Ojibwe Winter Games Keep Ancient Traditions Alive in Lac du Flambeau

On a crisp Monday morning in Lac du Flambeau, the sounds of children laughing and competing echoed across the frozen landscape—just as they would have centuries ago. The Ojibwe Winter Games marked its 15th year this February, a milestone that represents far more than an anniversary. It’s a testament to cultural resilience in the heart of Wisconsin’s Northwoods, where language and traditions once nearly lost are now thriving again through the voices and actions of young people.

What makes these games remarkable isn’t just their revival of ancient practices, but how they’ve grown from a single school event into a movement spreading across the Midwest. For those of us living up north, watching this cultural renaissance unfold in our own backyard reminds us that the Northwoods story is richer and more layered than many realize.

How Wayne Valliere Brought Back What Was Nearly Lost

Wayne Valliere, the Ojibwe language and culture teacher at Lac du Flambeau Public School, founded the Winter Games in 2012 with a clear mission: restore teaching methods that had been interrupted for roughly 150 years. When U.S. government policies in the 1870s targeted Ojibwe gambling practices—which tribal members viewed as wealth redistribution through gift-giving rather than vice—the associated winter games disappeared along with them.

Valliere designed the modern games to mirror how Ojibwe ancestors taught survival skills to their young. Activities like spear throwing, snowshoe racing, and sliding snowsnakes—five-foot wooden poles carved to resemble snakes that glide across ice—weren’t just entertainment. They built accuracy, dexterity, and endurance that young hunters needed to provide for their families. “When the Ojibwe still lived in wiigwams, a young male would be pretty proficient with a bow and an arrow by the time he was nine years old,” Valliere explained. “And by the time he was 12 he was already killing big game with it, bringing it home to the family.”

This year’s event brought fifth through eighth graders together for activities including atlatl dart launching, archery, and traditional games that teach responsibility alongside physical skills. But Valliere sees something deeper at work. “Our ancestors are smiling on the Anishnaabe today, seeing our children out here exercising, getting purposeful exercise,” he said. The games aren’t just about preserving the past—they’re about preparing future leaders who understand where they come from.

A Cultural Movement Spreading Across the Midwest

What started as a single-school initiative has become something much larger. By 2022, 32 tribal communities across the Midwest had adopted the Ojibwe Winter Games model. The games returned to Madeline Island in February 2023 for the first time in 150 years, organized by the cultural group Akiing 8th Fire. UW-Madison hosted a demonstration on Lake Mendota in 2023 with Valliere’s participation, introducing the traditions to students and faculty who’d never experienced them.

The expansion matters because it tackles a crisis that extends beyond Lac du Flambeau. Ojibwe language, canoe building techniques, and countless cultural practices nearly vanished during generations of suppression and forced assimilation. Students participating in the games today aren’t just learning skills—they’re actively reversing that historical loss. As Valliere puts it: “We don’t inherit our culture from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

For Northwoods communities like Manitowish Waters, where Ojibwe bands including the Lake Superior Chippewa settled around 1745, these games connect present-day residents with the deep Indigenous history that shaped this region. The Lac du Flambeau Band takes its name—”Lake of the Torches”—from the traditional practice of nighttime fish spearing using birchbark torches, a technique that required the same precision and patience taught through winter competitions.

Watching the Next Generation Take the Lead

Lilith Schuman was a seventh grader at the very first Ojibwe Winter Games in 2012. Returning this year as a helper, she watched students race in snowshoes and felt the pull of memory. “It made me want to jump right in with them and run with them, but I’m not in shape,” she said, laughing. Now working as a Native American peer mentor at Lakeland High School, Schuman sees how much the program has grown and what it means for cultural continuity.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “I think it’s grown so much and I think that LDF is doing great things for these kids and our culture, and it just makes my heart proud, and I’m happy.” Her journey from participant to mentor illustrates exactly what the games aim to accomplish—creating a cycle where each generation passes knowledge and pride to the next.

Students like Vanessa LaFortune have noted how the games help them use Ojibwe language in everyday contexts, moving it from classroom lessons into lived experience. When you’re calling out instructions during a snowsnake competition or explaining atlatl techniques to younger kids, the language becomes practical and immediate rather than abstract.

Adapting Traditions to Modern Northwoods Winters

Even cultural revival faces practical challenges in the Northwoods. The games depend on winter conditions—ice for snowsnake runs, snow for snowshoe races—and recent years haven’t always cooperated. In 2024, organizers proceeded with the games despite minimal snow on the ground, adapting activities while maintaining their spirit and purpose.

This flexibility reflects a broader truth about Indigenous traditions: they’ve always adapted to changing conditions while preserving core values. The 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, which established the Lac du Flambeau reservation, came during a period when fur trade economics and settler expansion were transforming the region. Ojibwe communities survived by maintaining cultural identity while navigating massive external pressures.

Today’s climate challenges present different obstacles, but the response follows similar patterns—find ways to continue practices that matter, even when circumstances shift. Whether there’s two feet of snow or barely an inch, the Ojibwe Winter Games happen because the cultural transmission they enable is too important to postpone.

What These Games Mean for All Northwoods Residents

You don’t have to be Ojibwe to appreciate what’s happening in Lac du Flambeau. These games represent the kind of deep community investment that makes the Northwoods special—people committed to preserving what matters and sharing it with future generations. The expansion to universities and other tribal communities creates opportunities for non-Native residents to learn about the Indigenous history that shaped every lake, forest, and trail we enjoy today.

Understanding that history enriches how we experience this place. When you’re ice fishing on a Northwoods lake, you’re participating in a tradition that Indigenous communities perfected over centuries. The torch-lit spearing techniques that gave Lac du Flambeau its name weren’t just practical—they were art forms requiring intimate knowledge of fish behavior, ice conditions, and light refraction.

As the Ojibwe Winter Games enter their second decade, they offer something rare: proof that cultural revival works when communities commit to it. Wayne Valliere’s vision has grown from a school program into a regional movement, and the children competing in snowshoe races today will likely be teaching their own kids these same skills in another 15 years. Up here in the Northwoods, that kind of continuity—that connection between past and future—is worth celebrating, ya know?