MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
November 19, 1996 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports on new children’s comic book which highlights the history of the Mille Lacs Ojibwe Band. The book, "A Hero's Voice," looks at broken treaties, important figures in Ojibwe history, and the spiritual tie between the tribe and the lake.
December 26, 1996 - MPR’s Mary Losure created this report for National Public Radio detailing the efforts to save Native American language by teaching it to next generation. Losure interviews both language teachers and students at Nay Ah Shing school in Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
February 13, 1997 - Midday rebroadcasts award-winning MPR documentary Song Catcher, Frances Densmore of Red Wing. Following documentary, MPR’s Gary Eichten holds a discussion with guests Marcia Anderson, chief curator and head of the Museum Collections Department at the Minnesota Historical Society; and Faith Bad Bear, assistant curator of Ethnology at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
April 30, 1997 - Ojibwe Band members had hoped to be spearing and netting fish on dozens of central Minnesota lakes by now. For seven years a group of tribes, led by the Mille Lacs Ojibwe, worked through the courts to restore fishing and hunting rights given them by treaty in the 19th century. It appeared the tribes would finally exercise those rights this spring. But a group of local landowners won an injunction earlier this month, halting the Indians' plans, at least for now.
May 20, 1997 - Public and private landholders are challenging Chippewa Indian's plans to take fish and other game in eastern Minnesota, under terms of an 1837 treaty. But miles north of the region under contention, Chippewa Indians have been harvesting fish and wild rice and hunting moose and deer on public lands with little fanfare, and no public protests.
September 4, 1997 - MPR's Martin Kaste reports that Minnesota Indian tribes are reacting skeptically to suggestions they use their casino revenues to help pay for a new Twins stadium. The co-chairman of the Legislature's special stadium finance task force met with the chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in an attempt to get Indian money for a possible stadium financing package... but at least one Indian official in St. Paul says state politicians are "crazy" to think they can convince tribes to pay for the stadium when Minnesota taxpayers won't.
December 9, 1997 - MPR’s Elizabeth Stawicki reports on the disturbing history of Canton Insane Asylum…and of the dead from institution that are now buried in the middle of city's Hiawatha golf course.
February 27, 1998 - MPR’s Cara Hetland reports on 25th anniversary of Wounded Knee, a 72 day stand-off between members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the tribal and federal governments. Some regard the incident at Wounded Knee in western South Dakota as the beginning of an era of increased Indian activism and by others as the end to progress on the reservation.
March 2, 1998 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger profiles the Red Lake Warriors, who after a tragedy, are regrouping and preparing for another run at the state title.
April 1, 1998 - MPR's Bob Kelleher reports from Duluth, where one of the Ojibwe Bands that had staked its fortunes on a casino at Hudson, Wisconsin is now struggling under a new financial crisis. Northern Wisconsin's Red Cliff Band was one of three whose joint application to build a new Casino near Minnesota's border was rejected by Interior Department Secretary Bruce Babbitt, triggering a federal investigation. The Red Cliff Band has declared a state of emergency after discovering a huge shortfall of cash intended to support social programs. Now it is trying to keep services in place.