Northland College

Northland College
  • Academics
  • Campus Life
  • Admissions
  • Athletics
  • Centers
  • Sustainability
Search
  • Directory
  • Campus Map
  • Calendar
  • Alumni
  • Giving
  • News
  • COVID-19
More...
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate
    • Faculty
    • Resources
    • Opportunities
      • Internships
      • Undergraduate Research
      • Study Abroad
      • Off-campus Learning
      • Student Jobs
    • Graduate Success
    • Course Catalog
    • Transcript Request
    • Commencement
  • Campus Life
    • Dining
    • Housing
    • Outdoor Orientation
    • Diversity & Inclusion
      • Indigenous Cultures Center
        • Native Student Offerings
        • Powwow & Awareness
        • Community Outreach
        • Native American Museum
    • Get Involved
    • Bicycles & Gear Rental
    • Fitness Center
    • Services
      • Counseling Services
      • Accommodations
      • Health Services
      • Safety & Security
  • Admissions
    • Visit Campus
    • Tuition
    • Financial Aid
      • Scholarships
      • Grants
      • Loans
      • FAFSA
      • Veterans
    • Enroll
    • Meet Your Admissions Counselor
    • College Fairs
  • Athletics
    • Athletic Website
    • Athletic Facilities
    • Varsity Club Membership
    • Buy Team Gear
    • Hall of Fame
    • Annual Golf Classic
    • Camps, Leagues, Tournaments
      • 3on3 Basketball Tournament
      • Basketball Camps & Leagues
      • Youth Soccer Camp
      • Softball Camp
      • Volleyball Camps & Leagues
    • Give to Athletics
  • Centers
    • Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation
      • Our Work
      • Student Research Opportunities
      • Lab Services
      • Burke Center in the News
      • Water Summit
    • Center for Rural Communities
      • Rural Livelihood Initiatives
        • Quality of Life Database
        • Northwoods Community Survey
        • Opinion Polls
        • Local Food Systems
      • Human-Environment Connection
      • Publications
      • Data Visualizations
      • Student Opportunities
    • Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute
      • LoonWatch
        • About Loons
        • Protect Loons
        • Get Involved
        • Loon Appreciation Week and Poster
      • Timber Wolf Alliance
        • Wolf Awareness Week and Poster
        • Learn About Wolves
        • TWA Speakers Bureau
        • Wolf Status Reports
        • Vision for Wolves
        • Great Lakes Wolf Symposium
      • Youth Outreach Programs
      • SONWA Book Awards
        • SONWA Seals
      • Sigurd Olson Legacy
      • Apostle Islands Stewardship Symposium
      • Intangible Magazine
      • Forest Lodge Educational Campus
        • Rental Information
    • Hulings Rice Food Center
      • Compost Center
      • Larson Food Lab
      • Campus Gardens
      • Student Opportunities
  • Sustainability
  • Alumni
    • Alumni Board
      • Alumni Awards
    • Get Involved
      • Ask Our Alumni Panels
    • Pride Pack, Apparel, and Merchandise
    • Class Notes
    • Transcript Request
    • Update Your Information
    • Events
    • Give
    • Oral History Project
  • Giving
    • Christopher T. Morgan Scholarship
    • Meet Our Team
  • About Northland
    • President Chadwick L. Dayton
    • Northland College Magazine
    • Campus Sculpture Tour
    • Advocacy & Public Discourse
    • Consumer Information

From the Archives: Sustaining the Brule River Ecosystem

By Alan Brew, Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute Executive Director
November 6, 2022

Share

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • email

On June 21-22, 1994, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute hosted the Robert E. Matteson Brule River Workshop: Sustaining the Brule River Ecosystem, Past, Present, and Future. This event marked the revival of an Institute activity known as “problem-solving workshops.”

Institute records show that the revival of these workshops was initiated by Jane Matteson in a letter to then-Northland College President Robert Parsonage. In this letter, Jane shared her vision for workshops that would bring together “about 25 people” to “discuss an issue and try to find common ground on which a solution could be based.” The goal was to “go beyond just education,” and the workshops were to culminate in a published report. Jane and her husband, Robert, who had served as the Institute’s founding director, provided seed money for an endowment designated to support the workshops.

It was appropriate, for a number of reasons, that the revival of the problem-solving workshops focused first on the Brule River, a Lake Superior tributary in far northwestern Wisconsin near Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. The Mattesons had a personal affinity for the Brule River and Robert, in particular, was intrigued by the river’s history as a fur-trade route between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. Acting on this intrigue in June of 1974, Matteson paddled a canoe with Grant Herman (a Northland College student who went on to serve the College as a faculty member and as a director of the Institute) from La Pointe on Wisconsin’s Madeline Island to St. Paul, Minnesota, via the Brule, St. Croix, and Mississippi Rivers, a journey that Matteson documented in a written “log.”

A number of early advisory board members for the Institute had affinities for the Brule River as well, including John “Smokey” Ordway, Jr., Carl Drake, Bob Banks, Al Lindeke, Ted Weyerhaeuser, and Mary Van Evera. In part because of these affinities, the Brule River had been chosen as a topic for one of the Institute’s original problem-solving workshops in November of 1973 and, in May of 1974, Smokey Ordway hosted the Institute’s Advisory Board luncheon on Cedar Island.

