Tours focusing on Dakota Bdote and 1862 War start Memorial Day
By Deborah Locke Starting Memorial Day weekend, two Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) tours focusing on Dakota history at the site of fort Snelling and Bdote will begin. Bdote is Dakota for the place where two waters (Mississippi and Minnesota rivers) come together. The Bdote/Dakota Homeland walking tour explores the landscape just outside the fort and the […]
Whats New in the Community: May 2018
LLTC Selects New President The Board of Trustees of Leech Lake Tribal College (LLTC) has named Raymond Burns as the college’s new president. Burns succeeds the interim president, Dr. Pat Broker, who served the college as the interim LLTC president from 2017–2018. Burns will take office May 14, 2018. LLTC’s Board of Trustee’s decision to […]
IPTF’s Center for Art and Wellness
By Camille Erickson Growth is within sight for the Indigenous Peoples Task Force (IPTF) – a vital provider of culturally appropriate health services, programs, and housing in Minneapolis. Under the leadership of Executive Director and founder Sharon Day (Ojibwe), IPTF remains devoted to transforming the lives of people living with HIV. From its inception, the […]
Heart Berries is lyrical and intimately revealing
By Mark Anthony Rolo In her first collection of essays, Therese Marie Mailhot weaves a memoir that is lyrical and intimately revealing of a once guarded interior story of surviving abuse and mental illness. “Heart Berries” is a most welcomed story by Mailhot (a member of the Seabird Island Indian Reservation of the Pacific Northwest) […]
Brenda Child’s “Bowwow Powwow” is a sheer delight
Review by Deborah Locke Bowwow Powwow By Brenda J. Child Illustrated by Jonathan Thunder Ojibwe translation by Gordon Jourdain Minnesota Historical Society Press May 1, 2018 Hardcover: 32 pages Ages: 3 – 7 years Windy Girl knows this for sure, and many of you know it’s true, too. She knows the best days of summer […]
The Renaissance of Tribal Hemp
By Winona LaDuke Tribal hemp growers have planted the seeds of a new economy and an innovative and holistic approach to many challenges in our territories. This spring, gathering first on the White Earth reservation and then in Colorado, tribal “hempsters” have joined an international renaissance of the plant which once clothed much of Europe […]
Oil, Water and the Judges
By Winona LaDuke The Husky Oil Refinery’s catastrophic spill and fire in Superior, Wisc. on April 26th points to the problem of oil and water. With immense gratitude for the firefighters who extinguished the tar sands oil fire, we are alive. They were able to stop the fire before it spread to the tank of […]
For Native students in Morris, finding ways to excel in a place of trauma
By Tom Weber/MPR News For most college students, walking across campus is an afterthought – a means to an end. That’s harder to do when the very campus you’re on is a reminder of a dark past in the nation’s history. The University of Minnesota Morris is located on land that was once an Indian […]
Opinion: Securing Tribal Self Determination
By Mark Rolo Thirty years ago, the U.S. Congress passed one of the most sweeping legislative acts in the history of federal-Indian policy – the Tribal Self Governance Act. The goal was to allow tribes more authority over their lands, people and affairs. To be sure, many in Washington, then and now, believe the right […]
Students plant trees to connect with communities
By John Hoffman/MSU “Green space” horticultural projects, community gardening and urban forestry programs remain very popular activities among St. Paul, MN neighborhoods and communities. Over the last several years, students, faculty and community members have traveled to the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation to participate in a community development project that involves planting a variety of […]
Working for Missing/Murdered Indian Women
By Camille Erickson On a tepid winter day this February, hundreds of people adorned in red attire flooded into the Minneapolis. American Indian Center (MAIC) for the annual march to honor missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, boys, LGBQI, Two Spirit, and transgender relatives. After words and song, participants gathered outside to march east on […]
IT AIN’T EASY BEING INDIAN: March 2018
BY RICEY WILD I summon calmness. I summon clarity. I summon spirit. I did not summon Purrince who is trying to lie in my lap while writing this. (I gave him a gentle ‘git’). In order to write I am playing music that not only takes me back in the day but is also happy. Pressure […]