November: Native American Heritage Month. Time for Thanksgiving

Welcome to November, the month of Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month. The Academy of American Poets has compiled a wonderful listing of "poems, essays, books, and more by and about Native American poets." If there are any teachers reading this, the Academy has also included several lesson plans and related materials. (Would those lesson plans also work for parents? Take a look, try one and see. It has to be better than the traditional distorted stories of the first Thanksgiving.) Now is also an appropriate moment to remind or inform you of an online resource that identifies territories, languages and treaties related to Native Land particularly in North America. It can be useful in identifying whose homeland you're occupying if you do a Land Acknowledgement. Much of Minnesota has been and is home of the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ or the Santee and Dakota.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) 

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that November is officially underway, we can theoretically prune and trim our oak trees without exposing them to oak wilt disease. It's also prime time to notice all the still green buckthorn understory while driving around. With all the reservoirs of buckthorn available for reseeding throughout the area, it becomes challenging to stay motivated to control that invasive on our property. On the other hand, it's unattractive and limits the growth of indigenous plants so we'll keep picking away at it. If only pocket gophers would eat the roots of buckthorn, or deer consume its foliage and twigs... but then that wouldn't be this imperfect world we live in, would it? Since buckthorn is a relatively recent arrival turned into an invasive species, it's doubtful there are traditional Native American practices for managing it although the use of "controlled burns," similar to the way prairies were kept open by Native Americans, is noted by one of Minnesota's conservation agencies.

MIIGWECH = thanks BII IZHAAYAN for coming(?)

Photo by J. Harrington

This month, weather permitting, might be a prime time to visit at least one of the places, other than a reservation or a casino, that honors Minnesota's Native American heritage. There's:

• The Goose Garden (near Sandstone)


• The Mille Lacs Trading Post


• The American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis

And, without leaving your chair, you can explore the bdote Memory Map. No doubt there are others we haven't mentioned or discovered yet. We look forward to learning more about this country's heritage.

Once the World Was Perfect

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Ways to honor #IndigenousPeoplesDay 2019

Let me begin by thanking Orion magazine for the inspiration on how I might honor this day. On this day their web site features only stories that celebrate indigenous artists and writers. We did something similar celebrating Native American and indigenous resources we're familiar with. To begin, if you're in or near The Cities, check out

• The American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis





American Indian Cultural Corridor banners


Photo by J. Harrington




• Visit Birchbark Books


• Plan a visit to the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post


• Spend some time at the web sites of The Healing Place Collaborative and the


• bdote memory map


• Check the List of place names of Native American origin in the United States


• Search the interactive, online map of native territories, languages and treaties


• Get ready for Native American Heritage Month in November, and


• Acknowledge indigenous territory

a gallery of American Indian art

Photo by J. Harrington

Apprenticed to Justice

Kimberly Blaeser

The weight of ashes
from burned-out camps.
Lodges smoulder in fire,
animal hides wither
their mythic images shrinking
pulling in on themselves,
all incinerated
fragments
of breath bone and basket
rest heavy
sink deep
like wintering frogs.
And no dustbowl wind
can lift
this history
of loss.

Now fertilized by generations—
ashes upon ashes,
this old earth erupts.
Medicine voices rise like mists
white buffalo memories
teeth marks on birch bark
forgotten forms
tremble into wholeness.

And the grey weathered stumps,
trees and treaties
cut down
trampled for wealth.
Flat Potlatch plateaus
of ghost forests
raked by bears
soften rot inward
until tiny arrows of green
sprout
rise erect
rootfed
from each crumbling center.

Some will never laugh
as easily.
Will hide knives
silver as fish in their boots,
hoard names
as if they could be stolen
as easily as land,
will paper their walls
with maps and broken promises,
scar their flesh
with this badge
heavy as ashes.

And this is a poem
for those
apprenticed
from birth.
In the womb
of your mother nation
heartbeats
sound like drums
drums like thunder
thunder like twelve thousand
walking
then ten thousand
then eight
walking away
from stolen homes
from burned out camps
from relatives fallen
as they walked
then crawled
then fell.

