MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
April 3, 2012 - David Treuer, an Ojibwe author from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, speaks at the Minneapolis Central Library as part of the Hennepin County Library's Talk of the Stacks series. His book is titled, "Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life."
May 4, 2012 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer talks with Ojibwe author Anton Truer about his book "Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask."
September 7, 2012 - MPR’s Marianne Combs sat down with author and fiber artist Gwen Westerman, painter and sculptor Jim Denomie, actor and spoken word artist R. Vincent Moniz, Jr., and poet Heid Erdrich. The discussion included what it means to be a contemporary Native artist working in a world that still has stereotypical notions of what it means to be an American Indian.
October 2, 2012 - On this Daily Circuit program, MPR’s Kerri Miller talks with Native American author Louise Erdrich about her book “The Round House.” Erdrich describes the writing decisions and background to book.
March 8, 2013 - On this MPR News Presents program, Minnesota author Louise Erdrich speaks at Concordia University in St. Paul about her National Book Award-winning book, "The Round House," and her love of writing. Erdrich also reads from the book.
November 20, 2013 - In this episode of Appetites, MPR’s Tom Crann talks with Minnesota poet and writer Heid Erdrich about the local food movement. Though seen as a relatively recent phenomenon, Erdrich argues in a book that the local food movement goes back to the indigenous populations of our region.
January 6, 2014 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on wild rice, the iconic grain that grows across much of the northern half of the state, being at the center of a contentious debate over mining and the environment. Kraker conducts interviews with individuals from both sides of the debate.
August 19, 2014 - With the announcement of author Louise Erdrich winning National Book Award for book “The Round House,” The Daily Circuit presents a rebroadcast of a 2012 interview with Erdrich about her book. The novel tells the story of a crime on a North Dakota reservation in 1988.
January 30, 2015 - Anton Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake reservation with a deep interest in history and language. He writes in the introduction to one of his books on Native history: "The borderland I grew up in was more than an awkward physical nexus of races and communities." Today-a conversation about how that "nexus" still influences his work and writing.
March 18, 2015 - MPR’s Dan Gunderson & John Enger reports on the survivors of the 2005 mass shooting at Red Lake High School in northern Minnesota. The tragedy changed everyone involved. Survivors and others in community discuss how they now cope.