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DNR issues citations after treaty rights challenge on Gull Lake
As several canoes gathered wild rice nearby, DNR stopped two tribal members from netting fish on Gull Lake.
By Tony Kennedy Star Tribune
August 28, 2015 — 1:52pm
Brian Peterson – Star Tribune
Gallery: Native Americans Jim Northrup (left) and Todd Thompson, (right) set a gill net on Gull Lake Friday morning. The two were cited for taking fish by illegal methods, and the DNR pulled the nets.
NISSWA, Minn.- Two tribal members who attempted to net fish on Gull Lake Friday were chased off the lake and given citations by state conservation officers who then pulled the 200-foot long net from the water and carried it away.
The confrontation happened just 300 feet away from Hole-in-the-day Lake, where treaty rights activists were harvesting wild rice without a license in the second day of a planned act of civil disobedience.
A group of about 40 Chippewa band members, media and other observers of the ricing event raced across the four lanes of Highway 371 to watch the showdown on Gull Lake, where netting fish is illegal.
Three Department of Natural Resources conservation officers asked the fish netters to stop as they were paddling to shore. Instead, the two men landed their canoe and left the scene.
When two of the officers came ashore to look for the fishermen, they were taunted by some of the observing tribal members. They did not confiscate the canoe.
“These are our rights,’’ someone in the crowd said to the officers.
DNR conservation officer Tim Collette gives a citation to Jim Northrup (right) and Todd Thompson, (with phone) for taking fish by illegal methods after they set a gill net on Gull Lake Friday morning.
Archie LaRose, chairman of the 1855 Treaty Authority, said the DNR officers would have played “hard ball’’ and seized the canoe if there weren’t so many media cameras at the scene.
The DNR later cited the two fishermen for “taking fish by illegal methods.” They were identified as Todd Thompson of the White Earth band and Jim Northrop of the Fond du Lac band.
The DNR officers returned the gillnet.
The gillnetting attempt was an extension of the ricing event. It happened about 11 a.m., 90 minutes after several canoes were launched on Hole-in-the-Day to gather rice. LaRose and others had been saying that the lack of a DNR presence at the ricing event was an indication that the agency was avoiding a conflict in front of media along a heavily traveled road just south of the retail district in Nisswa.
The DNR blunted yesterday’s protest by issuing an unasked for daily permit. The permit expired at midnight and the agency said it would be patrolling Friday for possible ricing violations at several locations, along with other duties.
“I hope we get a citation today,” Lew Murray said Friday morning before the fish-netting began. “That’s why we’re here.” Murray, a member of the White Earth Band was helping his 16 year old son, Will Gagnon, launch a canoe to harvest rice.
Activists have vowed to rice for many days to provoke a court challenge to the state’s insistence that Chippewa tribes gave up off-reservation hunting, fishing and gathering rights when they sold a giant patch of North Woods land to the federal government in an 1855 treaty. Some tribal members had been saying that the DNR wouldn’t step in unless someone in the activist group attempted to net walleyes.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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