” she says. “And that’s statute, so that’s what we’re going with.” 

Blanchard says he can’t forecast what the Corps is going to do, but he can just make his best case that granting the permit will be harmful to everyone who lives downstream. 

“I wish I had that crystal ball to be able to forecast that, but I don’t, so what we’re going to do tomorrow is do our very best to convince them that this is the way it should be,” he says. “We need to look after our Mother Earth, to pay attention to what we’re doing, what’s happening to it, and like I said before, it’s going to affect not just our way of life and not just those that live in the region, not just us as Anishinaabe people, but everybody.” 

If the Corps grants the permit, that decision could still be challenged in court.

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Family and friends hold posters of missing and murdered Indigenous people on May 5, 2025 in Duluth | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

On Monday, May 5, near Duluth City Hall, the mayors of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin gathered with tribal members from the two states to offer their support for the 5th Annual National Day of Awareness for Missing, Murdered, Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR).

The May 5th event was one of many held in Wisconsin and around the nation to highlight the crises plaguing Native American communities.

Tribal members face violence, both domestic and outside their families, at a higher rate than the general population. Several factors contribute to the MMIWR phenomenon including the fact that missing people belong to a vulnerable population that has suffered historical trauma and is disproportionately affected by poverty and substance abuse; exploitation associated with itinerant workers in mining and oil camps near reservations; and an inconsistent track record of law enforcement committing resources to solve murders or finding missing person.

“On this day, we remember our stolen relatives and honor those who are still missing,” the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition said in a statement. “May 5 also serves as a call to action at the national level, for intervention at both the state and federal levels to the epidemic of our missing & murdered relatives.”

Tribal members, including many holding posters of missing or murdered people, represented family and friends.

Ian Martin is the nephew of Peter Martin, a Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribal member  who went missing from the Minnesota reservation in March 2024. Ian noted that May 5 was Peter’s 33rd birthday.

“After this week, we’re going to be starting up our search parties again,” said Ian. “That consists of looking through acres of woods, acres of properties. We have set up meetings with the agencies working this case and tips and leads are still being followed up on, and the investigation is still ongoing.”

Ian said there is no solid theory why his uncle went missing. 

“When a relative disappears from us or is taken from us, it creates a lot of unresolved grief, a lot of incomplete relationships,” he said. “Our family wishes day and night that he comes home.”

He continued, “I don’t have a solution to this MMIR issue in Indian Country, but I do have advice. The best advice is that care of one another. There’s only a handful of us, Indian people on this world. Remember to take care of your well-being.”

The mother of Chantel Moose, 25, a Native American murdered April 12, 2024 in Duluth also spoke. 

“This year has been hard,” said Shauna Moose, speaking in a trembling voice. “Hoping and praying for justice for her.”

Rene Ann Goodrich, a MMIWR advocate who organized the event, noted that the trial is set for the man accused of killing Chantel.

“The family has just completed their first memorial,” said Goodrich. “Now is the time that they’re seeking justice, and they need support from the community…and we want the family to know that we’re here with you. We’re here for the duration.”

Tony Mainville, a tribal member from Northern Minnesota and the uncle of Jeremy Jourdan, 16, who went missing on Halloween 2016, spoke of the family’s pain of missing the young man and their determination not to stop looking for him.

Steve Woodworth, a Leech Lake Tribal Member, filled out information at the event about his sister, Melissa Woodworth, who has been missing since December 2020. Steve said during a RV trip that Melissa’s boyfriend said she walked away in a town in Iowa, a town the boyfriend couldn’t remember, and she has never been heard from again.

Steve said he was the one who had reported his sister missing, and as the only remaining sibling, he had been working with the FBI and the Minnesota, Murdered, Indigenous. Relative (MMIR) Office.

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Three members of the Wisconsin Murdered, Missing, Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) Task Force who attended a May 4 commemoration in Ashland were (from left) Justine Rufus, chair of the task force and a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Rose Barber of Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Rene Goodwich, a Bad River Tribal member. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Linda Dunbar, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and marginalized Communities advocate for New Day Advocacy Centers, said when she was in foster care 50 years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, her mother was murdered and her killer was never charged.

