|
minnesotaHistory.net a forum for discussing current events relating to the history of MINNESOTA
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
"Nothing in my education prepared me to believe, or encouraged me to expect that there was any reason to be interested in my own place." Paul Gruchow, Grass Roots: The Universe of Home
"I take the occasion to say that this volume could not have been written but for access to the treasures of the Minnesota Historical Society." William W. Folwell, A History of Minnesota
"History Matters." The motto of a current funding campaign by the Minnesota Historical Socety, unrelated to this website
"Trust, but verify." Ronald Reagan
|
||
|
Mdote Minisota A Public EIS Part 7 -October 6, 2006- A Vision for Coldwater, Seven Years Later
Bruce White The Bureau of Mines property at Coldwater Spring, near Fort Snelling in Hennepin County, Minnesota, presents a tremendous opportunity and challenge for today's decision makers, who are just the latest in a series of public officials and concerned citizens who have discussed the site's uses over the years. What should happen to the property and what plan would best achieve that outcome? Should it be office space for a school or a state or federal agency, or should it be parkland? Should it remain under federal ownership or become property of a state or local institution? How can the Native American historical, cultural, and sacred connection to the property best be accommodated? And how can the other historical, cultural, and environmental resources of the property best be preserved? The current NEPA process for the former Bureau of Mines–Twin Cities research facility has as its goal the gathering of information to inform a decision by the Department of Interior as to what will happen to the property. While it is important for the public to comment on the adequacy of the information the National Park Service and its consultants have gathered for its draft EIS, it is also important to think about solutions and practical ways through which they can be achieved. Guidance as to what should happen to the property can be found in its recorded history. During the last 200 years, Coldwater has been an encampment and ceremonial place for Indian people, an early home for soldiers, and a trading post and settlement. Throughout the 19th century Coldwater Spring was the water supply for Fort. During part of that time it appears to have been a public park. Photographs show recreational boaters floating in the spring basin in the late 19th century. Maps from the 1920s and early 1930s list the area as "Coldwater Park." In the 1950s Minnesota Historical Society director Russell Fridley, who was instrumental in saving Historic Fort Snelling from highway construction, envisioned that all of Camp Coldwater would be completely preserved as a park. Unfortunately Coldwater suffered a different fate. The Bureau of Mines was allowed to build its Twin Cities research facility there, which was in operation until the 1990s. During that period, public use of the spring was limited. Since the Bureau of Mines went out of business, the idea that the Coldwater area might be preserved as open space, with its historical, cultural, and sacred qualities protected, has often been raised. One detailed proposal along these lines was in a report written for federal and state agencies in early 1999. Acknowledging the possible significance of the spring as traditional place of importance for Indian people and as a sacred place, the report proposed managing the property with these factors in mind, through the removal of buildings and replanting with prairie vegetation and oaks. The entire Bureau of Mines property, it noted, would make a welcome if added to nearby park land in a "historically rich area," a step that would "protect the site of Camp Coldwater and Coldwater spring for the future." This vision for Coldwater is still a vital one and may be a good starting point for present-day discussion of what should happen to the Bureau of Mines property. ****** Early in 1999, The Cultural Resource Group of Louis Berger and Associates, Inc. (as the company was then called) was hired by the Minnesota Department of Transportation for the Highway 55 reroute project, funded in part by the Federal Highway Administration, to do a cultural and historical research report on the Highway 55 corridor in the area of Coldwater Spring. The report was written by archaeologists John Hotopp and Randall Withrow during a time of great controversy, when highway opponents were questioning the adequacy of an earlier EIS (environmental impact statement) done in the 1980s. Highway opponents had pointed out that there was little or nothing in that EIS about the historical and cultural resources of the Coldwater area. Hotopp and Withrow conducted research to deal with one major question at issue: Were four oak trees located in the middle of the highway corridor near 54th Street a place of traditional cultural importance to the Dakota? The writers stated that they found no evidence to support this status. At the same time the authors stated that they did find evidence that Coldwater Spring, the source of which would pass through the highway corridor, could very well be a traditional cultural property (TCP). They suggested that full TCP study should be done, including consultation with Dakota and other Indian people to examine the question. Because of what they said about the four oak trees, Hotopp and Withrow were criticized, rightly or wrongly, by highway opponents. They were also questioned by some historians, including me, for ignoring important documentary evidence about the historic Coldwater settlement. But now that a new TCP study, done for the National Park Service by the firms Summit Envirosolutions and Two Pines Resource Group, has supported Hotopp and Withrow's conclusion about the TCP status of Coldwater Spring, it is worthwhile to look back at the Berger report, not only for its discussion of the culture and history of the spring, but also for the vision it suggests for the area. As it happens, this vision is not contained in the public Berger report, but rather in a draft submitted to government officials in May 1999 for comment. As a result of that consultation, part of the statement was removed from the final report. A section the unedited draft report, made available by one of the agencies involved as a result of a request for information, contains a segment titled "Recommendations." Read today, the statement has great resonance: The Department of Interior is in the process of completing the closeout of the Bureau of Mines operation which is immediately east of the proposed reroute of T.H. 55. While it has been determined that the reroute of T.H. 55 will have no effect on the Department of Interior property [buildings], this property contains the site of Camp Coldwater which has been determined eligible for the National Register as a contributing element to the Fort Snelling Historic District. The Camp Coldwater site also contains the Coldwater spring, spring house and pool constructed during the military occupation of the area. Serious concerns about the fate of the spring were voiced by a number of the Native Americans who provided information