MILKWEED PODS; AND, OJIBWE CEDED TERRITORY

DEVELOPING MILKWEED PODS

CEDED TERRITORIES

Saturday, 8:00 AM.  78 degrees F, humidity 65%, wind WNW, light with moderate gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudless with some haze in the east, and the barometer is high.  It will most likely be a hot day.
    The countless numbers of sweet-scented common milkweed flowers that have graced the fields and roadsides for weeks have suddenly shriveled and disappeared, as if on cue, to be replaced by developing seed pods. These will grow and ripen until they are full to bursting with seeds, which will be disbursed on the fall and winter winds, floating away to who knows where on silken wings.
    On Thursday I  mentioned the territory of the Ojibwe Indians ceded to the United States by treaty, and their legal right to hunt and gather on those lands under those treaties.  The accompanying map shows the ceded lands in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan covered by the various treaties. Without going into more detail than warranted, it can be said that these rights have been well defined in  case law and court decisions, and there is now a quite sophisticated arrangement for enforcement of treaty rights  between the Ojibwe and the federal and state governments. 
    The tribe has established the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wild Life Commission, which works closely with state and federal agencies to enforce regulations developed under the treaties, and to improve and regulate fish, game and wild rice populations and habitat.    There was a time thirty and more years ago when there was open conflict between Indians and others over those rights, but cooler heads, and reason, prevailed on both sides and there are few conflicts today.