Rose Barber, a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, a Wisconsin Murdered, Missing, Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) Task Force Member, and president of American Indians Against Abuse, said decades ago, an Alaskan Native friend went missing and his body was never found. Even today, nobody knows what happened to him.

After a round dance performed by the Red Cliff Women’s Hand Drum group, dozens of names were read of tribal members from Minnesota and Wisconsin who are officially listed as murdered or missing, names such as Melissa Beson of Lac du Flambeau, missing since March 17, Gene J. Cloud, Jr. of Black River Falls, Lisa Lynn Ninham of Menominee County and Nevaeh Leigh Kingbird of Bemidji, Minnesota.

And then more names were shouted out, names that had never been officially reported but who family members said had just disappeared and were never heard from again or who died a mysterious death.

The names were honored at the No More MMWIR event, which was held Sunday, May 4, in Bayview Park in Ashland by the shore of Lake Superior.

The event is one of several being held around the nation during the month of May to raise awareness of the MMIWR issue that has plagued tribal communities nationwide. On some tribal reservations, the murder rate for tribal women is ten times the national average. Tribal members face violence, both domestic and outside their families, at a higher rate than the general population. Several factors contribute to the MMIWR phenomenon including the fact that missing people belong to a vulnerable population that has suffered historical trauma and is disproportionately affected by poverty and substance abuse; exploitation associated with itinerant workers in mining and oil camps near reservations; and an inconsistent track record of law enforcement committing resources to solve murders or finding missing person.

Justine Rufus, co-chair of the Wisconsin MMIWR Task Force, rural coordinator of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and a Bad River member, spoke about the need for state funding to address the issue.

Rufus said that since the task force was created five years ago, awareness of the MMIWR issue has grown, but the number of MMIWR cases has also risen.

“We can keep creating awareness and education, which is very important,” she said. “What we really need is actual action to address this crisis. Our relatives are going missing at higher rates now since we created this task force. We are being murdered at higher rates. We are being sex trafficked higher than we’ve ever seen, so it takes real action.”

Rufus said no state has designated dollars for the MMIWR issue in its budget. (Minnesota sends a percentage of license plate fees to underwrite its MMIWR Office, part of the Department of Public Safety.)

She noted that Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed budget includes $3.5 million to create 11 MMIWR liaison offices with the 11 tribes in the state, working with the Attorney general and the Department of Justice.

“I applaud Gov. Evers for putting this in the budget,” she said. “He’s the first governor in the nation to put any dollars towards this crisis. But now is the time of action. We need to call your legislators to tell them that we demand to continue this work.”

Rufus also called for more funding for law enforcement. “Some of our communities don’t even have law enforcement,” she said. She noted the ongoing search for Melissa Beson in Vilas County has consumed many resources.

Rufus encouraged the crowd to contact legislative Joint Finance Committee members to urge them to approve funding for MMIWR issues.

Rene Ann Goodrich, a Bad River tribal member and MMIWR advocate for the last 10 years, who is a member of the Wisconsin MMIWR Task Force and a board member of the Minnesota MMIWR Office, a member of the Native Lives Matter Coalition and the No More MMIW and Relatives Movement, noted the local effort in the Twin Ports area of Superior and Duluth, Minnesota to raise awareness.

She said MMIWR events feature important Native American elements.

“I wanted to share a little bit about some of the cultural practices that we bring as a people to the contemporary missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives movement that helps to promote the healing for our families and our communities.”

She noted the cultural practice of offering tobacco and prayers to request guidance. And she talked about how the red dress had become the official symbol of the MMIWR movement. For Native Americans, red represents a “connection between the physical and spiritual world.”

“The red dresses began with our sisters doing this work and advocacy for lost loved ones up in Canada, and so we’ve started the work down here about 10 years ago with the red dresses,” she said, “so we’re asking for communities from Minnesota to Wisconsin to please start hanging out those red dresses and hang out red shirts also, because our men, our boys, our two spirits people, they matter, too, and we want to honor them.”

