Visit aims to ‘build up trust’

A “social” visit by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Allen Garber to Rainy River First Nation yesterday is hoped to be another step towards improving relations along the border.
Several delegates from Koochiching County and the local Ministry of Natural Resources joined Garber as he took a quick tour of the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre west of Barwick and the sturgeon hatchery at Manitou Rapids.
The visit was quite casual, with Garber sporting an untucked denim shirt with a wolf insignia on its back and brown hiking shoes. Band chief Jim Leonard said the mood was kept light for a reason.
“It’s not every day we can sit around the table and just talk and get to know each other’s positions,” he noted. “We have to do it more often.”
Tension between the two sides escalated in October, 1997 when the band learned the DNR was netting sturgeon for relocation to the Red River watershed. At one point, the band seized a DNR net from the Rainy River.
Things were smoothed over after Chief Leonard and other delegates from the band council met with Garber shortly after he was appointed in 1998. It was at that time the band invited him to visit the district.
Although the “relationship is good” between the DNR and the band now, Garber said it will only stay that way if communications remain open.
“What the chief thinks, and I agree with him, is if you speak to people and there’s no particular controversial issue at hand, you build up trust,” he remarked.
“So that when there is controversy, you have some trust–you’re more likely to listen, you’re more likely to talk to the person,” he added. “That’s the reason for this meeting.”
Garber stressed the need for the band, the DNR, and the MNR to work together to manage the watershed dividing Minnesota and Ontario. He said the ultimate goal would be to have one set of regulations on both sides.
“When my administration first began, I met with U.S. Congressman Colin Peterson, and he talked to me about the possibility,” Garber said. “Now I don’t think anything substantive has happened toward that end but I think that has some very, very positive possibilities.”
“I would hope that’s something in the future that we can look forward to,” echoed Chief Leonard. “I think it’s our job as people that live along the watershed to try to iron those differences out and, like you say, come together and have one common set of regulations.”
Plans already are in the works for band members to go to St. Paul sometime in July or August to visit Garber. And Chief Leonard said he’d like to see these visits continue on a regular basis.
“Hopefully we’ll start a dialogue talking about some of these very important issues,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll work things out.”