Is Mille Lacs Reservation Suddenly Growing?

"Landowners' Attorneys Raise Questions About "Reservation"

    In filing the Landowner/appellants' Memorandum of Law in opposition to the appellees' motion for dismissal of appeals, attorneys for the Landowners in the Mille Lacs 1837 treaty case make a strong point about contrasting definitions of "Mille Lacs reservation."
    The original 61,000-acre Mille Lacs Reservation was established by the Treaty of 1855. It was ceded to the United States in the 1860s with Mille Lacs Ojibwe retaining certain conditional occupancy rights. The 1889 Nelson Act provided that all remaining Chippewa reservations in Minnesota, except for the Red Lake and White Earth reservations, would be ceded to the United States. Eventually the Mille Lacs Band retained only a small acreage. In the 1920s, the United States purchased several thousand acres of land for the Mille Lacs Band. In later years, this smaller "reservation" has generally been regarded as the "Mille Lacs Reservation."
    But the Band's Department of Natural Resources is presently defining "reservation" as the old 61,000-acre entity comprising several townships in northern Mille Lacs County around the south portion of Mille Lacs Lake. A similar definition of Mille Lacs Reservation appeared in the 1837 treaty out-of-court settlement proposal last year. And the Mille Lacs Band's ten-year resource management plan (1993-2003) defines and maps (ostensibly for management purposes) the "Mille Lacs Reservation and vicinity" as the old reservation, all of Mille Lacs Lake, the original Sandy Lake Indian Reservation, the East Lake Indian reservation, and other lands running eastward through Pine County and on to the Wisconsin border.
    The original Sandy Lake Indian reservation, established by the Treaty of 1855 and ceded to the U. S. government in 1864, included all of Big Sandy Lake and surrounding lands in Aitkin County. Subsequent smaller Sandy Lake Indian reservations were established in 1915 and in 1940 - for descendants of the historic and prestigious Sandy Lake Band.
    Due to some "tossing together" of a number of Indian groups for administrative purposes following the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, and with flimsy documentation, the Mille Lacs Band claims to be the political successor to some of these groups, including the historic Sandy Lake and Rice Lake bands and others. Now the Mille Lacs Band is apparently claiming not just the present smaller areas where these groups are located - but the historic reservations long ago ceded to the United States. (If any Ojibwe would still have claims to those lands, a historian might think, it would be descendants of those historic groups of Indians - not the Mille Lacs Band!)
    While some of these areas are outside the territory ceded in 1837, the old Mille Lacs Reservation is in that ceded area. Attorneys for the landowners in the case are concerned about references to "reservation" - as meaning the older and larger Mille Lacs Reservation - in court documents.
    The Landowners' attorneys point out that the October 13, 1994, court order denied an injunction which sought an Order prohibiting the Band's members from exercising the fishing and hunting privileges. According to the Landowner's attorneys, the district court created a procedure which allows Band members to exercise the privilege in a large segment of the ceded territory without even providing notice!
    This fact, the attorneys say, is made clear from a close study of the references to "reservation" in the court's order, a Declaration of Don Wedll (the Band's DNR Commissioner), and the Band's code. In these three places, the Landowners' attorneys say, the references to "reservation" apply not just to the limited small amount of remaining federal trust lands, but to the "reservation" as defined under the Band's code. The Code defines "reservation" by its 1855 boundaries, which have long ago been substantially diminished.
    The Landowners' attorneys call this discrepancy "enormous." They say, "the Band and the district court are not saying in the October 13, 1994, Order that the only place the Band will follow its code and ignore state laws is on its current trust lands. What the Band and the district court are saying is that the Band will follow its code and ignore state law in a large part of the 1837 ceded territory far beyond the borders of the current trust lands!
    "The court's Order referred to 'the reservation' without defining it, assumedly utilizing the definition within the Band's code as explained by Don Wedll. Hence, the court is currently allowing what is commonly known as 'off reservation' exercise of the privilege since it is allowing the exercise in areas that have long since been removed from reservation status by the federal government."
    Apparently, the district court's October 13, 1994, Order only requires the Band to provide prior notice if they plan to exercise the privilege beyond the 61,000 acres of "reservation" areas into other portions of the ceded territory. This means that the court has already decided that at this time the privilege can be exercised in at least 60,000 acres of the ceded area without state interference. If exercise of the fishing, hunting, and gathering privilege in a wider part of the ceded area is sought, notice is required.