For many tribal people who had dealt with historical trauma, including the legacy of family members being shipped to federal boarding schools, Goodrich said, it is difficult to talk about the MMIWR issue but the red dress or red shirt is a way to raise awareness.

“I understand that it’s a difficult topic, and it’s very difficult for many of us to be able to speak about this movement, this legacy of trauma, this intergenerational trauma that we do carry,” she said. “So the red dresses are a quiet form of advocacy. They speak for themselves. Hang out a red dress on your porch; hang it in your yard. You’re spreading awareness that way. You don’t necessarily need to have all the data or the background, but this is a quiet, honoring form of advocacy that everyone can do.”

Goodrich noted that she and her granddaughter, Alexis, were gathering names family members wanted to honor, including those who have not been officially recognized as missing or murdered.

“As we become more educated and more familiar about this epidemic and how it impacts us, Indigenous people disproportionately across Turtle Island (Earth), leaving us with this legacy, including the boarding school, the legacy from this colonization, how this violence disproportionately impacts our women and our girls …  we’re learning more each year about the broad spectrum of violence that is this movement,” said Goodrich. 

Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) represents a district that includes the Bad River and Red Cliff bands of Lake Superior Chippewa.

“We know that part of what makes this such a major issue that has been so difficult to solve as a country, as a state, is that we’ve just failed to make missing and murdered Indigenous people a priority,” said Stroud.

“My experience tells me that when native people are struggling, too often there’s a tendency for systems of power to have an attitude that it’s not our problem, like it’s a problem of tribes or just the problem of local communities,” she added.

Stroud said the legacy of state violence and the scourges of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, homicide and human trafficking are connected. 

She called on people living on ceded Native American land to recognize  “the moral responsibility of our government to prioritize missing and murdered Indigenous people.”

“So as the state representative of this area of Bad River and Red Cliff and any other indigenous people who live in the 73rd, I want you to know that I care, that I see you, and I will do what I can to walk this journey with you of finding those who are missing and sitting together in the pain of those who are gone,” she said.

Dunbar noted that the Red Cliff Women’s Hand Drum Group, performing for the event, had formed to support the community, and each woman had made her own hand drum as part of her spiritual quest.

“These women wanted to come today and sing songs for everyone here for healing and for their own healing,” she said.

Those who are left behind after a family member goes missing or is murdered have a need to heal, Dunbar said, and she recounted her own experience.

“People ask me why I am so motivated to work on the MMIWR issue,” she said. “When I was a little girl, my mother was killed in Saint Paul, Minnesota. They never, ever arrested the person who killed her. They took her body and placed it in a grave, and for some 50 years my family has been looking for her grave, and as the Creator would have it, this past fall we were able to find her grave. Most of my brothers have passed on. There are only three of us left out of nine. And so our nieces and our nephews and our grandchildren are going to journey to her grave this spring to do that ceremony to welcome her home.”

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Young protesters express their support for Sawyer County Judge Monica Isham, who has been criticized by Republicans for her comments about safety in the courtroom after the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Sawyer County Circuit Judge Monica Isham drew rebukes from Republican elected officials and conservative media outlets after she reportedly expressed concerns for her safety in court after the April 25 arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hanna Dugan.

The Examiner has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the email, but WISN News, the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, reported that two Wisconsin judges confirmed to the station that they had received it from Isham. In the email, Isham allegedly said she would  refuse to appear in  court unless she received “guidance” and “support” concerning the presence and permissible activities of ICE agents. 

Over the weekend of April 26-27, right-wing media outlets obtained and shared the email they claimed Isham sent to other judges.

On Monday and Tuesday Isham appeared in court via Zoom.

There is also  added security in the court, and a Sawyer County Deputy told the Wisconsin Examiner there had been a threat to a judge.  

Isham was elected in November 2023 to the newly created Branch 2 court in an uncontested race. She is a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and is the first female and first Native American judge in Sawyer County and only the second Native American circuit court judge in Wisconsin.

In the email, Isham reportedly noted she had sworn an oath of support to the U.S. and the Wisconsin constitutions. She also reportedly added that  Judge Dugan was standing by her oath of office when she confronted ICE officers who came to her courtroom in Milwaukee and escorted the defendant they’d come to arrest out a side door. 

