NSS Weekly: The Mni Owe Sni Prayer Camp Ends

Transcript

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INTRO: You are listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota. North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota.

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HOST: This is North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live. I'm Chantel SinGs.

This week, Minnesotans had to bring out their shovels as a mid-March blizzard dropped significant snow across the state, leading to flight cancellations, hundreds of crashes on the roads, and widespread school delays. While it didn't set new records, the storm still brought more than a foot of snow to many communities, with some parts of southern Minnesota seeing close to two feet. Meanwhile, at the Capitol, several committee hearings were canceled or moved online because of the storm, even as lawmakers face pressure to meet the first and second committee deadlines by March 27. And then U.S. Border Officer Greg Bovino, who directed federal operations in the state earlier this year, has announced that he will retire at the end of March.

In today's broadcast, we hear about the end of the Mni Owe Sni prayer camp at Fort Snelling. And we mark Women's History Month by learning from some of the women who have left a lasting mark on our state. But first, here are some of the events that made headlines this week.

[JOHN HOFFMAN: "Institutional loss requires the gravitas of an institutional Memorial."]

Bills commemorating House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and former Senate Leader Carrie Zig are moving forward. Senator John Hoffman has introduced bills to honor two former DFL legislative leaders. One would rename the state office building at the Capitol the Melissa Hortman State Office Building. Hortman and her husband Mark were murdered last summer by a gunman who also attempted to kill Hoffman and his family. The other bill would rename the Minnesota Senate building the Kari Dziedzic Senate Building. Dziedzic served as senate majority leader until her death from cancer in 2024, after more than a decade of representing northeast Minneapolis at the capitol.

JOHN HOFFMAN: No legislator worked as hard, and no legislator knew as much on any issue as Kari Dziedzic.

HOST: Another proposal creating a state park around the Capitol grounds honoring Hortman and her husband Mark will be delayed until the next legislative session.

New data shows progress in Minnesota's program to combat homelessness among veterans.  There are just 150 homeless veterans in Minnesota, the fewest since the state started its homeless veterans' registry program in 2015. The new report shows a 25-percent drop since last year.

The Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is reclaiming some 90 acres of North Shore land, including Paradise Beach and Francis Island on Lake Superior. The band will mark the transfer with a signing ceremony. The purchase was made possible by a $1.2 million dollar gift from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, which enabled the band to buy the parcels from his family's trust that held the land for generations. Band chairman Bobby Deschampe says the return doesn't erase the painful history of the land grab but it's a step toward accountability and reconciliation.

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HOST: Next, the final tipi came down at the Mni Owe Sni prayer camp at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis. The camp stood for more than a month, sparking debate over the land's history and drawing criticism from some Indigenous leaders. Reporter Xan Holston followed the story.

XAN HOLSTON: Over a month after the first tipis went up, the Mni Owe Sni prayer camp at Coldwater Spring is gone. The site, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, is known to Dakota people as Bdote. It's considered their place of origin and one of the most sacred sites in the region. What began as protests tied to immigration enforcement, shifted into a spiritual encampment, and not everyone agreed on what it should be.

ALLEN MICHAEL OWEN: It took a lot, because what started here was a political movement.

XAN HOLSTON: That's Allen Michael Owen, a Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota man. He didn't start the camp, but he eventually assumed a leadership role, along with a small group. As controversy arose around the camp's direction—

ALLEN MICHAEL OWEN: There was a lot of steps and changes of leadership here, and we saw to it that anyone who was problematic in course of meeting all ends that this place is conducive to ceremony.

XAN HOLSTON: The encampment sat just across the freeway from the Whipple Federal Building. A group set up tipis in early February in response to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement effort that led to arrests of several Native Americans in the Twin Cities, raising concerns about racial profiling. For weeks, the camp drew visitors and supporters, but it also sparked sometimes vicious debate online, including accusations of drug use and abusive behavior and anger over a GoFundMe tied to the camp. Owen says those people were asked to leave the camp, but the damage was done.

ALLEN MICHAEL OWEN: There's still old narratives, and it's hard, because you come by the fire and you understand everything here completely, but if you get it from the outside world, it's always going to be a million ways from reality.

