A hole in the ground, 750 feet deep, right next to the Menominee River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, has a community up in arms.

The hole is an open-pit mine, called the “Back Forty,” that Aquila Resources, Inc., wants to dig on the riverbank about 65 miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

Mine opponents say it would threaten a world-class sport fishery and spawning ground for lake sturgeon, endanger the area's water aquifers, introduce air, noise and light pollution into an unspoiled corner of the Upper Peninsula, encroach on cultural sites of vital importance to the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, and endanger the area’s multi-million dollar tourism industry by despoiling the natural environment. For the past several years, they’ve mounted a grass-roots campaign to stop the mine, working in collaboration with the Menominee Tribe – meeting, marching and calling on public officials to oppose the project.

​This is their story.

A thirty-minute version of the film "Back Forty: A Clash of Values" screened at the Freeland Film Festival on June 16, 2018.