Click photos for larger images & cutlines
 |
BAY MILLS - Paula Carrick and Wanda Perron of the Bay Mills History and Archives Department knew what to do when they received information on Jan. 18 about buffalo meat being available to Native American tribes. The two sisters forwarded the e-mail from Michigan State University American Indian Liason Nick Reo to their brother, Conservation Officer and Bay Mills Executive Council Vice Chairman Terry Carrick. Within one hour of responding to the initial e-mail, Carrick was already informed that Bay Mills would receive two buffalos, complete with the hides and horns.
The buffalo were inspected and distributed by the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which had recently captured between 70 and 80 buffalo outside of Yellowstone National Park and sent them to slaughter in nearby Rigby, Idaho. This practice is part of a joint state-federal management plan to reduce the potential spread of brucellosis - a disease that bison and elk in the region carry that could potentially spread to nearby cattle, causing them to abort. Some of the younger bison were sent to a research facility to see if quarantined bison could be useful in finding bison free of the disease and to establish brucellosis-free bison herds in the region.
The USDA APHIS shipped five bison to the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in Manistee, Mich., where Carrick, along with his son, Todd, picked them up and transported them back to Bay Mills. After arriving in Bay Mills, representatives from the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians divvied up three of the buffalos. After the remaining two were butchered and packaged at Neville's Supermarket in Sault, Mich., the meat was distributed by Perron and Paula Carrick to 76 Bay Mills elders, more than 80 families, the Bay Mills Seniors, the Boys & Girls Club of Bay Mills, the Ojibwe Charter School, Brimley Area Schools and the Bay Mills Cultural Department.
According to Perron, while the local Ojibwe living in the area, traditionally and historically, did not hunt buffalo, she said that they have been known to hunt them on occasion. If they traveled as far west as Minnesota or Wisconsin to meet with the Ojibwe tribes living there, or if they were in the area warring with the Sioux, Perron said the Ojibwe people would take advantage of being that far west and hunt the buffalo. The Ojibwe people always knew where to find the "Bgoji-Bzhiki," or "Wild Cow," she added.
"We have come across numerous accounts of people in our area going out west to hunt the buffalo," Perron said. "It really is a small world, if you think about it, for people who either traveled by canoe or by walking."