“Yesterday, Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee County stood on her Oath in the very building she swore to uphold it and she was arrested and charged with felonies for it. Enough is enough,” the email message said.

“I have no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process as BOTH of the constitutions we swore to support requires. Should I start raising ball money?”

Criticism of Isham

Isham’s reported threat to not hold court out of concern about interactions with ICE agents drew criticism from three northern Wisconsin Republican legislators who represent Sawyer County.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said Isham should resign.

“Monica Isham is choosing to protect illegal aliens over the law,” Tiffany wrote on X. “She should resign or be removed.”

State Sen. Romaine Quinn and state Rep. Chanz Green,  issued a joint statement: “Wisconsin’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a judge to uphold the integrity of the judiciary. It further states that ‘a judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.’

“Judge Isham’s threat to close court certainly does not promote public confidence in our court system or uphold the integrity of her position as a public official in this state. It is a disservice to the residents of Sawyer County.”

In their joint statement, Quinn and Green note that there had been an intensive effort to expand Sawyer County’s court to the second branch, which was officially recognized in 2023, and they go on to say that if Isham will not exercise her duties, then she should resign.

The Republican Party chair for the 7th CD, Jim Miller, who is also the president of the Hayward City Council, said he has empathy for Judge Isham for saying in the email that she had faced racism in her courtroom.

“That’s sad that she’s had to face that,” said Miller. “If that were my court and I faced racism, I would have held those people in contempt of court.”

However, Miller said that Isham’s threat not to hold court was drawing the ire of many people he had talked to.

“That does not sit well with people because they expect her to be a public servant,” said Miller. “If she is going to get a paycheck, she should come in and do her job. You can’t just boycott working as a public servant. It doesn’t work that way.”

Isham has so far continued to hold court via Zoom. 

Miller is also critical of Isham reportedly mentioning those detained by ICE would be sent to a “concentration camp.”

“My recommendation would be for her to at least clarify or maybe apologize for that statement, because that’s a stretch beyond stretch,” said Miller. “People like to throw out the Nazi references on both sides of the aisle, and it really muddies the argument of what’s going on.”

He added, “I think her emotions got the best of her, but I think people have real questions about her ability to make sure that justice is blind at this point, and that’s the biggest concern.”

Support for Isham

On Thursday, May 1, there was a large demonstration at the corners of state highways 27 and 63 in the city of Hayward with many people holding signs supporting Isham.

At 2 p.m. approximately 80 demonstrators left the corner by the state highways and walked two blocks by the Sawyer County Courthouse, and they were joined at the courthouse by over 20 students from Lac Courte Oreilles K-12 school who said they came out to support Isham, a fellow tribal member.

 “I’m here to fight for Judge Isham and what we stand for, and I find it inspiring to be here,” said Ashland Demonie, 14.

However, Denomie was also appalled to see some adults driving by swearing at the students and giving the youngsters the middle finger.

“It bothers me because we are just children here fighting for our rights and fighting for who we are, and seeing how harsh some adults respond, who should be more mature, is troubling,” she said.

Ode’iminke Leach, 15, is also a student who came out to support Isham and advocate for Native Americans.

“I’m out here protesting because I support Judges Isham and Dugan,” said Elizabeth Riley of Hayward, a Democrat who has run twice for the 74th Assembly District.

Riley said she feared that under President Donald Trump, the U.S. would not follow the rule of law but become more like a developing nation where authority is in the hands of a powerful individual rather than the written law and guaranteed rights.

Mary Vintcenda of the village of Exeland said she was at the demonstration to support Isham and the rule of law.

“I support Judge Isham because she is standing up for the rule of law,” said Vintcenda, who was joined at the demonstration with her brother, Tom, who was also holding a sign. “She’s standing up for what’s right, and I wish others would join us.”

“So we’re out here supporting Judge Monica Isham,” said Paul DeMain, former editor and owner of News from Indian Country and a Native American active in Democratic politics who has run for state Senate.

