ACROSS THE REZ ON BLUEBERRY ROAD

RED CLIFF: NORTH CHANNEL AND BASSWOOD ISLAND

ON BLUEBERRY ROAD...

...DITTO...

...DITTO...

A HOME IN THE DEEP WOODS

HOUSE, TRAIER AND SCHOOL BUS SHELTER ON RASPBERRY ROAD

A PROSPEROUS OFF-REZ HOME FLIES THE OJIBWA TRIBAL FLAG

Monday,  8:30 AM.  5 degrees F, wind WSW, light with moderate gusts.  The sky is again overcast, but at least there is no fog.  The humidity is 77% and the barometer is trending down at 30.13".  The days are getting shorter and shorter, the sun now rising and setting very far in the south.  But soon it will be the equinox, and things will start to turn around again in the endless cycle of the seasons.
   Yesterday afternoon Joan and I felt really housebound in the snow and cold, so we went for a little ride.  We headed north on Hwy. 13 to Red Cliff, and when we got to the casino Joan said "Let's go through the Rez on Blueberry Road, we haven't done that in a long time." So, despite the snow covered and slick road conditions we turned onto Blueberry .
  Blueberry Road goes through the heart of the reservation, from Red Cliff almost to little Sand Bay, about ten miles in length. The landscape is essentially wilderness and is very beautiful, especially in the winter.  There was considerable lake fog, which added to the sense of being in the outback.  All things considered, I was glad we were driving the four-wheel drive truck.
   Most of the houses on the reservation are clustered in and around the village of Red Cliff, but there are some scattered residences along Blueberry Road, mostly just outside of the village and again towards the junction of Blueberry and Little Sand Bay Road. Blueberry Road cuts across the tip of the Bayfield Peninsula and there are a number of roads leading from it to the lake, but most were not plowed, and some are considered off-limits to non-tribal people because they lead to places which are sacred to the Ojibwas and we respect their beliefs and traditions.
   The Red Cliff Reservation is quite small by most Indian reservation standards, but driving through its environs, especially in tough winter conditions, can't help but give the visitor a sense of the character of the Ojibwa people who have called it home for the last four or five hundred years.  They have hunkered down and stayed here, in good times and bad, through half-a-thousand brutal winters, as attuned to the genius of the place as the wolves and the deer and the bear and the eagles, and aren't about to go away.