A new documentary chronicles a Wisconsin’s tribe’s ongoing fight to protect Lake Superior for future generations.
“Bad River” shows the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s long history of activism and resistance in the context of continuing legal battles with Enbridge Energy over its Line 5 oil pipeline. The Line 5 pipeline has been operating on 12 miles of the Bad River Band’s land with expired easements for more than a decade. The Band and the Canadian company have been locked in a legal battle over the pipeline since 2019.
The Journal Sentinel got a sneak peak at “Bad River,” which will open in select cities, like Chicago, Madison and Ashland, on March 15.
The Band’s resistance against Line 5 is “a new chapter of a very old story,” said Mary Mazzio, the director of the documentary.
“Bad River” shows the Band’s constant battle for land, water and culture, Mazzio said. For instance, the Dawes Act of 1887 allowed the federal government to chop up the Band’s land and sell it to non-tribal citizens. Some Bad River Band members spoke of their experiences in boarding schools and how families were forced to relocate to cities, causing them to lose their connection with their tribal culture. The Band’s stories also take the audience through the American Indian Movement in the late 1960s as well as the struggle to protect the right to fish during the Walleye War.