Collection
Native People: A Focus
MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
313 Collection Items
- Restored tribal land ends uncertainty for a family living on Mille Lacs Lake
MPR’s Melissa Olson reports on the restoration of 18 acres on the south side of Mille Lacs Lake. The action means an end to decades of uncertainty for one family.
- North Star Journey: MnDOT drivers are keeping Indigenous languages alive, one snowplow at a time
MPR’s Gracie Stockton reports that the Minnesota Department of Transportation announced that its plow-naming event will return for a fourth year. The contest offers people the chance to submit ideas and vote to pick eight winners, with the winning names going on plows in each of MnDOT's eight districts around the state. Some plow drivers are hoping more Indigenous names make the cut.
- 'Unapologetically Indigenous' mural preserved for future generations
MPR’s Melissa Olson reports that conservators and artists have worked nearly a year to restore a work of art created by artist George Morrison half a century ago. Morrison’s vision is felt by the people who helped to restore his work, and by those redesigning the building where the mural lives.
- Lower Sioux Community explores reconciliation through an 'honor tax'
MPR’s Melissa Olson reports on Lower Sioux Community exploring reconciliation through an 'honor tax.' The Mni Sota Makoce Honor Tax was created as another way Minnesotans and Dakota people could build relationships.
- North Star Journey: How to build a legacy - The late artist Jim Denomie at Mia and beyond
MPR’s Alex V. Cipolle presents a profile of Jim Denomie, an Ojibwe painter who died in 2022. Cipolle visits Minneapolis Institute of Art to view “The Lyrical Artwork of Jim Denomie,” which has transformed into a posthumous survey of the latter half of the famous colorist’s career; one that skewered mainstream histories and purveyors of injustice, from Fort Snelling to Standing Rock, while championing the joy and resilience of Native communities.
- Beltrami County Historical Society pushes to return sacred Indigenous artifacts to communities
MPR’s Mathew Holding Eagle III reports on Beltrami County Historical Society push to return sacred Indigenous artifacts to communities. A court granted the Beltrami Historical Society’s museum permission to break up arguably its most important collection, The John Morrison collection. The court action will allow culturally sensitive artifacts to be repatriated to the Indigenous communities where they originated.
- Descendants of executed Dakota 38+2 ride to Mankato to honor ancestors
MPR’s Hannah Yang profiles the Dakota 38+2 riders, as they make trip honoring ancestors. The group travel hundreds of miles on horseback to honor 38 men hanged in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The ride also remembers the many others who died as a result of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.
- Repatriation goes digital: Tribes receive archival copies of cultural materials
MPR’s Matthew Holding Eagle III reports on items related to tribal life in North Dakota being returned digitally. Thousands of culturally significant photographs, wax cylinder recordings and journals recently returned to the place where they were created over a century ago among the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes in North Dakota.
- Return of rare Ojibwe horse lifts spirits — but still needs help
MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on a rare breed that has adapted to the forests along the Minnesota-Canadian border. It's called the Lac la Croix Pony, or the Ojibwe horse. A few decades ago there were only four of them left. Kraker interviews those dedicated to reviving the population and help Ojibwe people to reconnect with the horses.
- North Star Journey: 'Finndian?' 'Swanishinaabe?' Some Native people in northern Minnesota reconnect with their Scandinavian roots
On this segment of North Star Journey, MPR’s Dan Kraker profiles individuals that identify as both of Native American and Scandinavian descent. They share how they are finding connections and surprising parallels between the cultures.