Fishing

by Bill LeBlanc, tribal elder and former chairman of the Michigan Commission on Indian Affairs

Fishing was and is a core way of life for the Ojibwe, especially the Bay Mills Indian Community. Historically, our tribe lived on the water in many locations and fish were caught for food and trade. The Anishnabeg have always developed and adopted new technologies to fish, from spears, hooks, dip nets and gill nets to catch plentiful whitefish and herring. At the beginning of the twentieth century, tribal commercial fishing was expanded to supply markets in Chicago and New York.

For generations after the treaties in the 1800s, tribal fishermen bought state licenses and complied with state laws and fishing rules. But because they were always small—mostly family operations—Indian fishermen became the victim of the state’s attempt to limit licenses and develop bigger fisheries.

According to Prof. Charles E. Cleland, author of The Place of the Pike (Gnoozhekaaning): A History of the Bay Mills Indian Community, "When in the 1960s the state decided unilaterally to rapidly transform the Great Lakes fishery from a commercial to a sports enterprise, conditions became intolerable. State fishery managers decided that a nonnative species, the salmon, and stocked lake trout would be the prime game fish. Soon they began a campaign to rid the lakes of gill nets, which the DNR Fishery Division and the sport fishing lobby saw as damaging to the (rapid restocking of salmon and fish). State conservation officers redoubled their efforts in arresting Indian fishermen and confiscating their boats and nets."

The beneficiaries of the new policy were the large non-Indian commercial fishermen who were already in business. Most of the Indian fishermen who lost their licenses still needed to fish in order to feed their families—and so began an era of defiance, arrest, fines and confiscated nets. State harassment added another cost to an already-costly business. The tribal fishermen had no choice but to pay up and continue to fish.

After the limit on fishing licenses in the 1970s, much of the fishing had to be conducted under cover of darkness. Bay Mills fishermen and their helpers devised ingenious ways to get around this situation (but you'll have to ask them about it, or see our interview of Big Abe LeBlanc's sons on this site). This made fishing an even more dangerous occupation. Confiscation of nets put many tribal fishermen out of business because they could not replace the lost nets.

Now denied a livelihood, these hard-working fishermen and their families were forced onto welfare or into working for another fisherman—often for very low wages and long hours. The situation became intolerable. One of those men, whose contact with the law had been frequent, decided that he was going to exercise his treaty-protected rights. Enter Big Abe LeBlanc.

LeBlanc challenged the DNR to arrest him. He and other tribal fishermen such as Skip Parrish fished openly and, of course, many got arrested. Local courts convicted Abe. Luckily, on appeal and eventually through the federal court system, his case was overturned and tribal fishing was reaffirmed by the courts as a treaty right on May 7, 1979.

Big Abe was one of the many modern warriors who fought successfully for Indian rights. A building has been named in his honor in Sault Ste. Marie to commemorate his service to the people.

We also honor the many other fishing heroes who did and are fighting to keep our core lifestyle alive. You can see an interview with Skip Parish, a fishing protester from that era who still fishes on this site. He also shares some info on fishing in the section below.