Tribe’s sawmill holds on to tradition, tries to evolve

Frank Vaisvilas

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY NETWORK – WISCONSIN

Lack of workers, right machines slows Menominee Forest harvest

Joshua Besaw has been working at Menominee Tribal Enterprises for more than 20 years, and loves it.

It’s where his uncles worked, as did his father and his father before him.

They all knew that if they took care of the Menominee Forest, the forest would take care of them.

“It’s what the forest gives us, not what we want to take,” said sales manager John Awonohopay, reflecting the philosophy of the Menominee Tribe’s sustainable forestry operation.

The issue these days is that the world-renowned forest is willing to give more, but because of a host of factors, the company – and the tribe in general – can’t take full advantage of the opportunities.

Wood processed by Menominee Tribal Enterprises remains in such high demand, Awonohopay said, there’s a customer waitlist of months, in some cases years, for its wood products.

The wood has been used for NCAA Final Four floors, the

“It’s what the forest gives us, not what we want to take.”

John Awonohopay sales manager

Lumber operations director John Awonohopay stands for a portrait at the Menominee Tribal Enterprises sawmill on May 15. TOP: Lumber production director Joshua Besaw inspects lumber at the Menominee Tribal Enterprises sawmill on May 15 in Neopit.

PHOTOS BY JOVANNY HERNANDEZ/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

Milwaukee Bucks floor at the Fiserv Forum, and for floors and other interior work at several museums in the region, such as the Field Museum in Chicago. Organizers for the Lumberjack World Championships have said they use Menominee Forest wood for their competitions because its some of the best white pine in the world.

That level of quality traces back to the tribe’s sustainable harvesting methods started by legendary Chief Oshkosh in the mid-1800s. Rather than clear-cutting forests, as many nontribal lumber companies did to forests in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the careful management techniques of the tribe allow the forest to regenerate naturally. The wood that is harvested is healthier and stronger than what can typically be found elsewhere. That creates a niche market.

Famously, the 230,000-acre forest is visible as a dark-green block from space, surrounded by deforestation.

Logging industry is a story of rapid growth, then decline

The history of logging in the United States is largely two stories: the taking of land from Indigenous peoples, and the deforestation of that land by lumber companies. Beginning in the Northeast, companies decimated the land, wiping out old-growth forests, and then progressively moved westward for new resources.

Beginning in the mid-1800s, lumber companies poured into the Great Lakes region. Millions of acres were taken, mostly from Ojibwe bands, in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. By the end of the century, logging and lumbering employed a quarter of all Wisconsinites.

When old-growth forests inevitably dwindled in the early 1900s, many companies continued westward. Those that stayed used fast-growing and scrub trees to build up the paper making and pulp industries. Wisconsin’s paper industry became an enormous economic engine, producing white and glossy paper, labels and tissues, medical supplies and industrial packaging.

Since 2000, high operating costs, international competition, digital conversion, and a dwindling labor force have all conspired against the timber and paper industries.

Among the notable mills and timber processing facilities recently closed in Wisconsin were the Wisconsin Rapids Paper Mill in 2020; Park Falls Pulp & Paper in 2021; four Besse Forest Products Group sites in Wisconsin in 2024 (in Ladysmith, Rice Lake, Mattoon and Goodman); and Ahlstrom’s pulp mill and two paper machines in Mosinee.

The Wisconsin Council on Forestry in December 2024 reported while the state remains the top paper producer in the U.S., the number of jobs in Wisconsin at paper mills decreased from about 13,000 in 2009 to about 7, 000 in 2024.

The Wisconsin Council also reported hundreds of wood products facilities have closed in the U.S. in the last 10 years. During one 18-month span, at least 150 forest products businesses closed, eliminating more than 10,000 jobs.

A shrinking labor pool

All of that creates both pressure on Menominee Tribal Enterprises – and potential for success.

First, it needs to work smarter, not harder, to make a profit. For example, a 16-foot board with knots or other imperfections on one end can be cut to a near perfect 10-foot board with the remaining six feet being destined to become a pallet, a low-grade wood product.

“Just in that one cut we can increase the value of the board by $5.73,” Awonohopay said. Second, MTE produces about 10 million board feet of lumber per year, but Awonohopay said the company has been approved for – and should be – producing 15 million to 20 million board feet per year. There are just not enough workers willing to help process that much wood.

“There’s endless work for anyone willing,” Awonohopay said.

But a lot of it is physically demanding. Skilled “hand-sawers” are needed to make the kind of selective harvesting of certain trees without damaging any surrounding healthy trees. That requires the use of a chainsaw by someone with a lot of upper body strength. And the work is year-round, meaning it’s even harder to find willing labor during the winter when the snowpack can reach up to a person’s knees in the Menominee Forest.

And then there’s the serious drug problem on the reservation.

During one recent hiring effort, Awonohopay said the sawmill tried to hire 16 workers, but about one-third of them couldn’t pass a drug test.

Broadly speaking, generational trauma, forced assimilation and abuse have caused high rates of addiction among Indigenous peoples. From 1999 to 2015, the death rate from opioid overdoses increased by more than 500% for Native Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Wisconsin, Native Americans are dying of opioid overdoses at a rate of 172 per 100,000 people, more than any other race or ethnic group, according to Dr. Lyle Ignace, CEO of the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center in Milwaukee.

In 2023, a record 19 overdose deaths were recorded on the Menominee Reservation, up from 16 in 2022. The number dropped to just three in 2024, but whether that trend is holding remains to be seen.

In just a few years, Menominee Tribal Enterprises has dropped from about 300 employees to only about 80. About a quarter are non-tribal employees who have come over from recently shuttered sawmills in the region.

Automation is a way forward

Looking ahead, a transition to more automation would solve many problems. But if the operation transitions to near full automation, it might mean changing the way it harvests trees.

The company uses “full vigor forestry” as part of its sustainability techniques, meaning workers place no age or size limit on trees, allowing them to grow to sometimes massive sizes if they remain healthy contributors to the ecosystem.

But tree-cutting machines, such as harvesters and feller bunchers, can only harvest trees up to about 36 inches in diameter. Larger trees need to be hand-sawed by the ever-decreasing number of willing workers. Awonohopay said the company may have to abandon trying to harvest the the largest trees in the forest, unless they fall on their own or are knocked down in a weather event.

Then there is the issue of having to spend money to make money.

The Menominee Nation is one of the most financially poor tribal nations in Wisconsin, and transitioning to automation is a huge investment. A new feller buncher, for example, can cost up to $600,000. The tribe occasionally does receive federal grants to help with the process of replacing aging or obsolete equipment, but it hasn’t been enough.

If Menominee Tribal Enterprises can get the machines it needs, its leaders say they can double productivity and profit, while keeping the same amount of employees – and giving them significant raises. The company could operate more shifts, produce more products, and start reducing waitlists for its highly sought lumber.

That would ensure more tribal members could see the jobs passed on to yet another generation.

Claire Eland, left, and Adam Eland change out the saw blade at the Menominee Tribal Enterprises sawmill on May 15 in Neopit.

JOVANNY HERNANDEZ / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL