At the Falls: An Urban Ojibwe Story of Minneapolis Placemaking

May 18, 2022.Reading time 23 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth entry in this month’s theme at The Metropole, Urban Indigeniety. Additional entries in the series can be found at the conclusion of this article. By Sasha Maria Suarez Ignatia Broker (White Earth Ojibwe) remembered that to get a “toe-hold” in mid-twentieth century Minneapolis, newly arrived Indigenous peoples had to […]

The Carceral Landscape of Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote: An Interview with Katherine Hayes

November 2, 2020.Reading time 26 minutes.

By Avigail Oren The recent work of historical anthropologist Katherine Hayes has focused on decolonizing the narratives interpreted at public heritage sites, including St. Paul’s Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote. The United States military constructed Fort Snelling in 1819-20 to protect the area’s fur trade, a role it served until Minnesota gained statehood in 1858 […]

Dreaming in Somali: Immigrant Incorporation in the Twin Cities

October 26, 2020.Reading time 30 minutes.

By Stefanie Chambers & Betsy Kalin This post focuses on the Somali American experience in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. We are currently in the process of making a documentary film about this important community. Interestingly, the film is the result of a collaboration between a professor (Chambers) who wrote a […]

Minneapolis and the Rise of Nutrition Capitalism

October 20, 2020.Reading time 12 minutes.

By Michael J. Lansing Dakota people call it Owámniyomni. For centuries, they envisioned the Mississippi River’s largest waterfall as a sacred place. The fifty-foot drop harbors an intense spiritual energy. In the 1820s, the arrival of the United States government—in the guise of white soldiers—gave rise to a new understanding of the falls they called […]

“Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds”: Examining Minnesota’s Indigenous History

October 13, 2020.Reading time 14 minutes.

By Katrina Phillips Minnesota has always been a Native place. The state takes its name from a Dakota phrase, Mni Sota Makoce, which translates to “land where the waters reflect the clouds.” While the state’s capital is the other Twin City (St. Paul), Minneapolis is the largest city in the state. Its English name also […]

Where the Waters Meet the People: A Bibliography of the Twin cities

October 7, 2020.Reading time 41 minutes.

By Avigail Oren In This Tender Land (2019), William Kent Kreuger’s loose update of Huck Finn, the O’Banion brothers and their compatriots Emmy and Mose end up in St. Paul, Minnesota, after escaping from the Lincoln Indian Training School—and its despicable, abusive, headmaster Mrs. Brinkman—and sailing down the Minnesota River in a canoe. After passing […]