Improving on Nature: The Legend Lake Development, Menominee Resistance, and the Ecological Dynamics of Settler Colonialism

Abstract:In 1968 a large-scale recreational vacation property development, Legend Lake, was carved out of the recently terminated Menominee reservation to create a tax base for Wisconsin’s newly formed Menominee County. Menominee peoples’ resistance to the Legend Lake project and land sales expressed multiple concerns about settler colonialism and the process of terraforming and ecological change, land dispossession, cultural erasure, and implications for the future. The Menominee people came together to respond to this twentieth-century manifestation of the ecological dynamics of settler colonialism by asserting their tribal identity, culture, and relationships to their land. In this paper, we argue that the ecological changes created by the Legend Lake project was one of the major catalysts for Menominee resistance to settler colonialism that ultimately led to the restoration of the Menominee tribe.