DeMain said Isham’s email represents concerns that many judges have across Wisconsin after the arrest of Dugan.

“My understanding is the entire state is engaged in a discussion about how to deal with potential ICE raids in the courtroom,” he said.

DeMain said ICE actively pursuing suspects in a court will discourage witnesses from appearing in court if they fear being arrested by ICE.

“Are they going to show up in the courtroom to testify if they think they’re going to get hauled out and deported to El Salvador and put in a concentration camp?” asked DeMain. “These courts need to be safe. They need to be involved with respecting that due process for all U.S. citizens and all people in this country and let the process work it out.”

He added, “I think what’s going on with this administration, showcasing for publicity reasons the arrest of the Milwaukee judge with massive law enforcement officers, cuffing the judge outside in the parking lot, inviting all the right-wing media to take pictures — these are staged events meant to [cause]  U.S. citizens to be afraid to speak up, to be afraid to have an oppositional view, to stand up for citizens’ rights in this country.”

Marcie Rendon, author of “Where They Last Saw her,” spoke at the Muir Library in Winnebago, Minnesota | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Marcie Rendon, author of “Where They Last Saw Her,” spoke at the Muir Library in Winnebago in southern Minnesota last Tuesday, where a group of 15-20 white women from a conservative, Republican-leaning farming community came to hear the Native American author talk about her recently published book.

The crime novel explores the theme of Native American women who are missing or murdered.

Rendon is a member of the White Earth Nation in northwest Minnesota who now lives in Minneapolis.

The story begins with the protagonist, Quill, a Native American wife and mother of two, who is jogging on the reservation when she hears a woman scream. That scream sends her into panic, which later leads to an investigation.

Rendon told the admiring audience that she is a crime junkie who loves to create page-turners, and that her goal with the new book wasn’t to provide a sociological study of indigenous life, but to tell a good story.

However, Rendon framed the book’s accounts of missing Native American women taken from a reservation and an infant kidnapped from a Walmart to the movement recognizing the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIW/R) 

Early on, Crow, Quill’s husband, expresses concern about his wife risking her safety chasing  down information on the possible identity of the woman she heard screaming:

“We’ve been hearing these horror stories of four thousand, maybe five thousand women missing across Canada. Missing down here. The stories of what has happened to women and children” – he emphasized children – “in the man camps over the Dakotas. And they are here now.” He jabbed two fingers onto the table when he said the word now. “Those same men are here now.” He jabbed the table again. “I don’t want anyone from my family to go missing. To end up dead in a ditch or a river. No. Not on my watch.”

When the book club members had an opportunity to ask Rendon questions, they didn’t focus on the plotline of the story but on the larger MMIW/R issue, what’s behind it and what could be done to address it.

In mainstream culture, Rendon responded, Native Americans are seen as invisible and their problems have not been taken as seriously.

“When I go out East to talk, most people out there think we’re all dead; that we disappeared with, I don’t know, the Black Hills gold rush, which also makes it easier for us to disappear if people don’t think we exist,” she said. “How can you disappear if you don’t exist?”

Although the MMIW/R issue has benefited from more public discussions, such as the upcoming May 5 MMIW/R Day of Awareness, Rendon said, when she was recently in Madison, she met a college professor who had never heard of the issue.

“Where They Last Saw Her” is an example of a work of fiction that raises awareness of a real crisis and provides insights into subcultures and their struggles.

In 2018, as part of a statewide program called Wisconsin Reads, several book clubs around the state collectively read and discussed “The Round House” by Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota. That book also raised awareness of struggles on Native American reservations and, in particular, the complication of prosecuting a crime when there are competing jurisdictional authorities between a tribal nation and county and state authorities.

Rendon is also the author of the “Cash Blackbear” series, which involves a Native American 19-year-old woman who solves crimes in the Red River area of Minnesota/North Dakota in the 1970s. She said her editor at Bantam asked her about writing another book outside the series.

“She said, ‘Well, what’s the current issue in Indian Country?’ and I said, ‘missing and murdered Indian women.’”

However, Rendon was initially reluctant to write a story around the MMIW/R issue.

