MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
April 19, 2016 - As part of MPR News series “Minnesota's Opioid Epidemic,” MPR’s Jon Collins profiles Rita Rogers, a mother from White Earth who lost her pregnant daughter Tiffany to heroin overdose.
April 21, 2016 - As part of MPR News series “Minnesota's Opioid Epidemic,” MPR’s Jon Collins profiles James Cross, a former drug dealer who is now helping addicts in the Native American community he once sold drugs to.
May 17, 2016 - MPR’s Kerri Miller talks with Minnesota author Louise Erdrich about her novel “LaRose” at a Fitzgerald Theater event.
June 22, 2016 - MPR’s Kerri Miller interviews Native American poet Joy Harjo, who discusses literature, music and activism. Harjo also talks about working on a play titled “We Were There When Jazz Was Invented.”
July 19, 2016 - MPR’s Euen Kerr talks with Ojibwe author, poet, playwright Jim Northrup. Northrup is dying, but he's OK with it. The author of the popular Fond du Lac Follies, several books, plays and TV shows, says he's helped by his traditional life style on the Fond du Lac Reservation - and his sense of humor.
August 2, 2016 - MPR’s Tom Crann reports on the death of Ojibwe author, poet, playwright Jim Northrup. Report includes audio clip of Northrup reading from his poem “Grandma’s Hair.”
August 4, 2016 - Ojibwe author, poet, playwright Jim Northrup died at 73, due to complications from cancer. As part of a wake, a traditional fire is being started at his residence in Sawyer. Matthew Northrup, joins MPR’s Tom Crann to talk about his father, and what it was like being raised by Jim, who was known and quoted as being a tough man.
August 9, 2016 - MPR’s Euen Kerr reports on poet, novelist and academic Gerald Vizenor’s new novel “Treaty Shirts.” Book is a satirical novel examining the impact of the document in the future, blending Ojibwe history, tradition, and dream narratives with popular culture and science technology to create a surreal but pointed view of modern native life. Report includes interview and reading from Vizenor.
October 3, 2016 - MPR’s John Enger interviews Ojibwe storyteller Anne Dunn, who reflects on a lifetime of storytelling on northern Minnesota reservations. Enger spoke with Dunn in a cabin on Drewery Lake.
December 20, 2016 - MPR News with Tom Weber presents a program on The Dakota Access oil pipeline, which winds hundreds of miles from the oil fields of North Dakota to a pipeline hub in southern Illinois. In 2016, it was almost entirely built — except for a section under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir just south of Bismarck, N.D. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a coalition of other groups camped out near the site of the river crossing in an effort to stop pipeline construction.