St. Germain to fund statue restoration

The St. Germain Town Board voted — though not unanimously — during a meeting on March 12 to fund the restoration of a local landmark, the statue of Chief St. Germain.

Early in 2023, town officials were advised that the fiberglass statue was developing visible cracks and its base may be structurally unsound, which could constitute a safety hazard.

Last July, after finding out there was no cheap fix, the board voted to appoint a new committee to oversee restoration or replacement of the statue. The purview of the committee was to seek quotes for work to the base and statue, as well as for potential landscaping. It will also be tasked with eventually raising funds for the project.

The committee was chaired by town supervisor Kalisa Mortag, and its other voting members are Larry Chamberlain, Nancy Szott, Ellyn Dahnke, and Jacki Goebel. Town board chairman Tom Christensen later replaced Mortag as the committee chairperson.

“We’re hoping that this thing gets done before June 1,” Christensen reported during last week’s board meeting. “Memorial Day weekend is kind of the target. But we’re not going to have all of the funds, so the town board is going to have to…” he tapered off.

“We never talked about this,” he said. “Do we not start repairing it until we’ve raised all of the funds involved, or do we front the money from one of the accounts — such as community development or room tax — until that time that they can raise the total amount of funds?” he asked the board.

Last summer, Christensen went on-record with The Lakeland Times and said he did not feel it would be appropriate for property-tax levy dollars to fund the project, and he maintains his position. Monies in the town’s community development and room tax accounts are collected from out-of-towners who rent lodgings in St. Germain.

“Do we have a contract price yet?” asked supervisor Ted Ritter. “Do we know yet what it’s actually going to cost?”

“We don’t actually have a signed contract yet,” Christensen replied. “Close to $20,000 is going to be what we’ll need between the base and the statue.”

“Has anything been donated yet?” asked supervisor Jim Swenson.

“They (the committee) have been given a few commitments for a few thousand dollars already,” Christensen said. “And the commitments are from organizations in town.”

“What fundraisers have been going on for the thing?” asked an audience member. “I haven’t seen anything. I’d be happy to donate to a fundraiser.”

“You will see that soon,” Christensen replied. “They’ve started that with some of the groups in town first, some of the members of the committee did. And there’s going to be a GoFundMe page. They are planning on getting a booth at the flea market, but all of that fundraising isn’t done until the end of summer. So if we’re not willing to put up the money necessary — realizing that they might never completely fundraise it — then we need to put the project on hold until the money is in the bank from fundraising, and then possibly do it in the fall, and/or do it next spring.”

“That’s why I have it on the agenda,” he said. “They won’t have anywhere near all the money before it could potentially be fixed this spring.”

In the meantime, Christensen said anyone interested in making an individual contribution should contact town treasurer Jeanna Vogel.

“I’m not too uncomfortable in committing to $20,000 if we’re certain we can get it done for that,” Ritter said. “That’s why I was asking (about the price).”

“I think that no matter what the quote is and whatever their fundraising comes in, I think we’re going to be on the hook for the balance of it,” said supervisor Brian Cooper, “So we should probably just go ahead and say that. In better words.”

“I agree with you, Brian,” Christensen said.

“I feel it’s a little premature,” Mortag replied. “They haven’t even started fundraising.”

“Well, I don’t know that it really matters,” Cooper said, “Because if they raise $5,000, we’ll approve the balance; if they raise $10,000, we’ll approve the balance.”

“You’ll approve the balance,” Mortag retorted. “I just would hate to say ‘Yeah, let’s foot the bill’, and then what’s the point of them trying to fundraise. Why would they even try?”

“I thought the discussion was that the chamber and the town didn’t want to do anything with it,” said June Vogel, the town’s clerk. “And that’s why this committee was brought together: to fundraise to have it done.”

“We never discussed the town paying for it,” Mortag added.

“No, and that’s why I brought it up,” Christensen said. “Because it appears that we’ll have to fund it if we want to get it fixed this spring. They won’t have all the money raised, unless somebody comes forward and writes a big check.”

“I sort of agree with Kalisa,” said Tim Clark, a former supervisor in the audience. “By saying you’ll finance it, you just told that committee they don’t have to raise any money.”

“It’s a catch-22,” Cooper said.

“It’s been almost two years now, and almost no action has been taken,” one audience member said. “It just kept getting passed around. Eventually, someone is going to have to bite the bullet and get it done...It really should get done, for as much as it means to the town.”

“Why doesn’t the chamber (of commerce) want to foot that one?” asked another audience member. “It’s a big tourist attraction. They should foot that bill.”

“I don’t know that they won’t,” Christensen answered. “They didn’t want to do the project. When somebody asks them and we know what the price is, maybe they will donate something towards it. They didn’t want to be responsible for doing the project.”

“So, is somebody going to bring it up to them?” Cooper asked.

“I would think that would be part of the (committee’s) fundraising,” Christensen said. “They’re an organization in town.”

“I think the greatest risk to this thing will be in the taking it down and transporting it for repair,” Ritter said. “At which point it could potentially be fatally destroyed. To postpone doing that until the $20,000 or $25,000 is raised is kind of silly. I’m confident that if the statue can successfully come down, be transported, repaired, and brought and put up, the committee will have no problem raising $20,000 to $25,000 to cover the bill. And if it gets destroyed in the process, they won’t need to.”

Ritter made a motion “that we proceed with the project and hope we get the funds to cover it,” and then amended his motion to include a limit of $25,000 to be paid from the community development fund.

The motion passed 4-1, with Mortag casting the “nay” vote.

Earlier in discussions regarding the statue’s future, the board expressed concerns it might be viewed as culturally insensitive and asked for input from the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

Prior to his appointment to the committee, Chamberlain contacted Teresa Mitchell at the George W. Brown, Jr. Ojibwe Museum and Cultural Center in Lac du Flambeau. He said Mitchell advised that the band “would have no objections” to the existing statue being refurbished and maintained “in recognition of the St. Germain family’s historical significance to the area.”

There was no such person as “Chief St. Germain,” but the St. Germain family has deep ties to the region. The town took its official name in 1930 after first being dubbed Farmington and later Lakewood. At the time, Big St. Germain Lake was the area’s main attraction. The lake was named after the St. Germain family, which was established in the Northwoods after a 17th-century French soldier named Jean Francois St. Germaine married a local Ojibwe woman. He was recalled by the French army, but opted to desert the military instead of his family. Their descendants include members of the Ojibwe Nation, and many still live nearby.

The current statue is a replacement of the original, which was carved into timbers and wrapped with metal mesh and waterproof concrete by local artist Neal D.G. Long. There are no records of the statue’s original unveiling date, but most of those who have researched it agree it was erected after World War II and prior to the mid-1950s.

When the timber-based construction of the original rotted beyond the point of repair, the current fiberglass statue took its place. Again, there are no accurate records of the switch-out. Ritter said he moved to St. Germain in 1986 and the fiberglass replacement was already there. Committee member Szott has lived in town all of her life and believes it dates back to the early 1970s.

Speaking with The Times, Szott said the Chief’s status as a landmark is not an overstatement. “If you do a quick Google search, it’s on several sites to come and take pictures with him and to go out of your way to see him,” she said. The statue “has roots, and it means a lot to people from the town, people who have moved to the town, and people who have been vacationing here for years. Families have taken three or four generations of pictures with him.”

“The people on the committee want it done quickly because we don’t want to lose him,” Szott said. “We’re very interested in making sure that he’s still standing there for generations to come.”