This is the woodpecker sound
of an old retreat.
It becomes an echo.
an accounting
to be reconciled.
This is the sound
of trees falling in the woods
when they are heard,
of red nations falling
when they are remembered.
This is the sound
we hear
when fist meets flesh
when bullets pop against chests
when memories rattle hollow in stomachs.

And we turn this sound
over and over again
until it becomes
fertile ground
from which we will build
new nations
upon the ashes of our ancestors.
Until it becomes
the rattle of a new revolution
these fingers
drumming on keys.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Return of the neighborhood beaver(s)?

Many, many years ago, we first moved into our house in early December. It wasn't until the following Spring that we discovered we had a beaver or beavers for neighbors. There was no classic beaver mound house, he, she, or they lived in a den in the bank of the flowage, on the West side of the township road. We enjoyed the company and the tail-slapping antics for a year or two and then s/he or they were gone. Our suspicion is it was a male beaver trying to establish a new territory in a not-very-promising location.

West-side flowage pond, beaver den was in left bank

Photo by J. Harrington

Last week we noticed a pickup truck belonging to the county or township or watershed organization stopping repeatedly up the road from our house, just where the flowage crosses under the road. On one of those occasions, we drove past and saw someone with a pry bar trying to disassemble what looks to us like a beaver damn on the East side of the road. Our suspicion is that the beaver(s) could repair the damage faster than one person with a pry bar could try to enhance what is at best a very slow flow, even during times of high water like this past Spring.

East-side flowage stream, dam is about between two trees on far bank

Photo by J. Harrington

Apparently, someone in officialdom was agitated enough by the new squatters in the flowage that the heavy equipment was brought or sent in. A large backhoe is now parked on the Northern flowage bank. Half the beaver dam has been removed and is now sitting on the Northern bank, and several vehicles have been stopping and parking for extended periods this week. We're not sure if they're watching a beaver, pondering what's left of the dam, or ....

With all that's malfunctioning and dysfunctioning in the world today, we're encouraged to see a return  of some of the areas native inhabitants. The flowage drains through the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area into the Sunrise River. We believe that beavers probably lived here when the land was inhabited by the Lakota and/or the Ojibwe. We suppose if it were our property that was being inundated by the waters behind a beaver dam, we might not be as welcoming. But it isn't, and, as far as we can tell, after having lived in the neighborhood for about a quarter of a century, we aren't aware of any normally dry land that's at risk from the new dam. We'll poke around some more and see what else we can learn about the dam, its creators and its likely future, plus, some day very soon we'll share some photos of the backhoe and what's left of the dam.

Man in Stream

Rosanna Warren- 1953-

You stand in the brook, mud smearing
your forearms, a bloodied mosquito on your brow,
your yellow T-shirt dampened to your chest
as the current flees between your legs,
amber, verdigris, unraveling
today’s story, last night's travail . . .

You stare at the father beaver, eye to eye,
but he outstares you—you who trespass in his world,
who have, however unwilling, yanked out his fort,
stick by tooth-gnarled, mud-clabbered stick,
though you whistle vespers to the wood thrush
and trace flame-flicker in the grain of yellow birch.

Death outpaces us. Upended roots
of fallen trees still cling to moss-furred granite.
Lichen smolders on wood-rot, fungus trails in wisps.
I wanted a day with cracks, to let the godlight in.
The forest is always a nocturne, but it gleams,
the birch tree tosses its change from palm to palm,

and we who unmake are ourselves unmade
if we know, if only we know
how to give ourselves in this untendered light.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Territory Acknowledgement

We've discovered another resource related to Native American place names. It's called Native Land.

Native Land Digital is a Canadian not-for-profit organization, incorporated in December 2018. It is designed to be Indigenous-led, with an Indigenous Board of Directors who oversee and direct the organization. Numerous non-Indigenous people also contribute by being on our Advisory Council. The Board of Directors runs finances, sets priorities, and appoints staff members as required.

