Native Americans make stand against Wisconsin mining operations

By Ryan Ekvall | Wisconsin Reporter

HURLEY — Mel Gasper doesn’t sound worried.

Heavy trucks, geologists, engineers and armed guards have passed by the entrance of the Lac Courte Oreilles Harvest Camp in recent weeks, signalling the initial exploratory phase of a potential $1.5-billion iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin.

But the tribal elder with the Lac Courtes Oreilles Band of Ojibwe says the Harvest Camp, established this past spring, marks the tribe’s line in the sand, and its opening salvo into a legal challenge to block the mine.

The camp’s entrance sits up a gravel road off Wisconsin Highway 77 near the border of Iron and Ashland County, just a few miles from the rundown mining towns of the past. which showcase large tailings from un-reclaimed mines on one side of the road and boarded up, abandoned houses on the other.

Farther up the gravel road is where Gogebic Taconite LLC, the company that pressed lawmakers to pass an overhaul of the state’s mining regulations, last week finished drilling exploration boreholes.

“This camp is our foothold,” Gasper said, sitting on one of the 20 or so chairs scattered about the camp.

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