Potawatomi Carter Casino Hotel (PCCH) hosted this year’s Native American Tourism of Wisconsin (NATOW) conference at its facility June 6-8, 2016.

NATOW is an inter-tribal consortium that was launched as a statewide initiative in 1994 by the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council (GLITC). The mission of NATOW is to promote tourism featuring Native American heritage and culture. (Cited from natow.org)

The conference started out on June 6 with a golf tournament held at McCauslin Brook Golf & Country Club in Lakewood, Wis. Once the tournament was done, there was an awards reception and networking event at PCCH.

The conference began on June 7, with an opening ceremony by Bobbi Webster, Oneida Nation public relations director. Webster was the spokeswoman for the entire conference and did a fantastic job of keeping things on schedule and providing information about each person who spoke during the conference.

Webster started out by giving a bit of an introduction as to what NATOW is and does. From there, she introduced Forest County Potawatomi Chairman Harold “Gus” Frank.

Frank opened with, “Good morning, and on behalf of the FCP Executive Council, we welcome NATOW to our humble beginnings here in Carter, Wisconsin.” He continued with a few words about the premier golf event that will be hosted by Oneida Nation next year, the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic. He said, “Good things are happening here in the state of Wisconsin and especially with this (LPGA) event, which highlights what Native Americans are doing. Branding the Native American communities in the state of Wisconsin is extremely important. We don’t only want to be known for our gaming, but also for all the other things we are involved in. But we need to promote them. We need to brand the Native American communities here in Wisconsin. With that, on behalf of the FCP Executive Council, have a good conference and Migwetch!”

Next at the podium was David Fleming Sr., chairman of NATOW. He spoke about the conference theme, which was “Cultural Tourism”, and emphasized that this includes the power of partnerships, Native arts and digital presence. He then explained a bit about how the conference would be broken down in the days to come. Fleming said, “I think Native arts and cultural tourism is one of the greatest issues we as NATOW can address to help our local tribal communities be more successful. NATOW works a lot with tribal governments and other organizations to increase tourism, which is very important to our tribal communities. We are also starting to reach out to other organizations that are helping entrepreneurs such as artists to start their businesses and to make their mark into something bigger.”

Fleming also stressed that this has nothing to do with the dollars that come in but more to do with the friendships that start and the sharing of the beauty and culture of tribal people. He further explained that over the next few days, discussions would take place about how to accomplish this for each tribe that was represented at the conference.

Fleming also acknowledged the NATOW board of directors consisting of eleven members from the eleven different tribes in Wisconsin, with Brooks Boyd being the representative for the FCP tribe. He closed with, “I want to thank the Forest County Potawatomi for having us here this year!”

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