Walter Bresette

The Red Cliff Band was not as active as others, but Bresette emerged as among the most eloquent and outspoken defenders of the Native American cause of treaty rights fishing.

To document the acts of the protesters and inaction by local law enforcement, and to protect the spearfishers, Bresette organized the group Witness for Nonviolence.

Esther Nahgahnub was selling dream catchers from the store, which was raided by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service personnel, who seized several feathers of migratory birds that are protected from commercial exploitation.

Bresette later wrote about these events in Walleye Warriors: An Effective Alliance Against Racism and for the Earth (1993), a book co-written with Rick Whaley.

He co-founded Anishinabe Niijii to oppose mining; he claimed it brought environmental destruction that threatened several key watersheds, including that of Lake Superior.

The zinc sulfide deposits were targeted for extraction by Exxon and other companies, but Bresette and others pointed out the potential danger to the Wolf River watershed and the Mole Lake Ojibwe reservation.

He became a spokesperson for the group Anishinabe Ogitchida as they staged a protest stopping the tanker cars from carrying the sulfuric acid across the Bad River Ojibwe reservation in Ashland County, Wisconsin.

The Bad River Train Blockade brought media scrutiny to EPA process and the eventual end to any attempts to revive the mine.