Dredging up what French I recall, I'm pretty sure "Lac du Flambeau" translates as "Torch Lake," which brings to mind the Cuyahoga more than anything else. The big casino there bills itself as "Lake of the Torches Casino (and Resort)," which I'm pretty sure would be "Lac DES Flambeau," or possibly "Lac DES FlambeauX."
Now that I feel appropriately smug, on with the post.
It was with some chagrin that I realized Lac o' Flambeau would be one of the stops falling into the molds of Walker, Anadarko, and Rapid City. Like Walker, the setting was a white tent set up on pavement with cars all around. Like Anadarko, no one seemed to know if electricity was available. And, like Rapid City, organization felt loose to the point of losing control.
Luckily, organization ultimately turned out to be fine, or at least fine-enough. Electricity did arrive, too, although it took a while. The ruins of the school (oddly) had electricity, but there were no extension cords long enough. So, someone drove out to find extension cords. We started in the meantime. When extension cords arrived, it was discovered that the front door was locked, so someone drove to go find a key. Then, some time later, someone drove to go find the person looking for the key, as they had run out of gas and were stalled out by the side of the road. By about lunchtime, I was finally powered and could get speakers running, etc.
Turnout was low, perhaps due to some combination of the fact that we were just a little tent sitting literally in the middle of the road next to some ruins, and the fact that a few blocks away was the town's biggest and most important pow-wow of the year. Getting supplies was difficult. For example, we had to twist some arms to get ahold of flags and veterans to carry them. During the opening song, the veterans marched the flags into the tent, then out of the tent, then into their vans. They drove off to the pow-wow and never came back.
Getting a drum to play for us was difficult, too; we ended up getting the local youth drum. They were actually pretty good, despite their tender age.
I don't remember if the school itself stood behind us, or just one of the dorms. At any rate, it is a badly collapsing building that locals hope to renovate for the purpose of making a memorial / museum. To the untrained eye, it would appear that complete reconstruction would be necessary -- especially for the outside of the building, which someone molotov'd a few years back. The building is very unpopular in town, and it sounded like there was a lot of resentment still present in the community. The attempt to destroy it wasn't terribly surprising. What is surprising is that it didn't succeed -- the place looked timber-dry.
Like so many places, the inside of the building was distinctly uncomfortable. It was not built to be a welcoming place, and featured narrow corridors, cramped rooms, and impossibly steep staircases. The ceilings were plenty high, however, and it gave me a strange feeling of reverse-vertigo, for lack of a better term.
This guy represented the city council, if I remember correctly, and he read a proclamation supporting our Journey.
This was our coordinator. She's hoping to become a musician, and sang a song for us. Also pictured is my new microphone, which I love dearly. Sweet, sweet Sennhauser D46. (Spelling and number might not be technically correct).
Here's a close-up of the Hoop. Strangely, the head of an eagle materialized in the center. See it? Isn't that nuts?
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