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li^g^ SUMMER 2001 ^Xl ^1 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Informatton Respecting the History. of the Indian Tribes . .. , Vol. 1,1851. ETWEEN 1825 and 1854, the United States and the Ojibwe nego tiated a series of significant treaties. The earliest of these promoted peace among tribes and settled boundary disputes, while later agree ments conveyed vast amounts of land in what is now Wisconsin, MichiganB, and Minnesota from the Ojibwe to the federal government. In 1864 a delegation of Ojibwe chiefs and headmen drafted an extraordinary document in their native language with an English translation that detailed their under standing of what they agreed to in these treaties. That document is one of the Society's rarest treasures and is the subject of Archivist Harry Miller's article, " 'These I Do Not Sell': A Statement Made by the Indians," that begins on page 26 of this issue. The illustration above is a detail from the "Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, presented at Washington" in 1894. Chippewa is the English translation for Ojibwe^ and this petition is a symbolic representation of unity of purpose and feeling among the clans that formed this delegation. The totemic symbols that had such meaning for the members of an 1849 delegation had less mean ing to their American audience, resulting perhaps in the painstaking English translation that a different delegation presented in 1864. iwecorei N Editor J Kent Calcler Managing Editor KathrynA Thompson Associate Editor Margaret T Dwyer Production Manager Deborah T Johnson Book Review Editor James W Feldman Illustration Researchers Brett Barker Joel Heiman Jonathan Kasparek Tim Thenng Designer Kenneth A Miller Millon Bales THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, published Ddafield's will on the Eark Ri-osr quarterly, is one of the many benefits of membership in the Wisconsin Histoncal Society Individual memberships are $35 per year^ senior citizen individual, $25, family, "What Do You Do Up Here?" $45, senior citizen family, $35, institutional, $45, support ing, $100, sustaining, $250, patron, $500, life [one per Jim Feldman recounts his summer on Raspberry Island. son), $1,000 To receive the Wisconsin Magazine d History, join the Societyi To join or to give a gift membership, send a FDR's "Old Friends" in Wisconsin check to Membership, Wisconsin Historical Society, S16 Jonathan Kasparek chronicles the State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-14S2, or call the Mem bership Office at SSS-74S-7479 You can also join via e- president's delicate mission to Green mail, shsmember@mail shsw wise edu, or at the Society's Web site, www shsw wise edu [click on Bay in the summer of 1934. 10 "Become a Member") The WMH has been published quarterly since 1917 "These I Do Not Sell" by the Wisconsin Histoncal Society [Phone 60S-264- 6400) Copynght© 2001 by the State Histoncal Society Har?y Milkr discerns the spirit of a of Wisconsin Permission to quote or othenjvise reprcn duce portions of this copynghted work may be sought in Native people in a rare document wntingfrom the publisher at the address abc^e Commu of 1864. nication, inquines, and manuscnpt submissions may also 26 be addressed to wmh@mail shsw wise edu The maga zine IS indexed annually, and cumulative indexes appear every ten years Articles are abstracted and indexed in The Mill on the Bark Amenca His!oiy and Life, Historical Abs!rads, and Index Milton J. Bates reveals the many !o Literature on the American Indian The Wisconsin Histoncal Society does not assume incarnations of a Dehfield responsibility for statements made by contnbutors ISSN 0043-6534 Penodicals postage paid at Madison, Wl landmark. 34 53706-14S2 Back issues, if available, are $10 plus postage Micrrifilmed copies are available thrriugh Uni A Bowl from Home versity Micrrifilms, 300 N Zeeb Road, Ann Artor, Ml 4S106 Photographs identified with PH, WHi, SHSW, or Jacob Conrad rfiects on the various VMA are from the Society's collections, address inquiries about such photos to the Curator, Visual Materials meanings of a Norw^ian artifact T" O Archive, S16 State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-14S2 On ihefroni coven Raspberry Island Lighthouse, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Reviews 54 Photo ©Darryl R Beers Letters from Our Readers 62 VOLUME 84, NUMBER 4 / SUMMER 2001 "What do you DO Up here?" Tales of a Lake Superior Lighthouse Keeper By Jim Feldman aspberry Island is just a small place^ a tiny island tucked into the southwestern corner of Lake Supe- R rior^ a mile and a half off the shore of Bayfield County, But it has a big view. With its dark^ old-growth for- estj its curving shoreline of boulders and beach^ Raspberry Island is the kind