How Lac du Flambeau’s Winter Games Revived a Cultural Legacy

On a crisp February morning in Lac du Flambeau, the sounds of laughter and competition echo across snow-covered grounds where fifth through eighth graders race in snowshoes, launch wooden snowsnakes across ice, and test their aim with traditional atlatls. Now in its 15th year, the Ojibwe Winter Games represent far more than a school event — they’re a living bridge between generations, reconnecting Northwoods youth with survival skills and cultural practices that nearly vanished from this corner of Vilas County.

What makes these games remarkable isn’t just their longevity, but the quiet revolution they’ve sparked across the Midwest. From a single school program in 2012, this cultural revival has expanded to 32 tribal communities, awakening traditions that lay dormant for over a century. For those of us who call the Northwoods home, watching this resurgence unfold in our own backyard offers a powerful reminder of what resilience and community dedication can accomplish.

From Survival Skills to School Tradition

Wayne Valliere, the language and culture teacher who founded the games at Lac du Flambeau Public School, designed them around a simple but profound idea: teach the way ancestors taught. Before federal boarding schools and assimilation policies disrupted tribal life, Ojibwe children learned through purposeful play. A boy would master the bow and arrow by age nine, bringing home big game by twelve. Girls and boys alike developed the endurance needed for winter travel by racing in snowshoes across frozen landscapes much like the ones surrounding us today.

The activities students experience during Winter Games week aren’t arbitrary. Spear throwing hones the accuracy needed for ice fishing through those brutal Northwoods winters. Snowshoe racing builds the leg strength and cardiovascular endurance essential for traversing deep snow between distant wiigwams. Sliding snowsnakes — those five-foot wooden poles carved to resemble serpents — teaches physics and precision as competitors send them gliding across ice, sometimes covering impressive distances.

Perhaps most striking is the atlatl, an ancient spear-throwing device that predates the bow and arrow. Watching middle schoolers learn to launch five-foot darts with these lever-action tools connects them to hunting methods used across the Americas for thousands of years. As Valliere emphasizes, these aren’t just games — they’re lessons in responsibility, focus, and the patience required when your family’s next meal depends on your skill.

The Cultural Gap These Games Are Filling

To understand why the Ojibwe Winter Games matter so much, you need to grasp what was nearly lost. There was a time, not particularly long ago, when the Ojibwe language was barely heard in Lac du Flambeau homes. Canoe-building knowledge — essential in a region defined by lakes and waterways — had nearly disappeared. Traditional games and the teaching methods embedded within them had been absent for generations, casualties of systematic policies designed to erase Indigenous culture.

The U.S. government banned many traditional Indigenous games in the early 1870s, mistakenly viewing them as gambling rather than recognizing their role in community cohesion, dispute resolution, and skill development. Unlike the wagering common in European games, Ojibwe competitions emphasized gift pots that redistributed wealth and strengthened community bonds. When these practices were forbidden, entire generations grew up disconnected from the physical culture that had sustained their ancestors through countless Wisconsin winters.

Lilith Schuman, who participated in the very first Winter Games as a seventh grader and returned this year as a Native American peer mentor at Lakeland High School, witnessed the transformation firsthand. Watching students race in snowshoes brought such strong memories that she joked about wanting to jump in herself, despite admitting she’s not in the same shape as those middle schoolers. Her pride in seeing another generation embrace these traditions reflects what many in the Lac du Flambeau community feel — a sense that something precious, once endangered, is being passed forward.

Spreading Beyond Lac du Flambeau

The ripple effects from that first Winter Games in 2012 have reached far beyond one school in Vilas County. By 2022, thirty-two Midwest tribal communities had adopted similar events, creating an intertribal network of cultural revival. In 2023, the games made a particularly meaningful return to Madeline Island after a 150-year absence, marking the first such gathering there since the federal ban.

The expansion to places like UW-Madison’s Lake Mendota brings these traditions into new contexts, introducing non-Indigenous students to Ojibwe culture while giving Native students a chance to practice traditions in diverse settings. Each location adds its own character to the games while maintaining the core purpose: keeping skills alive that were once central to thriving in Great Lakes winters.

For Northwoods residents, this regional growth validates what we already know about our Indigenous neighbors — their cultural knowledge holds practical wisdom shaped by centuries of living successfully in conditions that challenge even modern technology. When you’ve spent a February shoveling out from two feet of overnight snow, you gain new appreciation for ancestors who not only survived but built vibrant communities in this climate.

What the Next Generation Is Learning

Valliere often quotes a phrase that captures the program’s philosophy: “We don’t inherit our culture from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” This understanding drives the games’ focus on youth leadership. Every snowsnake throw, every arrow released, every sprint through deep snow on traditional snowshoes becomes practice not just in physical skills but in the responsibility of carrying culture forward.

Students participating in the Ojibwe Winter Games aren’t simply learning isolated activities — they’re absorbing values that shaped Ojibwe communities for generations. The emphasis on purposeful exercise over recreational play echoes ancestors’ approach to preparing youth for adult responsibilities. The competitive elements teach grace in both victory and defeat. The communal nature of the events reinforces that individual skills serve collective wellbeing.

As Valliere puts it, “Our ancestors are smiling on the Anishnaabe today,” seeing children engage in the purposeful exercise that once prepared every generation for life in the Northwoods. That connection to ancestral approval matters deeply in cultures where honoring those who came before remains central to identity. When students at Lac du Flambeau Public School step onto the snow this week, they’re not just playing games — they’re answering a call that echoes back through time.

A Living Tradition in Our Northwoods Backyard

Fifteen years might not seem long in the grand sweep of history, but it represents a significant milestone for a program that’s rebuilding what was broken. The Ojibwe Winter Games have sparked cultural revival that extends well beyond a single week in February, creating year-round opportunities for language immersion, traditional skills practice, and intergenerational knowledge sharing.

For those of us living in the Northwoods, the games offer a window into Indigenous resilience and the power of cultural reclamation. They remind us that this landscape we share has been home to Ojibwe communities since Chief Keeshkemun led his people here in 1745, long before the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe formalized the reservation boundaries. The same lakes we fish, the same forests we hike, the same brutal winters we endure — all shaped the traditions being revived today.

As another Winter Games week unfolds in Lac du Flambeau, the sound of snowshoes crunching across packed snow and wooden snowsnakes sliding across ice carries more than just the excitement of competition. It carries the satisfaction of a community that refused to let essential parts of itself disappear, and the hope that future generations will continue borrowing these traditions from their children, keeping them alive for centuries to come.