As Chuck Zosel, who was serving as the forest supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in 1994, observed in his presentation for the Matteson Brule River Workshop, the Brule River was also an appropriate choice for a revival of problem-solving workshops because the Brule River State Forest had been “the center of controversy for many years” and, Zosel continued, if you are “looking for a hot debate, just mention the Brule River . . . and you’ve got a sure thing.”

The summary provided in the published report from the 1994 Matteson Brule River Workshop explained that the workshop was designed to facilitate conversations among citizens, experts, and policy makers that would define issues and concerns to be addressed in an update to the Brule River State Forest’s ten-year master plan. The conversations at the workshop were organized into three focus areas: the aquatic community and fishery, the forest community and wildlife, and recreation and aesthetics. For each focus area, a vision was established as well as lists of issues or problems, information and research needs, and recommendations or approaches. The published report for the workshop captured all of these outcomes as well as much of the contextual information that was provided by presenters during the workshop.

After the 1994 Matteson Brule River Workshop, the Institute continued to be engaged in a variety of activities focused on the Brule River. In the early 2000’s, for instance, five Northland College students worked with Institute director Kenneth Bro and professors Tom Fitz and Paul Schue to write Pines & Paddlers: A Guide to the History of the Bois Brule River, a publication that was funded by The Friends of the Brule River & Forest and the Four Cedars Foundation.

In 2009, a group of fifteen students under the direction of Mike Gardner at the Institute conducted a forest assessment for Brule River Preservation Incorporated, a collection of private landowners committed to preserving the integrity of the Brule River and its basin.

As the student authors of Pines & Paddlers write in the introduction and epilogue for their booklet, when “one stands at the edge of the Bois Brule River, one almost instantly senses something not easily described. The soothing sounds of flowing water, the beauty of black spruces pointing skyward, the lisping call of cedar waxwings flying overhead. The natural beauty of this stream is compelling . . .” and it “has been a focus of attention for beauty and utility for as long as humankind has walked its shores.”

The Institute is proud of the attention that it has been able to give to this special and storied river over the past fifty years and anticipates that it will continue to be an important focus in the years ahead.

Deeper Into the Archives

1994 Brule River Workshop Report


Bob Matteson’s Log of his 1974 Canoe Journey from La Pointe on Wisconsin’s Madeline Island, to St. Paul, Minnesota, via the Brule River


Pines & Paddlers: A Guide to the History of the Bois Brule River

50 years of the Sigurd Olson Environmental InstituteThis is the seventeenth installment in the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute’s From the Archives series, which tells the story of the Institute from the past to the present to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Sign up for our email lists for news and stories from the Institute—including From the Archives.

  • The northern lights over a frozen Chequamegon Bay

    Northland College to Help Finlandia University Students Continue Their Education with the Sisu Promise

    Northland College is launching the Sisu Promise to support Finlandia University students in response to the closure of Finlandia University at the end of the…

    Northland College to Help Finlandia University Students Continue Their Education with the Sisu Promise
  • A Quetico Provincial Park guide license for Sigurd Olson

    From the Archives: A Guide and Outfitter for the Northwoods

    In the entryway to the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute building on the Northland College campus, a display cabinet houses memorabilia from Sigurd Olson’s life. Nestled…

    From the Archives: A Guide and Outfitter for the Northwoods
  • Intangible Fall 2020 Issue

    From the Archives: Giving a Voice to Intangibles

    The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute archives include a small, saddle-stitched pamphlet titled Two Essays by Sigurd F. Olson. The pamphlet was produced by the Institute…

    From the Archives: Giving a Voice to Intangibles
  • Northland College students meet on the deck of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute

    Give to SOEI

    The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute seeks to empower citizens with objective information about the environmental issues of the north woods, advance understanding of northern species…

    Give to SOEI
  • Visit
  • Info
  • Apply

News

  • The Text Effect

    If you had asked me at any point before my senior year…

  • From the Archives: Forest Lodge on Lake Namekagon

    In the summer of 1994, a number of individuals with homes or…

  • From the Archives: The Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership

    Chequamegon Bay and the wetlands and waterways associated with it are one…

  • For the Love of Learning

    In the spring of 1965, I graduated from high school and looked…

  • From the Archives: The Sigurd Olson Legacy Project

    In the fall of 1937, Sigurd Olson converted a one-car garage located…

  • From the Archives: Promoting Nature-focused Literature for Children

    In a 2003 press release, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute announced that…

  • From the Archives: Lake Superior Programs at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute

    It’s just a short walk from the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute through…

  • The Company You Keep

    We usually think of a highway as straight. But the reality is…

  • From the Archives: Restoring Northern Forests

    The proceedings booklet for the September 2000 Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute workshop…

  • Northland College at 130 Years: Navigating the Highway Ahead

    Beginning January 1, 2023, Chad Dayton will serve as interim president of…

News Archive »

1411 Ellis Avenue
Ashland, WI 54806
(715) 682-1699 | Map
  • About Northland
  • Constitution Day at Northland
  • Consumer Information
  • Privacy Policy
  • Take a Class
  • Employment
  • Campus Store

my.northland.edu

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 Northland College. All rights reserved.

https://www.northland.edu/news/soei-news/from-the-archives-sustaining-the-brule-river-ecosystem

Our website uses cookies for necessary functions and to enhance your browsing experience. Learn more in our Privacy Policy.

Accept & Continue