of place that automatically causes you to think of calendar photos and coffee-table books. And for good reason, Tve seen some pretty fair scenery in other parts of the worldj including a nine-month stint on the south rim of the Grand Canyon^ a year and a half in New Zealand^ and two years in the Utah mountains. But Raspberry Island is spe cial—not only for its incredible view^ but because of its light house. The lighthouse blends stories of the past into today^s scenery. An island without buildings will attract people for its isola In the summer of 1999 I worked for the National Park Ser tion ^ its beauty^ or its wilderness value^ but the buildings on an vice at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, My station was on island tell the stories. The Raspberry lighthouse and its seven Raspberry Island^ and my job was to give daily tours of the outbuildings are the only structures on the 295-acre island. island^s historic lighthouse. Not the Keeper of the Light^ The lighthouse itself is one of a kind^ not built from a pattern exactly^ but close—close enough for me to do a lot of thinking like so many other American lighthouses. Its duplex structure about what it must have been like to be a lighthouse keeper. once housed three keepers and two whole families. You can Imagine the effect the island and the lighthouse had on me^ a still feel their presence. Visitors to the island feel it the graduate student in American history, I spent the summer try moment they step on shore: People once lived here^ people ing to figure out what life used to be like on the island. This who tended the light^ cultivated their gardens^ raised children^ meant not only using '^traditional" historical sources such as kept records of their daily lives. History shrouds Raspberry books on lighthouse keepers and the archival materials about Island like a Lake Superior fog. Raspberry Island collected by the Park Service^ but also shar- CopyigM © 2001 (^ the State H'stoica/Society of Wixonsm All ngfit^ oi lepiodii^ioi in any ioiin /evened SUMMER 2001 -.: ^: •:^ Courlesy of llie Nalional Park Service The Raspbeny Island Lighthouse sHU guards the entrance to the West Channel, although the beacon has been removed from the ton/er andplaced in front of the building. The lighthouse was illuminated for the purposes of this picture. ing the experience of island life with the people who used to a solar-poweredj battery-operated^ light-sensing automatic live there. As I walked the trails^ cleaned the lighthouse win- beacon^ not a finicky clockwork system topped off by a dowSj or climbed the tower stairs^ I connected with an earlier kerosene lamp and a complex set of magnifying lenses. Only time. No place Lve ever lived has prompted me to think so one person^ not several families^ lives full-time on the island. deeply about its past. This isn^t just because of my interest in But the National Park Service has done what it can to recre history; it also has to do with the romance associated with ate the past on Raspberry Island^ restoring the 140-year-old lighthouse keepers^ their long and lonely vigils^ and the life- lighthouse and the grounds to the time period of the 1920s, and-death importance of their jobs, The Park Service maintains the buildings and grounds to look Today^ of course^ life on the island is quite different than it the way they did during those years^ right down to the types was in the nineteenth century. Raspberry Island Light is now of vegetables and flowers in the gardens flanking the main SUMMER 2001 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY ^Apostle Sdands ap by Joel Heiman, base map from the U S Geological Survey Raspberry MandLighthouse marks the entrance to the West Channel (the red line on the map), one of the shipping lanes that directed boats through the Apostle Islands to Bayfield and Ashland. There are tvx> trails on Raspberry Island the Sandspit Trail and the West Trail, along which keepers traveled to an overlook where they could see Sand Island Lighthouse. In 1921, the Light House SevAce automated Sand Island Ligjit and gj2ve Raspberry Island keepers the responsibility of monitoring^ the beacon installed in the old light tower. Yellow dots mark the sites of the other island light stations. lighthouse. The lighthouse and its outbuildings are neatly the lighthouse, now serves as a ranger residence—the Park Ser painted in accordance with the colors required by the Light vice decided that the necessary propane appliances aren't safe House Service: white walls, red roofs, and dark gray trim. The to keep in the lighthouse's 140-year-old wooden structure. place looks much like a rural farmstead, a main house sur The lighthouse itself is symmetrical, divided into two sets rounded by a small barn, two privies, a workshop, and a tool of living quarters.