By John Enger/MPR News All Photos by Monika Lawrence/MPR News The Red Lake Band of Chippewa held its sixth annual Ojibwe Language camp in late July. Kids from all across the reservation gathered in the remote backwoods of Ponemah to learn about plant medicines, and language and traditional native lacrosse. Or at least, to try […]
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It may be time to work with Native people. Two court decisions, one at the US Supreme Court and another in Canada’s federal appeals court, came out against big companies who do business with tribes, and neglect tribal authority. Late June’s US Supreme Court decision let stand a lower court decision acknowledging tribal government authority […]
Peace and Dignity Journeys are spiritual runs that embody the prophecy of the Eagle and Condor. The prophecy mandates that at this time all Indigenous Peoples in the Western Hemisphere shall be reunited in a spiritual way in order to heal our nations so they can begin to work towards a better future for our […]
The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe is denouncing a decision from Mille Lacs County official to end a cooperative law enforcement agreement with the band. The county says it revoked the agreement due to a dispute over state law. But what’s really at the heart of the disagreement is a long-running dispute over the band’s […]
The federal Bureau of Indian Education announced funding to rebuild the crumbling campus of Leech Lake’s Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig tribal school. For years now, Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig high school students have been taught in a decades-old pole barn known as “Killer Hall” for its flimsy construction. When a storm rolls in those students sprint across a parking lot and […]
Four Ojibwe tribe members have been charged for gathering wild rice and setting gillnets during a protest last summer. In an attempt to strengthen hunting and gathering rights under the 1855 Treaty, dozens of tribal members from White Earth and Leech Lake bands gathered at Hole-in-the-Day Lake in late August. Two protesters were handed citations […]
A power struggle over constitutional reform on the White Earth Reservation could cost longtime tribal Chairwoman Erma Vizenor her job. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT) removed Vizenor from its governing board in December. The MCT governs six Minnesota bands, including White Earth, and is led by a board made up of tribal chairs and secretary-treasurers […]
A bill from Wisconsin Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Representative Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, would remove protections for American Indian burial sites and force the Wisconsin Historical Society to allow the excavation of a centuries old effigy mound in order to prove there are human remains within the mounds on their land. The bill stems from […]
The colorful herd of buffalo roaming down the roads of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota this fall brought both tears and cheers to a group of artists, supporters and federal partners gathered together for a cultural assets and creative economy learning tour hosted, in part, by First Peoples Fund, a national nonprofit […]
Despite Gov. Mark Dayton’s call for a walleye ice fishing season this winter at Lake Mille Lacs, it’s still not clear if the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will allow it. An ice fishing season is vital for many resorts and businesses around the lake, especially after the open water walleye season was cut short […]
On the high prairies of Southwestern Minnesota one site, and one man, provide a textbook study of the spiritual and political complexities of America’s cultural imposition upon Native American lands. For the past 15 years, Glen Livermont, the Oglala Lakota superintendent of Pipestone National Monument, has spent his days walking a precarious tightrope of competing […]