“I said, ‘there’s no resolution. If somebody’s missing or murdered, there’s no happy ending,” she said. “There’s no resolution to the story. They’re either dead or they’re still missing.’”

Rendon’s story is set in Minnesota at a fictional tribe on the outskirts of Duluth, Minnesota, where in real life there had been a major pipeline project on a reservation in the area, like the one in her book — the replacement of Line 3 by Enbridge on the Fond du Lac Reservation, completed in 2021.

Prior to the Line 3 permit being approved, there had been concerns by Native American groups about man camps and violence and harassment against Native women.

A 2021 article by The Guardian, “Sexual violence along pipeline route follows Indigenous women’s warnings,” reported that a local crisis center for survivors of violence had “received more than 40 reports about Line 3 workers harassing and assaulting women and girls who live in northwestern Minnesota.”

Rene Ann Goodrich, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, and a member of the Wisconsin MMIW/R Task Force is one of several Ojibwe women from Northern Wisconsin who have also expressed concern over Enbridge replacing a portion of Line 5, currently located on the Bad River Reservation, but Enbridge has filed for permits to build outside the reservation. Besides environmental concerns, the new project could result in a man camp in the area and possible assaults against Native women.

Rendon said there is a strong relationship between the extractive industry and the MMIW/R issue, and she makes a strong correlation between the two in her book.

“Anytime you have an extractive industry, like the pipelines, gold mines, uranium mines, anytime you have an extractive industry where large groups of men are pulled in to do the extraction, there’s no police force. They show up without their wives and families. They show up without ministers or priests. It’s just like the Wild West,” she said. “There has to be something done about the extractive industries and this use of men in large groups to actually go out and do these extractive industries. I don’t know how you change this. But I think that awareness is a piece of it.”

However, Rendon said she had heard that some oil companies have responded to concerns about man camps by putting men up in hotels with their families.

“Talk about the power of women, right? Bringing your wife and she’ll make you go to church,” she said.

Rendon said it was vital for her to portray Native American women in a community. In the story, three women, Quill and her friends Punk and Gaylyn, often travel together as they pursue information about missing women or help with searches.

“In Native communities, you almost never do anything alone,” she said. “You know, if I’m going to go to the grocery store, somebody’s with me. There’s one family that, if you see them at the pow wow —  if you see them at the grocery store, if you see them downtown, in the courthouse —  it’s the mom, the grandma, the kids, you know; it’s like, it’s a whole group,” she said.

Regarding Native women and community, Rendon notes it was Indigenous/First Nation women in Canada who first gathered together and spoke out about the phenomenon of Indigenous women missing around the man camps of oil pipelines and mining operations.

“I knew that in this story about missing and murdered Indian women, what was important to me was a community of women, and so I knew that it wasn’t going to be just one person,” she said.

Rendon said she has received some criticism for including a male Native American who is abusive.

“We have bad people in our communities, too,” she said, “and then there’s the thing about domestic abuse, it happens in every community and in smaller communities. People know that it happens, but people don’t talk about it, or there’s this secrecy and stuff that happens around it.”

In Minnesota, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) reports there were 716 Indigenous persons missing in that state in 2024, 57% of whom were women.

In Wisconsin the exact number of missing Indigenous persons is not published, in part because the state does not have a clearinghouse like Minnesota for gathering that data.

Rendon praised efforts in Minnesota to create an MMIW/R office that tracks MMIW/R cases, works with families, and provides support and even rewards for information. And she noted that in Minneapolis, the Indigenous Protectors Movement, a branch of the American Indian Movement, is active in putting out flyers and organizing searches for missing persons.

In researching the novel, Rendon said she was surprised by how often white women who went missing were blamed for causing their own victimization through their behavior, including having multiple sexual partners. In Native American communities, she said, there isn’t that cloud of guilt over women.

“The Native community clearly has said, ‘I don’t care what our women were doing, nobody deserves to be trafficked. Nobody deserves to end up dead in a ditch or in a gunny sack in the Red River Valley,’” she said. “So there’s a difference, a cultural difference that I saw, which surprised me.”