XAN HOLSTON: Dakota and Lakota tribal leaders in Minnesota and surrounding states said the camp risked damaging the sacred site, one they've spent more than a decade restoring alongside the National Park Service, including re-establishing Native plants and securing its place in the National Register of Historic Places. Tensions came to a head in early March when tribal leaders from across the region denounced the camp and federal officials ordered it cleared within 24 hours. The next day, a delegation of Dakota headsmen arrived with a large group of men.

NAT SOUND: …drugs in that camp. They all know. They got evidence on you. You guys set up camp right across the street from a federal….

XAN HOLSTON: At a parking lot near the camp entrance, one camp member had his camera broken and taken. Another camp member was assaulted, and others alleged a gun was pulled and pointed at them. Hennepin County Sheriffs responded and arrested one person. The violence ultimately led to Lakota spiritual leader Arvol Looking Horse coming to the camp himself to negotiate.

ARVOL LOOKING HORSE: The thing that is causing all of us problems is that this is a very sacred place. A spiritual law has been broken. That's why I'm here.

XAN HOLSTON: During a tense nearly four hour conversation around the sacred fire at the heart of the camp, Looking Horse told camp leaders the prolonged occupation of the site was breaking spiritual protocol.

ARVOL LOOKING HORSE: This is a place where many tribes came to do ceremony, but now, it's a burial ground.

XAN HOLSTON: The negotiations touched on everything from tribal authority to spiritual sovereignty and how the land at the site is currently used. Sophie Watson was one of the camp's young Dakota leaders.

SOPHIE WATSO: We do not wish to live upon this land. We do not wish to build houses and a bathroom. We want a prayer camp where Dakota people can come and reconnect in these ways that we've been deprived.

XAN HOLSTON: She says she came to the camp after being pulled from her car and arrested by ICE agents. She credits the camp for healing her trauma and says being here is giving many people a chance to connect with her spiritual practices in ways previously unavailable to them.

SOPHIE WATSO: I don't understand how coming and praying and being together and uplifting each other and healing is wrong.

XAN HOLSTON: Eventually, Looking Horse and the camp came to an agreement. The camp would hold the space for four uninterrupted days of prayer and fasting and then leave. Kevin Abourezk is a Rosebud Lakota man who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. He's co-leader of Mesquite Prayer Camp, a group who brought the tipis to the site in early February.

KEVIN ABOUREZK: You know, whatever, whatever frictions, political differences, you know, I know there's been so much.

XAN HOLSTON: He says, despite the difficulties the camp faced in its short life, the connections members and visitors made around the sacred fire will live on.

KEVIN ABOUREZK: The people who walk away from this camp, they're going to walk away with a fire in their hearts. This place has sparked something. It's shown them what it truly feels like to be free.

XAN HOLSTON: For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.

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HOST: Nearly all of Minnesota Territory was once the traditional Dakota homeland of Mni Sóta Maḳoce. Through the 1851 and 1858 treaties, the Dakota ceded most of that land, leaving them with a small reservation along the Minnesota River, much of which was lost after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Today, Native-led groups like Waḳaƞ Tị́pi Awanyankapi are keeping that history alive. They promote environmental stewardship and engage people in honoring sacred sites and cultural values. To Learn more about sacred Dakota sites and the organization's new center, we are now joined by Maggie Lorenz, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe and descendant of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation. She is the Executive Director of the Wakan Tipi Center in St. Paul. Can you tell us more about the work the organization does and details about your new center?

MAGGIE LORENZ: Thanks for having me. The center where I work is called Wakan Tipi Center. It's a cultural and environmental interpretive center that was just constructed. We haven't even opened to the public yet. We have our Grand Opening planned for the end of May, so Friday, May 29. But we do have some programs that have already started. The center is located at the Wakan Tipi site, which is part of the newly designated Imniżaska Cultural Landscape in the city of Saint Paul. So this site was formerly known as Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in Saint Paul, and it is connected to what was formerly known as Indian Mounds Regional Park. That name has been restored to a Dakota name. Wicahapi, which means burial site or cemetery in Dakota.

HOST: What makes it significant?

