In recognition of 2024 Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the MPR Archive Portal presents a curated sampling of varied stories, documentaries, arts, interviews, and reports on Native people, their culture, and history.
Please note: Most content related to this topic that is contemporary or created after 2005 can be found on our main content pages of MPR News, YourClassical MPR, The Current, APM Reports, and Marketplace.
July 9, 2001 - MPR’s Elizabeth Stawicki presents report on attempts to save the Ojibwe language. Report includes various interviews, including Jim Northrup. At one time more than 300 American Indian languages were spoken in the U.S. But with each passing generation, many of the indigenous languages have died; others are on the verge of disappearing. With that in mind, tribes from northern Wisconsin and Minnesota are trying to keep their Ojibwe language from going silent and along the way gain new insight into how their ancestors viewed the world.
July 27, 2001 - Tom Robertson reports on the people of White Earth in northwestern Minnesota trying to bring back the lake sturgeon. The tribe is working to restore the fish and reclaim its heritage. Officials on the White Earth Indian Reservation say when the sturgeon disappeared, so did an important part of their culture.
February 6, 2003 - Mainstreet Radio's Jeff Horwich spent a recent evening in the studio with Gary Johnson Cheeseman, the creator of Anishinabe O'denong.
April 21, 2003 - MPR’s Bob Kelleher reports on efforts by Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa officials to relocate the remains of Ojibwe, whose graves were uprooted and moved more than one hundred years ago from a cemetery on Wisconsin Point, which lies along the shores of Lake Superior. The remains were reburied in a mass grave in Superior, Wisconsin.
August 20, 2003 - On this Mainstreet Radio special report, MPR’s Cathy Wurzer presents “Rekindling the Spirit - The Rebirth of American Indian Spirituality.” Program includes various reports by MPR’s Dan Gunderson and Tom Robertson, and numerous interviews with Native Americans on spiritual beliefs and roots.
May 17, 2005 - The Current’s Mary Lucia talks with Native American poet and saxophonist Joy Harjo who shares thought about her work. Segment includes excerpt of “Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.”
September 23, 2005 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Minnesota author Louise Erdrich about her book “The Painted Drum.” The story is of a New Hampshire woman, an Ojibwe Indian and a Native American drum.
October 9, 2006 - MPR’s Dan Olson reports on the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary on the edge of downtown St. Paul. The land occupies an area that used to be the home of Native Americans, and Dakota want to reclaim Wakan Tipi, a cave they consider a sacred site.
October 26, 2007 - MPR’s Karl Gehrke profiles Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, a Chickasaw composer dedicated to spending his life looking for North American Indian solutions in classical music composition. Tate's new guitar concerto is titled "Nitoshi' Imali." It was a commission from the Joyce Foundation, and awarded to Tate and the St. Paul-based American Composers Forum.
February 3, 2009 - A rare, original oral history of Indian life has surfaced in the Twin Cities. It's one of the oldest known examples of it's kind. In 1910, Lakota Chief Martin White Horse dictated stories about his community, located on a reservation in South Dakota. After the oral history, called a winter count, was typed up, the transcript went into storage. There it lay for decades, forgotten about. The descendants of the white woman who typed up the document rediscovered it last summer, and opened up a window to the history of the Lakota and to their own family.