Securing a Future for Lake Sturgeon: Anishinaabe Histories of the Great Lakes

• In Event: Histories by Hoof, Fin, and Foot: More-Than-Human Actors in Indigenous Pasts

Abstract

Settler interpretations of Indigenous environmental histories have long carried colonial assumptions about Indigenous peoples and the relationships they have with animals. For instance, the Dinosaurs of the Great Lakes or lake sturgeon, sustained settlers in the Great Lakes as they received the fish through trade with the Anishinaabe and their experience with their relatives. Yet, as more settlers began moving into the Great Lakes, the fish became sought after for its value, rather than for sustaining livelihoods. The story of sturgeon is one of abundance to near extinction. This paper considers the role of lake sturgeon, known to the Anishinaabe as nme, as an important relative in their aquatic environments. Today lake sturgeon are 1% of their historic numbers and in large part this is due to the rise of commercial fishing and the creation of dams beginning in the 1800s. This paper will consider the role of hydropower, as a physical impoundment or barrier, in Indigenous environments and sturgeon. The concept of “failed experiments” will be used to describe how settlers introduced development projects, to support state power and privilege Western science and scientific advice over Indigenous knowledge of fisheries management. I examine the role of technology itself as transforming Indigenous environments, and how these modifications continue to put Indigenous lives, and the lives of their relatives at risk. Overall, this paper gives us the means to reflect on the entangled ties between Indigenous and settler environmental histories and what it means to secure a future for sturgeon.

Author

• Natasha Myhal, The Ohio State University