Fresh Article

[Dr.Bob]

I have not even had time to read this yet.  I just found it and I am late for a meeting so I thought I would toss it up for the rest of you guys:

http://www.startribune.com/531/story/549019.html

[JohnWester]

I have not even had time to read this yet.? I just found it and I am late for a meeting so I thought I would toss it up for the rest of you guys:

http://www.startribune.com/531/story/549019.html

Red Lake walleye trip snags on age-old conflict
Angler accused of fishing in tribal waters wants state help to get his boat back.
Tom Meersman, Star Tribune

Jerry Mueller went fishing for walleyes on the recently reopened Upper Red Lake but saw his fishing gear seized -- boat, motor and trailer -- by tribal officers who cited the Princeton, Minn., man for entering reservation waters.
Contending that any entry into fishing areas reserved for Red Lake tribal members during a May fishing trip was minor and inadvertent, Mueller is seeking state assistance to contest the seizure of equipment worth several thousand dollars.

Reservation officials, however, report that Mueller and his son-in-law were found more than two miles into tribal waters, and that their actions constituted "blatant" trespassing. The tribe has summoned the men to tribal court next month to face charges. Mueller said they haven't decided whether to comply.

He and supporters met this week with Gene Merriam, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources.

Merriam said there's no question in his mind that the tribe has jurisdiction over reservation land and waters.

"We've been operating the same way for 75 years," Merriam said. "We got legal advice then that non-tribal members couldn't fish on the tribal waters of Red Lake without permission of the tribe or the federal government."

Who can fish where

The lake is actually two interconnected basins. Only 48,000 acres of the 275,000-acre lake, which includes Upper and Lower Red Lake, is state-owned. The other 227,000 acres, including the entire Lower Red Lake, is owned by the band. Fishing on the tribal portions of the two lakes is closed to those who aren't band members.

But Minnesota-licensed anglers can fish legally on the eastern part of the Upper Lake. State officials recommend boaters use GPS devices to track their position on the lake. The state has widely published the coordinates and maps of the boundary in communities near the lake.

With walleye fishing closed to all anglers after the fish populations collapsed in the late 1990s, the issue of controlling access to the lake had not been a hot topic in recent years.

This spring, however, state and tribal officials reopened the lake after years of fish management and restocking the lakes -- and both fish and anglers have been present in large numbers. As the fishing has heated up, contention over the band's control of the lake has also begun to simmer again.

This year, a state conservation officer, in a letter written as a private citizen, told tribal officials he doubted their authority over the lake and offered to violate the boundary to create a test case.

Indian treaty rights for hunting and fishing on traditional tribal lands have sparked tensions in Minnesota for decades. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that eight bands still have special off-reservation rights to hunting, fishing and gathering in parts of east-central Minnesota, including Lake Mille Lacs, sparking angry protests by non-Indian anglers.

Red Lake incidents rare

Dave Conner, administrative officer for Red Lake's Department of Natural Resources, said it's rare that tribal police have encountered trespassers on water.

In January 2002, a Pine River, Minn., man landed his airplane on Lower Red Lake and began ice fishing. Tribal authorities confiscated his $25,000 airplane. It was returned after the angler paid $4,000 in fines and other penalties and apologized in writing.

Henry Drewes, DNR regional fisheries manager in Bemidji, said that he had no information about Mueller's case, but there has almost never been a problem with anglers straying into tribal waters because the best fishing is in state waters near the eastern shore, and the tribal border is miles from Upper Red Lake's public boat launch.

"There's no lure to go over by the boundary because it's such a big lake and you don't want to be 11 miles away from where you put in," he said.

Mueller said that he didn't have a GPS, and that the DNR should provide signs on shore or buoys in the water showing the boundary.

Seeking statewide support

Mueller also said he's not convinced that the tribe should even have jurisdiction over Red Lake, and that he is receiving advice and support from Proper Economic Resource Management (PERM), a nonprofit group that challenges and frequently opposes Indian treaty rights.

About two dozen people attended Tuesday's meeting with Merriam and Mueller. The commissioner told those at the meeting, arranged by state Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, and Sen. Betsy Wergin, R-Princeton, that he would ask DNR staff to do a cost-benefit study of placing markers or buoys near the border so that boaters without GPS would have an indication of the Red Lake-Minnesota boundary.

Mueller said that he is also seeking meetings with Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Attorney General Mike Hatch to request "updated" legal opinions on whether the tribe has sovereignty over Upper Red Lake.

"There's always going to be someone who doesn't think we own this land," said Al Pemberton, Red Lake's DNR director, who also represents the Redby District on Red Lake's Tribal Council. "We listen to the rhetoric, but our forefathers saved this land for us. We hold it sacred."

Fishing rights can be contentious within the reservation as well, however, with some members suggesting that either opening the lake to non-Indians or resuming commercial walleye fishing could be an economic boon to tribal members who struggle with poverty and other problems.

So far, however, the tribe has opted to keep the lake closed to non-members, viewing it as a symbol of its heritage, sovereignty and independence.

Mueller, who grew up in a small town about 30 miles from the reservation, said that he has fished Upper Red Lake several times in the past, and that on May 28 he took the boat west from Rogers' Campground to get away from other anglers.

If he drifted across the border, Mueller said, it could not have been by more than a couple of hundred yards. "I didn't think we were even close to the tribal boundary, and I'm not sure even now whether we were or not," he said.

However, Pemberton said, Mueller's boat was well into tribal territory, and given the circumstances, confiscation of equipment was not unreasonable.

"If you owned 1,000 acres and I came over and started shooting your deer, how would you like it?" Pemberton said. "It's our land and we have to protect it."


Tom Meersman ? 612 673-7388