Opening up the conversation through film screenings and Q&A events.

People & Wolves is a story of coexistence.

After all, as Marvin DeFoe said, “The people walked this earth and made a footprint with a brother, and that brother, we call Ma’iingan in our language. Ma’iingan is a wolf. Ma’iingan walked the earth with the people (Annishanabe) and spent so much time together that they became brothers.”

In August of 2022, we began the filmmaking process, learning as we went—learning of the Wisconsin wolf and the people who support this iconic being. I’ve learned that the Ojibwe have demonstrated for centuries how to live with the wolf, and I hope that the Western culture can benefit from this experience.  The film presents the brutal February 2021 wolf hunt with perspectives from Ojibwe tribal members, a wildlife biologist, and an award-winning outdoor writer, along with commentary by renowned conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & Messenger of Peace.

The relationship between Ma’iingan and the Anishinaabe has developed over centuries and continues today. The Ojibwa have a strong spiritual connection with Ma’iingan.

In the film, Jane Goodall said, “Native Americans lived in partnership with wolves and other animals for hundreds and hundreds of years. Their beliefs should be treated with respect.”

For centuries, the Ojibwe have lived alongside their brother Ma’iingan, who we know in English to be the wolf. In February 2021, a Brutal assault, a hunt on their wolf relative, stirs emotion and grief for Ma’iingan as they know what happens to him will happen to them.

Western culture could take a lesson in how to coexist with the wolf. From what I’ve learned in making this film, I learned from the Ojibwe cast members how the wolf is part of it all.  He is part of their creation story and a teacher; he helps keep the other animals healthy and gives us our domestic friend, the dog.  Just as the dog protects us, the wolf protects us, too.

From my perspective, native people, including myself, have a connection through their ancestors that the Westerners have lost. This loss is due to the Western industrial complex. We have become materialists. We lost our connection as man progressed, becoming so-called “civilized.” This loss of connection with indigenous roots became even more evident during the Industrial Revolution. We moved from the country into cities for work, and then it began. For myself, with Norwegian ancestry, my indigenous roots were the Sami People.

In the late 1800s in Wisconsin, the wolf was considered a threat to livestock and feared, and a bounty was placed on him. He was all but gone, trapped, shot into near extinction from Wisconsin. History shows that as Wisconsin became settled by Westerners, the trees were cut down for westward expansion, and the Ojibwe native people & wildlife became lost at the hands of these new inhabitants. All for the sake of progress, the so-called civilized progress. Native peoples in Wisconsin lost their lands and were placed on reservations, and their populations and culture dwindled, as did the wolf. By the 1960s, the wolf, a native predator, was all but gone. This is what the film presents; by the late 1970s, the wolf had begun to recover, and the Ojibwe culture had flourished again.

Michael Waasegiizhig Price states in the film, “Our relationship with the wolf is giving us insight into the future, just as what happens to the water quality happens to us, and what happens to the wolf happens to us. Should we understand these relationships?” 

Management versus relationship. Through the process of making the film, I learned there is a difference between the Western view, which is management, and the Ojibwe view, which is a relationship with the wolf.  The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources manages the Grey Wolf. The Annishaabe people have a relationship with the wolf, who they call Ma’iingan.

A decade of wolf politics. Gray wolves recolonized parts of Wisconsin in the 1970s after being killed off in the state in the 1950s and grew to a population of over 1000 wolves by 2020. After federal delisting in 2012, the Wisconsin legislature mandated that wolf hunts would be required whenever gray wolves were off the ESA list. 

The gray wolf was delisted in January 2021, leading to a court-ordered three-day brutal wolf hunt during the breeding season in February. It went over the allotted quota, angering many Wisconsinites. Soon after, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) began work on a new state Wolf Management Plan. Ojibwe bands in Red Cliff and Bad River have their own Ma’iingan (Wolf) Protection and Relationship Plans.

The state must work with the tribes on wolf management, including hunting seasons. Political battles began over how to manage the next hunt in November 2021. The struggle between the DNR, its Natural Resources Board, and pro-wolf advocates ended with several lawsuits and one that yielded an injunction to stop the November 2021 wolf hunt. The Six Ojibwe tribes sued and claimed the wolf hunt violated their treaty rights. A year after the controversial wolf hunt, a California judge ordered gray wolves in much of the lower 48 states back on the ESA on February 18, 2022.

On October 25, 2023, the Natural Resources Board approved the DNR’s Wolf Management Plan without a numeric population goal, instead opting for an adaptive management plan. The tribes supported most components of the plan while remaining opposed to wolf hunting.

The politics surrounding the wolf isn’t over yet.  The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board approved the DNR’s plan. Most of the public approved of the plan. The exception came from conservative groups opposed to a plan without a numeric population goal. A few Wisconsin state legislators have begun writing a bill requiring the DNR’s Wolf plan to include a numeric population goal. One wolf advocacy group claimed the DNR violated open meeting laws and their rights and sued the DNR and NRB to stop implementing the plan.

There is hope. The film is finished, with a trailer and poster. We hope to take the film on the road for screenings with the cast and producers. People and Wolves’ message of coexistence hopes to quell the divide between wolf adversaries.

A Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin Film by Rachel Tilseth and edited by Justin Koehler. Cast: Edith Leoso, Peter David, Marvin DeFoe, Michael Waasegiizhig Price, Patrick Durkin, Sandy Gokee, John Johnson Sr., and Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace. Directed and Produced by Rachel Tilseth, co-producer Manish Bhatt, co-producer Michael Waasegiizhig Price, Writer Rachel Tilseth, and cameraman Tyler Grape.