MAGGIE LORENZ: One of the features of this site is a cave that is also known as Carver's Dave, but since time immemorial, has been known as Wakan Tipi by Dakota people, which means the dwelling place of something holy or mysterious. This cave sits at the base of the bluff at the very far end of what is now Wakan Tipi’s 27-acre nature preserve. And so that cave site is a place where Dakota people, for generations, have come to pray, hold ceremony, have annual council meetings amongst leaders of the various communities up and down the river valleys. And also, according to one of my elders, is just a well-known place in our history as a kind of like a center for trade, and then above the cave on top of the bluffs, this kind of the highest point on the Mississippi River, and right at this incredible bend in the river, and you can kind of oversee so much of the land in the area from that vantage point is where our burial mounds are. At the top there of what was formerly known as Indian Mounds Regional Park. I think it's really important that people understand that this is really, really deep and significant history right here in the heart of our capital city.

HOST: How is the knowledge and stewardship of these sacred sites passed down from generation to generation in Dakota communities?

MAGGIE LORENZ: There are a lot of conversations happening in our community right now about this topic, the transmission of knowledge between generations and the transmission, I think, also, of sacred knowledge and knowledge around protocols that pertain to kind of taking care of sacred places, taking care of burial sites. There are teachings that go with all of these things. That knowledge is transmitted through generations, typically in families, but also through relationships, and so it's really important that people who want to kind of get into this area of work spend time with elders, so that you can step into that work in a good way and really understand the responsibilities and what's required of you as a a two-legged person being responsible to steward and caretake for some of these most sacred places that we have.

HOST: Maggie, what key lessons can we learn from these sites today, and how do they connect to current environmental and cultural efforts?

MAGGIE LORENZ: One thing that I think our lands here, that are culturally important in the Twin Cities, can help people learn or do is really help reconnect people with their own spirit. Help reconnect people with land. You know, I think that these sites offer places for all people to pray and connect to their spirit and to the land and that energy of the earth, and really reflect on how to be again in good relationship with all of our relatives. What does that mean for us as two-legged, or human, beings to be in good relationship? But I also think that it's important for especially non-Native people to consider the role that they would play at some of these places. For Dakota people, we don't have churches or synagogues. We have sacred sites. We have the land. That’s where we go to pray. And so that requires space, and that requires privacy and time for people to connect. So I think these places of power offer that to everyone, and I think it's really important that that space is created and access is created for Native people to continue their way of life and carry out their responsibilities to these sites as well and in ways that feel appropriate for the Native community.

HOST: Well, Maggie, thank you so much for all of the hard work you do to keep these sites sacred, and thank you so much for your time. We appreciate you.

MAGGIE LORENZ: Thanks again for inviting me.

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HOST: After the break, we'll learn from some of the women who have shaped the history of the state. This is North Star Stories, Voices from Where We Live, produced by AMPERS, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. We'll be right back.

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HOST: You are listening to North Star Stories, I'm Chantel SinGs. In other news from across the state--

Minnesota athletes are coming home from the Paralympic Winter Games with a big haul. The state sent 10 Paralympians to Italy, the most of any state, and five are bringing back medals. Lake Elmo's Sydney Peterson took gold in the women's 10‑kilometer standing classic race, then added a second individual gold in the 20‑kilometer freestyle. She also helped Team USA defend its title in the 4x2.5‑kilometer mixed relay. On the ice, the U.S. sled hockey team won its fifth straight Paralympic gold by beating Canada 6–2. St. Cloud snowboarder Mike Schultz won a bronze medal in Para Snowboard Men's Banked Slalom. Team USA finished second in the overall Paralympic medal count after 10 days of competition.

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HOST: Next, for this year's commemoration of Women's History Month, reporter frankie felegy introduces a few Minnesota women whose names you should know, from prominent artists to accessibility powerhouses.

MARGO IMDIEKE CROSS: I don't remember walking. In my dreams I walk.

FRANKIE FELEGY: That's the voice of the late Margo Imdieke Cross, a wheelchair user since she was a toddler. Imdieke Cross was a true leader in making Minnesota more accessible. She died in 2024, leaving a legacy of access for others living with barriers to mobility.

LINDA GREMILLON: Even though not everybody in the state of Minnesota knows Margo, everybody has touched her work.

FRANKIE FELEGY: Linda Gremillon works at the Minnesota Council on Disability, where Imdieke Cross worked for 35 years. Gremillon remembers Imdieke Cross as a fierce feminist and a pioneering advocate.

