I have been looking for information about this particular group of Ojibwe Indians since Professor Yellow Bird talked about the conditions on this reservation that brought him there after the school tragedy occurred in 2005. It is an unbelievably beautiful place and sits near the mouth of the great Mississippi River. There is plenty of information on the web that talks about drugs, gangs, violence, hopelessness, poverty and racism against the people on this reservation.
I discovered a history of resilience, courage, pride and wisdom within the people of this particular area of the earth that I want to share because it is a story that should be heard.
The Red Lake Nation lives on 837,736 acres of land in northern Minnesota that connects up to the Canadian border area. This nation has consistently resisted all attempts at allotment of their land whenever they could using formal rejections and informal methods such as running off surveyors, social workers,and missionaries. Other Minnesota Ojibwe tribal bands failed to do this and as a result, although boundaries are drawn around their reservations, their lands are very heavily checkerboarded by non-Indian ownership. Red Lake alone of all the Minnesota tribes rejected Public Law 280, so unlike other Minnesota reservations, Red Lake retained criminal and civil jurisdiction (except for the federal Major Crimes Act) over its remaining lands and its citizens. Red Lake governs itself and does not belong to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribal Federation, which has various economic and other powers over its members. The other Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota all belong to the MCT. Red Lake rejected being tied to this federation and goes it alone, though there are many relationships and intermarriages among Anishinaabe peoples of Red Lake and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (federation). The results of Red Lake's consistent and historical strategies are best seen in comparing the land they have kept to the land other, more cooperative-with-whites tribes have lost.
Economically, the reservation suffers from the usual effects of isolation. At one time they operated a fish marketing co-op that iced, packed and shipped catches of individual and family-group net fishers since 1929. This may have been the oldest Indian-controlled marketing co-op in the western hemisphere. It began well before the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which Red Lake rejected, as well as any other U.S. governmental action they were able to. The earliest Indian marketing co-ops other than Red Lake began in the Post World War II period. They market only arts and crafts, and are relatively small enterprises.
Fishery nearly failed as a local industry due to the effects of acid rain pollution that killed most of the lakes' whitefish -- but some reductions and control of distant industrial air pollution as well as a hatchery to restock the lake, have helped restore the fish. In 1982 the co-op handled 1,880,671 lbs of fish. This began the period of rebuilding the fish population, which was decimated in the 1970's.
A moratorium eventually had to be placed on the lake because of a declining fish population.
Commercial timberlands occupy 330,000 acres. (Upper and Lower Red Lakes occupy one-third of the total acreage.) For many years the tribe has owned and operated a sawmill, and 2 wood manufacturing plants: the Red Lake Cedar Fence plant and the Red Lake Pre-fab Housing plant.
Wild rice became a commercial tribal enterprise in 1968. There are 300 acres in production of paddy or cultivated-seeded rice, with an estimated 55,000 acres considered potentially suitable for cultivation.
Red Lake is also the first reservation in Minnesota to build an archives-library program to preserve tribal records and historical material.
Tribal leadership during the late 1800's and early 1900's skillfully resisted allotment legislation and held the land intact for the Tribe as a whole. Today the Tribe's Independence Day, July 6th is in honor of the courage of their chiefs in resisting allotment during the negotiations of the 1889 Nelson Act. Only one other tribe in the United States also resisted allotment, the Warm Springs Tribe in Oregon.
The tribal government has full sovereignty over the reservation, subject only to federal legislation specifically intended to deal with Red Lake, which makes it a "closed" reservation. The Tribe has the right to limit who can visit or live on the reservation. It has never been subject to State law.
Printed from http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/mn/redlake.htm
Wild rice is an aquatic grass not related to common rice. Early in the summer, the plants bloom with tiny maroon and gold flowers, and by late summer, their seeds mature into dark brown kernels. Domestic cultivation and combine harvesting of wild rice are relatively recent developments; wild rice is commercially produced as a field crop on about 20,000 acres in Minnesota. For many years, basically all of the wild rice produced in the world came from Minnesota, and most still does. Wild rice often is harvested from lakes in a traditional way, from canoes; people interested in harvesting wild rice in Minnesota must purchase a wild ricing license, similar to a fishing or hunting license. Wild rice grows naturally in the shallow waters of lakes in central and northern Minnesota. For many years, all the wild rice produced in the world came from Minnesota. It is harvested from lakes in the traditional Anishinabe Indian way, from canoes. It is also planted as a farm crop.
Harvesting Wild Rice
I spent about six years living in Fargo, North Dakota when I was young and "wild at heart" at the age of 18 until I was 23 years old. My best friend was a student at Bemidji State University and I was a student at Moorhead State University. Both schools were in Minnesota and each of us had enrolled in the BSW program, which I eventually dropped out of and went on to other things!! I spent a lot of time visiting her in Bemidji and getting to know people from the various Ojibwe reservations in northern Minnesota.
I thought about how I could practice community work at Red Lake. It is clear from the tribe's history of not allowing social workers on their land that I might never be trusted or invited there. The only thing I might be able to do is live and work in the area, where I would hope to get to know people from the local area, or meet relatives or friends that might bring me to community events where I might slowly be accepted. That would all have to take place with a great deal of humility and respect on my part, and I would have to allow events to take their course as the members of the reservation wished, not what I would like to accomplish.
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