MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
April 17, 1998 - As part of Mainstreet Radio’s Treaty Rights and Tribal Sovereignty series, Catherine Winter presents report on the concept called tribal sovereignty, and a look at the where this complex set of rules comes from, and how it affects Indian people today. Report includes various interviews with tribe members.
April 21, 1998 - A Mainstreet Radio special broadcast from Mille Lacs Indian Museum, highlighting Indian treaty rights and Native American sovereignty. Rachel Reabe interviews Don Wedll, Commissioner of Natural Resources for the Mill Lacs Band of Ojibwe; Doug Sam, tribal elder; and Henry Van Offelen, treaty biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Group discussion includes spearfishing topic and answering audience/listener questions.
April 21, 1998 - A Mainstreet Radio special broadcast from Mille Lacs Indian Museum, highlighting Indian treaty rights and Native American sovereignty. Rachel Reabe interviews Henry Buffalo, a Minneapolis attorney, sovereignty expert, and member Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe; Chief Tribal Judge Mary Jo Brooks Hunter, of Ho chunk Tribe; and Jim Genia, solicitor general for the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe. Discussion topic is tribal sovereignty and how the rules are different on the reservation.
May 19, 1998 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Native American blues band, Indigenous.
May 21, 1998 - Mainstreet Radio's Catherine Winter reports on Cass Lake-Bena school district, a small district on the Leech Lake Reservation that has struggled with racial tension for years. The district is trying to serve its Native students better, but the case is still not settled.
September 7, 1998 - MPR's Tom Robertson reports from Bemidji, where It's harvest time for wild rice in Minnesota, and nowhere is the season more important than on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. The reservation has more than 6,000 acres of wild rice beds within its boundaries.
September 11, 1998 - Mainstreet Radio’s Art Hughes reports on an annual event in St. Peter area recognizing the 1851 treaty between the U.S. government and the Dakota Nation. The Traverse des Sioux Treaty Encampment started in 1990 to draw attention to the area's historic significance. But this may be the event's last year, in part because of criticism from Native Americans who say the treaty is not something to honor.
December 7, 1998 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports that archeologists have unearthed what's thought to be a 1,000-year-old sacred site on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation. The site contains dozens of ancient bear skulls, and predates the arrival of Ojibwe Indians to the region.
January 25, 1999 - To close out the millennium, Minnesota Public Radio's All Things Considered presents a look back at Minnesota life in 1900 via a 12-part series, entitled “A Minnesota Century.” In this segment, a look back at the Battle of Sugar Point…a fight between the U.S. Government and Chippewa Tribe over timber.
March 24, 1999 - Scott Strand, former deputy counsel in the Minnesota State Attorney’s office, discusses a treaty rights ruling from the Supreme Court regarding hunting and fishing. Program includes a debrief from MPR’s Elizabeth Stawicki on the history of case.