LINDA GREMILLON: She just was a force to be reckoned with.

FRANKIE FELEGY: Imdieke Cross pushed to pass disability rights legislation. She was the state of Minnesota's only accessibility specialist. Imdieke Cross helped to make the Minnesota Senate building and State Capitol more accessible, as well as US Bank Stadium, Target Field, CHS field and Allianz field. She was integral to making Minnesota State Parks and Trails in Minnesota a place for everyone.

LINDA GREMILLON: To go to college, she would wait for the bus, and the bus would open, and she would have to—she would call it butt up the stairs. She just was bound and determined that that was not going to be the norm in our culture anymore, because Margot Imdieke Cross was here now.

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FRANKIE FELEGY: Around the time Imdieke Cross was learning to use a wheelchair as a toddler, in the late 1950s, a pioneering group of women were also making history. Their claim to fame: Music.

[Music: a recording of Las Hermanas Rangel]

FRANKIE FELEGY: Meet Las Hermanas Rangel.

FRANK WHITE: They're referred to as the Andrews Sisters of the West Side in the West Side flats, and they sang at events and holidays.

FRANKIE FELEGY: That's Frank White. His mother, Fidela Rangel White, formed the St Paul trio with her sisters, Frank's aunts Juanita Rangel Moran and Maria Rangel Moran. After moving from Mexico in 1928, the sisters got their start singing in the choir at Our Lady of Guadalupe church in St Paul. They'd sing ballads and corridos at weddings and celebrations like Quinceaneras, which celebrates a girl's transition to womanhood. Across the Twin Cities, singing alongside their brothers cha-cha and mambo band the Kico Rangel Band, airing on the radio and live at the Minnesota State Fair. Las Hermanas Rangel and their brother are said to be the first Latino music family in the state. They formed what was called the West Side Latino sound that developed in the 70s.

FRANK WHITE: They became like the most prominent singers and band of the of the time. The impact of the family on the west side has been a tremendous impact to that community.

FRANKIE FELEGY: Making music was and still is White's family's way of carrying on tradition. The trio has seen different members and iterations, all women in the family, from Fidela, Juanita and Maria to Eugenia and Genevieve, five generations white, says of musicians, singers and dancers. In the 1970s when that West Side sound was kicking off, another artistic movement was underway. Diane McLeod is one of the founding members of a statewide art collective by and for women.

DIANE MCLEOD: We were quite a sensational group.

FRANKIE FELEGY: The artist noticed she was feeling isolated from her artistic community. She was in her early 30s.

DIANE MCLEOD: I wanted a community of women who felt, as I did, that we had been left out of the art world because of the prominence of men being able to show their work in galleries. And women, for the most part, were not included.

FRANKIE FELEGY: McLeod put up a small poster and nailed it around Minneapolis looking for fellow women artists. A group of them gathered and found a gallery space to rent. They renovated it, painted its walls white and came up with the name the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota, or WARM, established in 1973.

DIANE MCLEOD: We all just put our hair up and grabbed the paint brushes and went to work.

FRANKIE FELEGY: McLeod helped the organization put on shows and collect a list of women artists across the state. It turned into a now defunct mentorship program when the gallery closed in the early 90s.

DIANE MCLEOD: There wasn't anything like us. I think it just was needed. It was liberating on many levels for many people.

FRANKIE FELEGY: Woman or not, McLeod says to express yourself and create.

DIANE MCLEOD: Satisfy the soul. It's an opportunity, if one follows that urge to show others what I can do. You know, here I am, here's my imagination and my life, my thoughts, you know, my journey.

FRANKIE FELEGY: Her journey. from barrier breakers to innovators, these Minnesota women helped shape Minnesota history. For month-long celebrations of more local, influential women, the Minnesota History Center has in person and virtual programming through the end of the month and into spring. For North Star Stories, I'm frankie felegy.

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HOST: Events around the state are celebrating the many contributions of women to our history, including a Minnesota Historical Society exhibit called "Women with Taste: Culinary Visionaries of the Twin Cities." The exhibit highlights eight women who challenged expectations, pushed for a more inclusive food scene, transformed dining in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and opened doors for future generations of women in the culinary world. To learn more, we're joined by Kate Roberts, a senior exhibits developer with the Minnesota Historical Society, who helped create the exhibition. How are you?

