Sgt. Pat Herbig (USMC) suffered from PTSD after fighting in Vietnam. He went to treatment after his return to the States but didn't get healthier until he entered the Sweat Lodge.

Crystal Brown is a wounded healer. When she was a young woman she was shot three times by her brother. She suffered other abuses in her family. A few years ago she left a job as a psychiatric nurse and administrator to follow her heart. Nick Vander Puy with News from the Front walks with her in a bog near the Flambeau River to connect with medicine…

Walter Bresette (July 4, 1947 – February 21, 1999) was a prominent Ojibwe activist, politician, and author most notable for work on environmental issues and Ojibwe treaty rights in Northern Wisconsin and the Lake Superior region. He founded or co-founded several organizations including Witness for Nonviolence, the Midwest Treaty Network, and the Wi…

Keith Secola is an Anishinaabeg musician probably best known for his upbeat song "NDN Car" Some critics say he's the native version of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. Nick Vander Puy from News from the Front visits with Secola after his performance at the Water is Live event August 19, 2021 in Duluth Minnesota, right near Lake Superior or Gichiga…

Nick Vander Puy travels to Cass Lake, Minnesota to visit with Grandmother Anne Dunn about Enbridge building a giant pipeline to carry filthy, tar sands oil across the Minnesota ceded territory wild rice gathering district.

In early July, 2021 Nick Vander Puy visited the Shell River Enbridge pipeline Resistance Camp southwest of Walker, Minnesota. He talked with a White Earth Anishinaabeg about Enbridge drawing down the water and impacting the wild rice.

When Gaylord Nelson ran for and became Governor of Wisconsin in 1958 a reporter asked him, "What about jobs, what about the environment? Can we have both?" Nelson replied, "You want jobs and a tax base and more growth? Then go back to Gary, Indiana." Nelson's benefactor Martin Hanson from Mellen heard this and never forgot the exchange. Back in the…

Earlier this year the Town of Clover, Bayfield County, was presented with an application from Kristle KLR to withdraw, bottle, and sell artesian water from a private spring. The Town of Clover and Bayfield County Planning and Zoning Department denied the permit. The applicant appealed the decision to the Bayfield County Board of Adjustment, which h…

Nick Vander Puy meets up with outdoor writer Pat Durkin at the Bob Ellis Wood Boat Classic near Winchester, Wisconsin. They reflect on the joy and happiness making, rowing and fishing from wooden boats. Photo credit: Pat Durkin

In late February, a few years ago, at Sparky's Bar south of Washburn, Wisconsin hosted the Fourth Annual Fur Bang which is a competitive coyote killing event. 16 teams competed for prizes. Nick Vander Puy visited afterwards with animal rights activist Rod Coronado.

Braiding Sweetgrass is a metaphor for Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's weaving together her Potowatomie teachings with western scientific training and her own being as a human. Braiding is better done in concert with others. Dr. Kimmerer tells us, "For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take ca…

News from the Front: This was the first John Trudell (Santee Dakota) speech we ever heard. It was recorded in 1980 at the Black Hills Survival Gathering in South Dakota. Listening to it doesn't take a leap of the imagination to understand why the FBI gathered more than 17000 pages on this Native American patriot and described him as "eloquent and t…

When Nitgizhigookwe, Ginoonde and I arrived at the Mississippi River in Minnesota we met a slobbering and grinding bull dozer. The D9 caterpillar was helping replace a 1097 mile pipeline running between Alberta and Minnesota, the largest project Enbridge has undertaken which carries 800 thousand gallons of filthy, corrosive tar sands oil everyday. …

On July 1 bear hunters in Wisconsin, after dumping millions of gallons of confectionary bait, started running hounds on bears in the woods. This is not a kill season, although some bears undoubtedly die after being run in the hot, humid woods or fought before clawing their way up a tree. This so called practice season which leads to conflicts with …