Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Scott Williams Menominee tribal members Gene Caldwell, left, and Margaret Wilber watch sturgeon spawning Thursday at the Shawano dam on the Wolf River.
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Michele Lyons stirs a side dish for the annual sturgeon feast Saturday at at the Menominee Indian High School gymnasium. This is Lyons’ third year volunteering to cook and serve at the feast. A powwow and feast are held each year on the Menominee reservation as tribute to the sturgeon, an ancient fish vital to the tribe’s culture and tradition.
To members of the Menominee Indian Tribe, the spectacle of sturgeon spawning season in Shawano has much deeper meaning than impressive fish doing nature’s work.
For generations long ago, the sturgeon continued swimming north up the Wolf River to the Menominee reservation, where their arrival was celebrated each year and the sturgeon became a sacred symbol of native American culture.
When the Shawano dam was built in the late 19th century, the river became impassable and the Menominee people were left feeling cut off from their revered sturgeon.
So for many tribal members, making the annual trek down to the Shawano dam — about 10 miles south of the reservation — is akin to traveling into their cultural past.
“It’s ancestral,” tribal member Margaret Wilber said. “It’s part of my life blood.”
For some Menominee, the experience also is a little bittersweet.
Gene Caldwell, who made his first visit to the Shawano dam Thursday, said some in the tribe still harbor resentment that they must leave the reservation and reconnect with the sturgeon alongside a man-made obstacle in the river.
“It does trouble me that we have to do that,” Caldwell said. “We shouldn’t have to. It should be natural.”
Thousands of sturgeon swim north each spring from Lake Winnebago or other distant habitats, racing up the Wolf River for their yearly mating ritual in favorite spots such as New London, Shiocton and Shawano.
Tourists and other nature lovers gather for the chance to see the sturgeon — some as large as 6 feet long — in the frenzied splashing exhibition that accompanies spawning. Although the mating season generally lasts a week or more, this year’s unseasonably warm temperatures have accelerated the process and state wildlife officials have said the spawning is likely to end by Friday.
The sturgeon are regarded as the oldest and largest fish in the Great Lakes.
In bygone days, Menominee tribal members would celebrate the end of another long winter with a sturgeon harvest and feast when the enormous fish swam up the Wolf River each spring and arrived on the reservation north of Shawano.
About 20 years ago, some Menominee members threatened to come to Shawano and take sturgeon back to the reservation to reclaim the tribe’s sacred symbol. In a compromise, officials from the state Department of Natural Resources agreed to transport some sturgeon north and donate them to the tribe.
The state has continued the donation annually, and the tribe has used the sturgeon for a feast and powwow, which occurred Saturday in Keshena.
Some in the tribe still prefer making the trip to Shawano, too, to see the sturgeon in the river.
“It’s tradition,” tribal member Michelle Keshena said by the dam Thursday. “This is the only place you can really see it.”
Emotions run high for some Menominee as they watch the huge sturgeon butting up against the dam, seemingly trying to continue swimming northward.
Mike Wilber, a cousin to Margaret Wilber, said there has been talk of building a ladder-like apparatus that would allow some sturgeon to go over the dam and continue toward the reservation. But that idea has not caught on, so Wilber treks down to Shawano each year and makes the best of the situation.
“It’s just a little bit unnatural,” he said. “I come and I look at them, and I wish they could continue.”
Another related tribal member, Gregory Wilber, has made peace with the situation and enjoys visiting the Shawano dam alongside nontribal members. To him, the sturgeons are a symbol of peace.
“They’re a gentle giant in that water — the water that we share,” he said. “We share that with everybody.”