According to the online "territories" map, our property has been part of the lands/territories of the

• Wahpekute


• Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ


• Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux) 

Sunrise River near Sunrise, MN

Photo by J. Harrington

We had read about about the Anishinabe and the Sioux. The term Wahpekute is new to us. We're still searching of details on the time lines of whose territory this was and when, as well as whether there were any actual Native American uses in this vicinity, such as maple sugaring camp, Winter or Summer camp, or whatever. For example, we wonder if the Sunrise River was ever a worthwhile source for wild rice. We'll keep looking and let you know if we find anything. Once again, if anyone has any suggestions for resources regarding Native American places and activities in the St. Croix Valley, please leave a comment.

The Theft Outright

By Heid E. Erdrich

           after Frost

We were the land's before we were.

Or the land was ours before you were a land.

Or this land was our land, it was not your land.

We were the land before we were people,

loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,

or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul—

What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll?

Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands

swimming being from women's hands, we originate,

originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage.

Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by,

possessed by what we now no more possess.

We were the land before we were people,

dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go,

or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots—

Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.

They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.

Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know.

What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go?

Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,

contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.

In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay.

Such as we were we gave most things outright

(the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes

and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .)

We were the land before we were a people,

earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,

or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth—

The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,

still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.

Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Native American place names in the St. Croix river valley #OneMinnesota

We post about dancing with systems and Donella Meadows and Peter Senge and related matters from time to time. In an effort to practice what we preach, walk the talk, or whatever comparable paradigm you like, we're going to try a systems approach as we explore Native American place names in the St. Croix watershed. We decided this after some preliminary research yesterday made it clear we'll make better progress if we start by defining the boundaries of the system we want to describe. But, before we go to far, did you know that before Minnesota became a state, there was a proposal to make the St. Croix River Valley a state? [Time and the River, page 152]

St. Croix River (Wisconsin-Minnesota) facts for kids

Geographically, we're focused on one watershed, the Namekagon/St. Croix. that encompasses parts of two states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and all or parts of ten counties in Minnesota and nine counties in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources [DNR] identifies more than 20 tributaries to the St. Croix. The Minnesota DNR identifies Upper and Lower St. Croix watersheds, separated by the Snake and Kettle River tributaries from the Minnesota side. The St. Croix River Association (we're members) provides access to a geographic information system depiction of the St. Croix basin, sub watersheds and counties. We'll use that as what appears to be the best available integrated and comprehensive geographic identification of the system we're working to describe.

fire, controlled or not, has a long history in the St. Croix valley

Photo by J. Harrington

Our preliminary research yesterday identified a number of resources of Native American place names. In case you're interested, we'll list some of them here.

• Minnesota (Wikipedia)
• Wisconsin (Wikipedia)
• Ojibwe place names
• Dakota place names (Thanks! to @GregSeitz for making sure we didn't miss this resource.)

In days to come, we'll be checking our copies of Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota, and Ojibwe Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions, among other resources. For now, we want to point out that the name of the very county in which we've lived for many years, Chisago, is derived "from two Ojibwe language words meaning "large" and "beautiful"," referencing originally Chisago Lake. (Upham, Warren (1920). Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance. Minnesota Historical Society. p. 107.)

So we now have a list of two states and about twenty counties against which we can screen indigenous place names from the Dakota or Ojibe languages and, perhaps the Ho-Chunk and Menominee tribes if the folks from National Geographic are to be believed.

The Theft Outright

By Heid E. Erdrich

after Frost

We were the land's before we were.

Or the land was ours before you were a land.

Or this land was our land, it was not your land.

We were the land before we were people,

loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,

or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul—

What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll?

Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands

swimming being from women's hands, we originate,

originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage.

Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by,

possessed by what we now no more possess.

We were the land before we were people,

dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go,

or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots—

Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.

They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.

Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know.

What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go?

Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,

contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.

In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay.

Such as we were we gave most things outright

(the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes

and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .)

We were the land before we were a people,

earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,

or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth—

The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,

still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.

Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.