FOLK to announce new project at Annual Meeting Oct. 25

BARAGA -- Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (FOLK) will hold their Annual Meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, at the Ojibwa Senior Citizen Center in Baraga.*

The meeting will inaugurate a new chapter in FOLK’s efforts to protect and preserve the ecological integrity of the Lake Superior Watershed. It will also include a presentation by visiting Wisconsin activist Frank Koehn of the Penokee Hills Education Project.

During the 2011 Protect the Earth Great Lakes Community Gathering last August near Champion, Mich., Frank Koehn, an active member of the Wisconsin Green Party and a leader of the Penokee Hills Education Project, speaks about taconite iron ore mining in the Penokee Hills. Koehn will be the guest speaker at the Oct. 25th Annual Meeting of FOLK (Friends of the Land of Keweenaw). (Photo by Keweenaw Now)

Following a brief business meeting FOLK members will present their new initiative:
FOLK Mining Education and Empowerment Project: Assessing the risks and benefits of new mining in the western Upper Peninsula.

Guest speaker Frank Koehn, northern Wisconsin activist and politician, will present Old and New Mining in the Lake Superior Basin: Time for a Unified Regional Response.

Koehn has been active in environmental, treaty rights and human rights causes -- including opposition to the Crandon and White Pine mines, support of Ojibwa treaty rights, and support for the proposed Seventh-Generation Amendment to the US Constitution. He was the first Green Party member in the U.S. to be elected to a public office: the Bayfield County Board of Supervisors. He continues to be active in the Wisconsin Green Party, which he helped to create. Koehn is currently one of the leaders of the Penokee Hills Education Project, which is resisting the mining of taconite iron ore in the Penokee Hills. He lives in Herbster, Wisconsin.

The meeting is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

* To get to the Ojibwa Senior Center, going south from Houghton, turn right on M-38 in Baraga. Cross the railroad tracks and take a right on Main Street. Follow Main Street a half mile. The Ojibwa Senior Center will be on your left.