Celebrating with the Lac du Flambeau Tribe: Transparent Communication
Above: Larry Turner, CEO LDF Business Development Corp (l-r); Sister Sue Ernster, FSPA President; John D. Johnson, Sr., LDF Chairman on Friday, October 31, 2025 as title to the Franciscan land is transferred to the tribe. Below: Araia Breedlove
by Jonathan Gramling
Araia Breedlove was born and raised on the Lac du Flambeau reservation. For a career, Breedlove knew that she wanted to make a contribution to her tribe, but she just didn’t know how. So she went away to college.
“Originally I went to Viterbo University, which is pretty ironic knowing that the Franciscan Sisters own that,” Breedlove said. “And then I decided to go to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I was in their Indigenous program. I just love the community that they built there in terms of Native students that I didn’t find at my other schools. That was the biggest push for me to go there.”
While she originally envisioned herself being a tribal lawyer, she ended up in communications.
“I always felt the love for writing, photography and videography,” Breedlove said. “And journalism kind of incorporated all of it together. When I was about to graduate, my tribe and I started connecting. I was fortunate enough to get the position right out of college and come back to my reservation. I was interim for a while and then I got my full director position in October 2024.”
Fortunate fro Breedlove, she learned all of those skills since she is a department of one responsible for facilitating internal and external communication.
“I took this position to allow community members to be more aware of what is going on here, create communication throughout the reservation, but also create positive information going out of the reservation,” Breedlove said. “We had a lot of issues with our roads last year. And I think a lot of negative feedback was placed on us for many, many years regarding that, misinformation and all of that stuff. When I first came in, I knew that a big part of my job was to create positive stories coming out of the reservation because of things that happened here. I manage a social media page. I do our weekly newsletters. I deal with media. I help run and host media events. I try to take pictures and send them off to different media outlets and to put in our newsletter. I try to be a hub for communications. I try to make the tribal government more transparent.”
One of the positive stories that Breedlove has been getting out on the wire is the Franciscan Sisters selling land back to the tribe.
“At the end of 2019, the Marywood Franciscan Sisters reached out to our tribe in regards to they wanted to sell their spiritual center, which is about 50 minutes away from the reservation in a pretty busy and populated part of Arbor Vitae,” Breedlove said. “They agreed to sell the land, which is about two acres and has a community center and it is on the lake. They agreed to sell it for the original price that they bought it for, which is unheard of. They bought it in 1966. It was a very big surprise for us and we are so grateful that they agreed to that term. On Friday, October 31st, they will be transferring the land over to the reservation officially. Those lands will officially become a part of the reservation. It will be like a satellite part of the reservation.”
Breedlove is very proud of this moment.
“This is the first time in U.S. history that this has happened where a Catholic institution is partnering with the tribe in respect to like justice for the boarding school era and liberation. It’s definitely a huge milestone. And I think it’s crazy that we get to be a part of that monumental moment that other tribes can look back at and say, ‘Oh yes, Lac du Flambeau was the first to do that.’”
In terms of external communication, Breedlove is part of a team that fights the racial attitudes and actions that infringe on the Lac du Flambeau as a sovereign nation.
“For decades, unfortunately, we have had to fight for our rights and treaty rights whether that is fishing, spearing or hunting,” Breedlove said. “That is something that we have had to deal with, especially around this rural area, whether we had to protest and deal with racism, stuff like that. Maybe it’s not as blatant as it used to be, but we still deal with those issues today.”
While it is a sovereign nation, the Lac du Flambeau are, in essence, like a small town.
“Most rural areas across the country are really, really struggling,” Breedlove said. “We are more of a low-income, rural town. And so when you have a federal government shutdown and we have many of our tribal members and non-tribal members who rely on SNAP benefits. And we rely on grants and stuff like that. It is a very uneasy time because I think that is what describes this presidency. There is always something going on. That’s what makes us the most nervous. It’s taking it day by day. It’s hard to plan. With the present administration, we’re struggling in that aspect. There is an extent of things being provided in perpetuity as mandated by the treaties. For instance our grants. But if they stop, there is nothing that we can do about it.”
In recent years, the tribe has gotten more control over tribal affairs.
“Last year, we voted that the BIA doesn’t have to regulate our Constitution any more,” Breedlove said. “That was pretty cool. We can make changes to our Constitution without BIA approval. We can progress our Constitution and update our Constitution for these times without having to wait for BIA approval for what happens here on our reservation.”
While the Lac du Flambeau are facing issues on many fronts, there is a certain calm presence about Breedlove.
“I think the biggest thing for people to know is we persevere,” Breedlove emphasized. “I think a big part of our reservation history is how we have persevered through every hardship that we faced, whether it was the boarding schools on our reservation, and other challenges, our community stayed strong and together and remain a tribal community.”
Perhaps the Lac du Flambeau stay strong because they are in it for more than just themselves. They are in it for the seven generations who come behind them. And that is community preservation at its finest.