KATE ROBERTS: I'm doing well, and you?

HOST: I'm good. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Tell us about Women with Taste. What will viewers find in this exhibit?

KATE ROBERTS: Women with Taste is a panel exhibit, which means that it's graphics along the wall of the mill commons area of Mill City Museum. What people do there is learn about eight women whose careers really challenged expectations, as you mentioned, each one of them really fought and for a more inclusive food scene within the Twin Cities. They each sort of saw a challenge, a way to advance the role of women in the culinary scene.

HOST: And they went for it when we think about culinary stars, kitchens have long been male dominated, as we, most of us, know, with the chef as the boss. So how did you go about finding and selecting these particular women?

KATE ROBERTS: That's a really good point. And so what we found was that many cases, these women were firsts, as you say, they were moving into a male dominated field. I can start with the earliest woman who's featured. Her name is Marjorie Husted. If you haven't heard of her, and you probably haven't, you certainly have heard of Betty Crocker. She was the home economist who ran the home service department for what was then Washburn Crosby, now General Mills. What's interesting about her story is that she was literally the person behind Betty Crocker, writing many of the scripts for the radio program, helping the scores of women who were answering letters. And yet, the field that she was in was definitely sidelined in favor of men still working in the food industry and working in that particular field. So she's one example of somebody who worked very hard to professionalize the lives of women who were working in the food industry as home economists.

HOST: So Kate, tell me what was the most impactful story you uncovered while putting this exhibition together?

KATE ROBERTS: I'm going to go back to learning about Vera Coronado, and if people are familiar with the West Side of St Paul and La Casa Coronado and Boca Chica restaurant, that's all the legacy of a woman named Vera Coronado and what is now the fourth generation of chefs from her family. Here's what surprised me. She opened her restaurant, her Mexican restaurant, in 1946. She was having to introduce this to people. She gave away free tamales, just so people would be able to taste the cuisine. Her ads are hilarious because she says things like, this is a smorgasbord, but also not a smorgasbord. It’s different foods. They're not spicy. I mean, she's really telling Minnesotans this is all okay. You're getting off the food. That was the biggest. One of the biggest surprises for me was just how recent some of these food innovations are.

HOST: So how do you see the diversity, Kate, in the culinary scene in this Twin Cities or the state today? What does that look like?

KATE ROBERTS: Yeah, this is something that we really worked hard to highlight, because it's there. We have a tremendously diverse dining scene the industry is based in, I would say, diversity, collaboration, communication across cultures. So what we did in the exhibit was, as you say, we looked at some of the people who helped diversify early on, but we also showcased Lachelle Cunningham, who is one of our current chefs in the Twin Cities. What she has done, she's taken her Twin Cities roots and combine them with a very deep knowledge of African American traditional cooking, kind of redefining what we think of as soul food to focus on the way that Africans and African Americans have made use of every bit of every food available to them. She runs the Healthy Roots Institute. She runs City Food Studio. She has a zine. All of these ways that she's reaching out to younger chefs to train and to inspire them, while at the same time spreading the word of the kind of food that she thinks is crucial and critical to be preserved. She talks about, I don't teach people how to cook, I teach them how to preserve tradition.

HOST: So tell us, Kate, how long will this exhibit be up?

KATE ROBERTS: It's up over at Mill City Museum, which is our Minneapolis branch, and it will be up through May 31.

HOST: Well, it has been a pleasure to talk to you, Kate, a pleasure to meet you. You sound like it has been a joy to be a part of this project, and it sounds amazing. So looking forward to checking it out. And thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

KATE ROBERTS: Absolutely. Thank you.

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HOST: And lastly, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' FalconCam is now live for the 2026 nesting season. And for the first time, it includes sound. In its 16th year, the high-res livestream gives a close-up look at peregrine falcon courtship, nest prep, and occasional calls, while supporting statewide conservation efforts. You can find the FalconCam on the DNR website or the DNR YouTube channel.

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This is it for today's program. If you missed any part of today's newscast, you can find this and past episodes at AMPERS.org, or listen to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also get North Star Stories Daily on our website or check your favorite station's schedule. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with more stories and voices from the North Star State.

OUTRO: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at AMPERS.org.