HIGHLIGHT: WISCONSIN
Madeline Island: For the first time in more than 150 years, the Ojibwe “Winter Olympics” are once again being played on Madeline Island in Wisconsin. The island about a mile offshore of northern Wisconsin in Lake Superior is the historic capital of the Ojibwe Nation. The Ojibwe winter games returned to the island last year when a half dozen Indigenous men, including Paul DeMain, decided to get together for a little sport. “Pretty soon, I started getting phone calls from all over the Great Lakes,” he said. Word quickly got around and more than 100 people showed up and participated. DeMain, a citizen of the Oneida Nation and an Ojibwe descendant, expects even more crowds for this year’s games on Feb. 11.