The town of LaPointe on Madeline Island may become one of the first off-reservation locations in Wisconsin to have Ojibwe and English bilingual signs.
LaPointe Town Board member Nick Nelson says he’ll propose up to $5,000 for the bilingual signs in next year’s town budget.
“When you have signs for library and stuff like that and there’s an equivalent and such, we can put that up – those are some of the things as a town we can do, so it’s easy to just give that the green light right away,” says Nelson.
Lac du Flambeau tribal member Melvin Buckholtz is also pushing for bilingual signs on Madeline Island.
“I know a lot of tourists eat that stuff up when they see it – anything to do with the Ojibwe culture or even Native American culture in general,” Buckholtz.
Madeline Island is considered the Mecca for Ojibwe tribes who traveled centuries ago from the East Coast to avoid extermination and find the food that grows on the water: wild rice. Buckholtz says Madeline Island has gotten away from its Native roots. “Not a lot of people associate it with being the starting point for tribes. It would be nice to get some of that back.”
Buckholtz would like to form a partnership with the Bad River Band, which has reservation land on Madeline Island. Either way, Nick Nelson says bilingual signs make sense.
“Ojibwe people, they have a huge depth of understanding of the importance of this area,” says Buckholtz. “Beginning to understand their language is just a beginning of the doorway to understanding why this area is so important.”
Nelson hopes the bilingual signs will be in place next year.
