From the Superior Telegram: Madeline Island Museum Enters New Era
LIFESTYLE, ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
By Jay Gabler, June 27, 2024 at 6:00 AM
Lead interpreter Rob Goslin raises the U.S. flag at the Madeline Island Museum in La Pointe, Wis., on Thursday, June 20. The lawn behind the flagpole was encircled by a fort-like stockade until 2023. Jay Gabler / Duluth Media Group
LA POINTE, Wis. — Mike Wiggins Jr. was not yet the site director when the stockade was removed from the Madeline Island Museum perimeter last year, but there could hardly be a more vivid symbol of the new era the attraction is entering as he begins his tenure.
"The fort walls weren't rooted in historical accuracy of fort walls having been there," said Wiggins. "More importantly, from an Ojibwe perspective, fort walls with their sharp, pointed log tops are a symbol of exclusion."
Mike Wiggins Jr. delivers the commencement address during the University of Wisconsin-Superior spring commencement in 2023. Clint Austin / File / Duluth Media Group
In his capacity as then-chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Wiggins participated in a September ceremony marking the stockade's removal and the dedication of a new historic marker. No longer tribal chairman, Wiggins has now been appointed site director of the Madeline Island Museum. Wiggins has been in the job on an interim basis since January, with his permanent appointment in the role beginning July 1. (Previous site director Keldi Merton now works in tourism promotion for Bayfield County.)
"The first three months were pretty much dominated by conceptualization and then the development and construction of the 'Passages' exhibit," said Wiggins when I reached him by phone last week, having previously visited the museum to see the exhibit for myself.
In addition to the absent stockade, which makes the museum much more visible to visitors arriving on the island by ferry, another powerful symbol of the museum's new approach is a dugout canoe dating back centuries. Long mounted on a wall in one of the museum's original structures, the canoe sits upright in the center of the new exhibit.
A wooden dugout canoe, cra!ed on Madeline Island hundreds of years ago and discovered in the 1930s, is seen on display as part of the "Passages" exhibit. Jay Gabler / Duluth Media Group
"That was the first time in 70 years that collection item had been taken off the wall," said Wiggins. "Taking that down and turning it upright, the way it would have rolled in the water, had some kind of transformation that was palpable. It was just really awesome to see that ancient dugout show sparks of life, so to speak."
"Passages: Ojibwe Migration to the Place Where the Food Grows on the Water," will remain installed in the Capser Center Gallery for two years.
"It lights up the Ojibwe's connectivity to water," Wiggins said about the exhibit. "It also lights up the resilience and the work that our old chiefs and/or leaders did to preserve what is now a shared home in peace, for all people."
Before moving the canoe, even within the museum's walls, Wiggins said, "we worked closely with Friends of the Madeline Island Museum and closely with the Coffin family. The ancient dugout was found by a man named Robert Coffin. His family's still on the island; they're part of the Friends of the Museum."
The need for active community consultation speaks to the particular history of the Madeline Island Museum, which was founded in 1958 by married couple Leo and Isabella Capser along with fellow islander Al Galazen. The museum was located within four historic buildings arranged to form a single complex.
In 1968, the Capsers donated the museum, along with a trust fund, to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Capser Center Gallery was added in 1991 to expand the museum's display area, with the original museum remaining largely intact as a sort of metamuseum reflecting the founders' curation.
"They left pretty strict instructions on trying to keep the old museum as it was," explained Wiggins. Still, part of Wiggins' job will be to navigate a coming period of change as the historical society takes account of 2023 regulations designed to improve implementation of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
A graphic in the original portion of the Madeline Island Museum, which dates to the 1950s. Jay Gabler / Duluth Media Group
"Last year, a lot of museums pulled all of their Indigenous collections right off the floors of the public portions of their facilities," said Wiggins. "The new (regulations) are more sensitive to what Indigenous nations and some of the tribal officials will have to say about some of the artifacts" in museum collections.
That may include some of the artifacts on Madeline Island, but "we're a little lighter in collections and artifacts" compared to similar museums, said Wiggins. "I'm seeing it as an awesome opportunity to really get into forum mode and tell stories and explore oral histories, explore memoirs, and all of these other various forms of information."
In that spirit, the museum has a wide range of upcoming programming, including an "Indigenous Artist in Residence" series, a speaker series, a film screening and a chamber music performance.
A modern cedar bark sail canoe, made in 2023 using traditional construction methods, appears in the "Passages" exhibit at Madeline Island Museum. Jay Gabler / Duluth Media Group
A July 13 appearance by scholar Anton Treuer is going to be a really special night," said Wiggins, who said other summer highlights will include presentations by Ojibwe language expert Mike Sullivan (July 10) and geologist Tom Fitz discussing Sandstone Sea Caves (Aug. 28).
The museum is benefiting from another synergy, with neighboring restaurant Miijim. The restaurant centers Ojibwe tastes and traditions; its founder Bryce Stevenson was a 2024 semifinalist for Emerging Chef in the national James Beard Awards. Stevenson stopped by and "was really liking how wild rice is accentuated" in the "Passages" exhibit, said Wiggins.
"He was happy to tell me that they are focusing and really highlighting manoomin — wild rice — as as a culinary offering," Wiggins continued. "So we have a really cool exhibit that explores the history of wild rice and the connection of Ojibwe people to wild rice in the area, and then you have Miijim just half a block away, as an award-winning restaurant highlighting wild rice on their menu."
Original Madeline Island Museum buildings, dating from approximately 1835-1900 and first assembled as a museum in the 1950s, are seen at left. The building visible at right was added in 1991. Jay Gabler / Duluth Media Group
Among other stories, "Passages" chronicles the Ojibwe's half millennium journey to arrive at what text in the exhibit calls "their true home, Moningwanekaaning, today called Madeline Island, the center hub of the Ojibwe and their forever home, in the place where food grows on the water."
Recently, Wiggins recounted, he stood on the museum steps looking out into the wide swath of lawn that was formerly interrupted by the stockade.
"I watched our lead interpreter, Rob Goslin, with about 80 children and parents doing a teaching in a big circle out there on the grass," he said. "After that day, watching Rob with all the children out in that area, I'm calling it 'Big Lake Space.'
"It really was awesome seeing the big lake and the ferry coming and going right there as backdrop to all of the things that he was doing," Wiggins said. "It really opened up the walls, and it brought the big lake right up into our environment."