To Slay a Giant: The Fight to Protect the Wolf River from the Proposed Crandon Copper Mine Book

The Crandon mine is an issue that has been festering in Wisconsin's Northwoods for over two decades. Could the permitting of the Crandon mine open the Northwoods to a Sulfide Mining District? Mining companies already have mineral lease rights to over 300,000 acres of northern Wisconsin. So it's understandable that Exxon and Rio Algom, two multi-billion-dollar mining companies, did not want to see a mining moratorium.

Then something very rare happened. From April 22, 1996, to April 22, 1998, concerned Wisconsinites, including Indian tribes from all around the state, joined hands in an effort to get a mining moratorium bill passed and signed into law.

Environmental groups were forming all over the state at this time. One such group was POW'R (Protect Our Wolf River) of Shawano. John Mutter, Jr., a freelance writer and POW'R member, was a part of this united effort to get a mining moratorium bill passed and signed into law. As an insider of the POW'R group, he reports of many occurences that the public never found out about, happenings that never made the newspapers or TV. He tells of the ups and downs of this two-year battle against the mining companies. In 1994, even before the issue heated up, the New York Times had reported that the face-off between Exxon and the environmentalists &#34was the fiercest in the nation."

Mutter describes some of the people who have been in the environmental trenches for over 20 years&#151quiet champions, fighting to protect our precious water resources.

To Slay a Giant is a Wisconsin history book, a Wisconsin civics lesson, and a recording of a Wisconsin confrontation of grass-roots resistance to corporate giants.