Native American place names in the St. Croix watershed #OneMinnesota

We've cross-checked the listing of Minnesota Native American place names with the counties on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River Valley. Here are the results:

• Four of the ten Minnesota counties in the valley have names derived from Native American words or phrases: Anoka, Chisago, Isanti and Kenabec.
• None of the nine Wisconsin counties in the St. Croix valley are Native American words or phrases.

For the record, we aren't including Dakota County as part of the St. Croix valley. If anyone has a compelling reason that it should be included, please share in the comments. Our perspective is that the Mississippi River separates the St. Croix valley from Dakota County.

Kettle River, a tributary to the St. Croix, in Banning State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

Only four other places in Minnesota have Native American names and are in the St. Croix valley, according to the list in Wikipedia. Looking at the geographic naming history of Chisago County, many of the local place names were named after early, non-indigenous, "settlers." If Chisago is representative, that (re)naming pattern would help account for the apparent dearth of Native American place names. Of course, we haven't finished even a preliminary review of other resources, so there may well be more to this story.

• Chengwatana
• Mahtomedi (it's marginally in the watershed)
• Mahtowa
• Pokegama (not the lake in Itasca County, the township in Pine County)

The list of Native American place names in Wisconsin is much longer, and we're less familiar with the geography of our neighbor to the East, so we expect it will take awhile before we report back on those results.

a pair of whitetails at the bird feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

ON AN UNRELATED TOPIC, we've complained from time to time (us, complain?) about the rate of disappearance of sunflower seeds from our front feeder. We've suspected it might be deer, largely because there were lots of deer tracks surrounding a trashed feeder and bent hanger pole in May of last year. Yesterday, with the colder temperatures, and longer days, we "caught" a pair of snackers in the act. Two whitetails, one nibbling neatly from the feeder and the other eating spillage on the snow, came to dinner early enough for us to get their picture for our "most wanted" posters. In this weather, we don't begrudge them these calories.

Goodbye to All That

By Kimberly Blaeser

                                              i.

He could have taken you prisoner, of course

when our two tribes were at war

over whitefish and beaver territory

and the Anishinaabeg chased your Indian ancestors

from the woodlands he now brings you home to.

Or your Dakota relatives might have waged a war party

on their swift plains’ ponies to avenge your taking

and bring you back from those uncivilized

they named in disgust the rabbit-chokers.

But those histories of dog-eaters and Chippewa crows

are just a backdrop now for other stories

told together by descendants of smallpox survivors

and French fur traders,

clan members of Wolf and of Water Spirit.

And now you gather,

trackers and scouts in new bloodless legal battles,

still watch for mark and sign—

for the flight of waterbirds.

                                              ii.

Old histories that name us enemies

don’t own us; nor do our politics

grown so pow-wow liberal you seldom

point out the follies of White Earth tribal leaders.

(Except of course for the time our elected chair

mistakenly and under the influence of civilization

drove his pickup down the railroad tracks

and made the tri-state ten o’clock news.)

And Sundays behind the Tribune

he seldom even mentions the rabid casino bucks

or gets out his calculator and with lodge-pole eyebrows

methodically measures beaded distances,

results of territorial lines drawn in your homeland.

And even though I have seen him sniff, glance over

he really almost never checks the meat in your pot,

nor reconnoiters the place of your rendezvous

just to be sure.

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