Page 5 - Impact Winter 2023

have with the land. We’re doing this for our culture, our identity, and our way of life.”
Using drip torches, the firefighters strategically lit fires beneath red and white pines. These selected locations were prepped with containment lines
and fuel-reduction techniques. While a handful of firefighters ignited, others monitored the flames. Over two days of burning, the firefighters brought fire back to 75 acres of the forest. The group also strengthened ties as partners united around a common goal: the restoration of fire as a cultural and ecological practice.
Burns can be used to drive game, create travelways, encourage specific plants to grow, serve ceremonial purposes and more, with this practice playing an important ecological and cultural role. In Minnesota, the Ojibwe identity, language, and way of thinking are tied to landscapes which they shaped with fire.
To support the CFC’s fire-adapted ecosystems, the best bet is to reintroduce burns, guided by local Indigenous wisdom and complemented by Western forestry techniques. With a burn program led by Panek, the Fond du Lac Band is quickly becoming a leader in efforts to restore fire. “We want to have one of the nation’s strongest groups of Tribal fire practitioners,” Panek said, adding that after twenty years, collaboratively restoring fire to the CFC is cause for celebration. “Burning is the perfect land acknowledgment,” he said. “We’re not just talking about the fact that we burned here: we’re actually doing it.”
Northrup is also heartened by the recent partnership. “The CFC has been a 3,000-acre hole in our heart,” he said. “But now with this collaboration, we’re feeling a lot more that we can say, ‘Okay, we’re part of this again. We’re part of this land again.’”
This is an abridged version of an original article by environmental storyteller and former wildland firefighter Clare Boerigter.
Read her full piece and watch a video at
cfans.umn.edu/news/restoring-fire.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAMON PANEK
“For us, burning is about fulfilling our role in the relationship we have with the land. We’re doing this for our culture, our identity, and our way of life.”
THIS PAGE, TOP: DAMON PANEK DISCUSSES PRESCRIBED BURNS. CENTER LEFT: VERN NORTHRUP, RIGHT: KYLE GILL, CFC FOREST MANAGER, BOTTOM: BURN IN PROGRESS, MAY 2022.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KYLE GILL