The video was filmed in the spring of 1992, when University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee video professor Rob Danielson set out to document the controversies surrounding mining development in northern Wisconsin. For three months, he traveled and talked with the residents of northern Wisconsin-small business owners, anglers, geologists, historians, economists. What he saw and learned is condensed and clearly presented in this unique and compelling video. To get his point across, Danielson uses an array of techniques, from impressionistic views of skylines, forests, and rivers to helicopter shots of mining pits. Danielson's charts are especially lucid, helpful explanations of the location of metal deposits and the impacts of mining.
Ordinary people can take charge and get their message across.
There's little of the high-tech about Danielson. Danielson operates on the basic assumption that the land, the animals, and the people are equally important. But this assumption is challenged by the location and operation of a new mine in northern Wisconsin, where at least six massive zinc-copper deposits lie, infused in volcanic sulfides. The mining of similar deposits has produced several of our nation's largest Superfund sites, among them the Clark Fork River in Montana. Yet the developers claim that such mining in northern Wisconsin will have a largely beneficial effect.