Save Lake Mille Lacs Association.

On July 29, 1837 the United States entered into a treaty with several bands of Chippewa Indians. Under the terms of the treaty the Indians ceded the northern one-third of present-day Wisconsin and 3,061,501 acres of land in what would later become Minnesota to the United States, and the United States guaranteed to the Indians certain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights on the ceded land.

In August 1990 the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians and several of its members filed suit in the Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota against the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and various state officers seeking, among other things, a declaratory judgment that they retained their usufructuary rights (the right to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded lands) under the 1837 treaty, and an injunction to prevent the State's interference with those rights. The United States intervened as a plaintiff in the suit; nine counties and six private landowners intervened as defendants. The lawsuit involved treaty rights on lands located in Crow Wing, Aitkin, Pine, Chisago, Anoka, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Sherburne, Benton, and Morrison counties. Included in this tract is Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota's premier walleye fishing lake.

The District Court bifurcated the case into two phases. Phase I of the litigation would determine whether, and to what extent, the Mille Lacs Band retained any usufructuary rights under the 1837 treaty, while Phase II would determine the validity of particular state measures regulating any retained rights. The State of Minnesota argued that the Indians lost these rights through a presidential executive order in 1850, an 1855 treaty, and the admission of Minnesota into the union in 1858.

A proposed out-of-court agreement was reached between the Lake Mille Lacs Band and the State of Minnesota by 1992 to resolve the issue. The Save Lake Mille Lacs Association (SLMLA), however, believed that the case should instead be settled in Federal court. The SLMLA and others apparently were successful in getting this proposed agreement thrown out, and the case proceeded to trial.

After a bench trial on the Phase I issues District Court judge Diana Murphy ruled on August 24, 1994 that the Mille Lacs Band did in fact retain its rights to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded lands, as guaranteed by the 1837 treaty. Several resource allocation and regulation issues related to Phase II of the litigation were resolved in a final order issued in 1997. Judge Murphy's decision was appealed to the 8th circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where it was affirmed in 1997. The case was then appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgement of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in an opinion dated March 24, 1999.

The Save Lake Mille Lacs Association was a coalition of about 100 Minnesota sportsmen's groups formed to oppose any out-of-court treaty rights settlement that might be reached between the state and the Mille Lacs Band that resulted in "unequal hunting or fishing rights on the territory ceded in the Treaty of 1837." The Association further stated that should the case go to court it would assist the state in every way possible to win the lawsuit. Officers of the group included Tim Burns, chairman of the board; Doug Iverson, president; Dick Sternberg, vice president; and Michael S. Carlson, secretary and research director.

The SLMLA research team, headed by Michael S. Carlson of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, gathered evidence to bolster its contention that the Mille Lacs Band had no remaining hunting or fishing rights under the 1837 treaty or under the treaty signed in 1855, maintaining instead that the Band's rights granted by those treaties had been extinguished by subsequent treaties, presidential orders, congressional acts, court of claims payments, and Indian Claims Commission payments. The SLMLA argued that the proposed agreement was seriously flawed and overly charitable, and that it would forever impact hunting and fishing in east-central Minnesota. The SLMLA argued that the proposed agreement between the DNR and the Mille Lacs Band granted permanent rights to fish and game resources, was "riddled with ambiguities," and that it allowed the Band to set its own seasons, limits, and methods of harvest. Of particular concern to the SLMLA was the prospect of the depletion of game fish in Lake Mille Lacs that could follow implementation of the agreement, and the Band's spearing and gillnetting of fish. The Association also objected to the proposed establishment of a 6,000-acre designated tribal-only fishing zone on Lake Mille Lacs. The SLMLA asserted that the proposed agreement would allow Band members to take up to 50 per cent of all fish and game resources on the ceded territory.

The Association seems to have become inactive after 1994.

From the guide to the Treaty rights controversy files., [199-]-1999., (Minnesota Historical Society)