‘We have to be the ones telling our stories’

In 2018, Valerie joined a team of Tribal monitors and archaeologists who performed a cultural resource survey for Enbridge’s Line 5 Wisconsin Segment Relocation Project. “That was amazing, a great learning experience,” she recalls. “We thought, ‘What if we had a school to train Native people to do these surveys?’” Thanks to B&W Services, Dirt Divers Cultural Resource Management, AECOM and Enbridge, that dream recently became reality for a group of students, largely from the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Using an outdoor archaeological classroom, the students learned proper identification, excavation, cataloging and photographing methods, earning certifications as Tribal monitors. In the past, “our history has been interpreted by other people who have little understanding of our culture,” remarks Jim, a trainer with Dirt Divers. “There’s a need for this work—for our voice, for our eyes to look at the landscape and protect what’s important.”