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"Over 16 Native nations from over 60 reserves including Red Cliff, plus fifteen percent of the U.S. population and nearly
a third of the entire Canadaian population live in the Great Lakes Basin. These Great Lakes represent the past-the water passsage
that brought the Anishinabe and many other nations west, the repository of dreams and disasters, the life-giving waters (and
food) for human consumption, and once home to the 444 plant and animal species that have disappeared from this macro-bioregion
in the last 200 years.
The Great Lakes are the present. They contain almost 20 percent of the earth's available fresh
surface water supply and are drinking water to 40 million people here. Sixty-five species and community types in the Great
Lakes Basin are found nowhere else in the world. The Great Lakes are the future. Can we achieve the promised 'virtual elimination
and zero discharge of persistent toxic substances?' Or will air-borne heavy metals and toxins continue to brew with industrial
and sewage discharges into the lakes, making them unfit to live on?"
Walt Bresette, in the excellent Walleye
Warriors, Rick Whaley and Walt Bresette, Writers Publishing Cooperative, 1994, updated 1998. Please visit Amazon.com to buy
this book, which is a must for any library.
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