during the Traditional Cultural Property assessment of the four bur oak trees for the T.H. 55 reroute. Based on the information obtained during the bur oak study, it appears that the Coldwater spring head may be eligible to the National Register as a Traditional Cultural Property in addition to its current role as a contributing element to the Fort Snelling Historic District. The spring may also qualify as a sacred place under [President Clinton's] Executive Order 13007 [concerning American Indian sacred sites on federal property]. A cultural affiliation study to determine the tribes that have traditional ties to the Coldwater spring will need to be conducted as part of a larger study designed to evaluate the spring as a potential Traditional Cultural Property. The present study, while focusing on the issue of the four bur oak trees, has collected substantial information regarding the importance of the Coldwater spring to the Dakota and Ojibwa. What has not been done, is to conduct focused interviews with elders of these and other tribes that may have an interest in the spring. Some evidence, for example, has been generated that the Iowa tribe may have an early involvement with the Coldwater spring. Should the spring meet the requirements of Executive Order 13007, a management plan providing access to the spring for Native American religious practices could be implemented. Assuming that the Department of the Interior transfers the Bureau of Mines property to the Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) [an earlier disposal plan later abandoned] as a clear zone, removal of the structures on the property will have no effect on the spring, spring house and reservoir. Documentation of the Bureau of Mines structures determined to meet National Register criteria for eligibility should be conducted to Historic American Building Standards (HABS) standards prior to demolition. Once the property is cleaned up after the removal of the buildings, replanting of the site could include native prairie and additional trees, including stands of bur oak which appear to be one of the most common trees in the area. A walking trail which passes the spring pond would provide access from the 54th street area. Management of the property could be by the Minnesota State Historic[al] society as part of the Ft. Snelling Historic District or by the Park Department [City, County or State Parks]. The Bureau of Mines property would make a welcome addition to the park system in this historically rich area and would permanently protect the site of Camp Coldwater and Coldwater spring for the future. Discussion could also be held with the Veterans Administration regarding transfer of their remaining property east of the rerouted T.H. 55 which will remain accessible from 54th street. Acquisition of the area as parkland would provide a substantial recreation area for the residents and visitors. On the original manuscript containing these comments, a longhand notation suggests deleting this entire passage, which is what happened. It is unclear why this comment was marked for removal. Perhaps it was felt that the Bureau of Mines and Highway 55 were separate federal projects and therefore one had nothing to do with the other. However, one reasons the statement appears so farseeing is that the Berger consultants clearly understood the connectedness of places in the Mdote area. After the publication of the Berger report, Coldwater supporters were able to make the case that Highway 55 would in fact affect the flow of water to the spring, and they won a measure of protection for that flow. One of the reasons that the whole Mdote area is pock-marked with development and criss-crossed with highway construction is that few officials in the past understood or defended the integrity of the entire area. Present-day officials, including the National Park Service and the Department of Interior could do far worse than embrace the Berger's vision for Coldwater and look for ways of achieving it.
|
Mdote Minisota A Public EIS Part 8
"A truthful, open, and ongoing environmental review process carried out by the public for the public, is needed to examine, document, and review all actions planned or undertaken by public agencies and private entities within the area of Mdote Minisota. Without such a process in place, this sacred and historic space may continue to be destroyed, bit by bit, historic property by historic property."—Mdote Minisota, A Public EIS, Part 1 -October 16, 2006- Is It Sacred Now? Bruce White In a television commercial a man travels the world with his cell phone, saying into it repeatedly “Can you hear me now?” Recent discussions about the sacredness of Coldwater Spring in Hennepin County, Minnesota appear to revolve around a similar question, based on the need by federal officials to test assertions about the sacredness of the spring, again and again. But given the skepticism with which the idea of sacredness is sometimes greeted by federal agencies and non-Indian people and the slim protection triggered by such assertions, it may be wondered why any Indian person or group would even bother stating to a federal agency that a place is sacred. The draft EIS released by the National Park Service concerning the Bureau of Mines property near Fort Snelling, casts doubt on whether the Dakota or other Native Americans in Minnesota actually believe that Coldwater Spring, which flows out of the ground on the BOM property, is sacred. The key problem is how recently, by whom, and in what manner it was stated. In ordinary speech sacredness is a linguistic and metaphysical matter and a matter of belief. What is sacred differs from group to group and actions required in dealing with them may vary. Often sacredness means something that is very important in intangible ways, something to be protected or avoided. Given the varying meanings of the term, Tom King, author of many works on traditional cultural properties and similar sites has proposed the term “spiritual places,” instead of "sacred sites," as a way of avoiding some of the terminological pitfalls of sacredness. For the purposes of the National Park Service, the term “sacred” has special meaning under federal law, apart from its meaning in ordinary language. The source for this is President Bill Clinton's Executive Order of May 24, 1996, No. 13007, dealing with Indian Sacred Sites: “Sacred site” means any specific, discrete, narrowly delineated location on Federal land that is identified by an Indian tribe, or Indian individual determined to be an appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion, as sacred by virtue of its established religious significance to, or ceremonial use by, an Indian religion; provided that the tribe or appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion has informed the agency of the existence of such a site. It is important to note that the order offers two separate and distinct methods of determining whether a site is sacred. The first is through an Indian tribe. A previous installment of this series describes the letters sent in 1999 by the chairpersons of each of the four federally recognized Dakota communities in Minnesota stating, “We once again state our support of our spiritual leaders that the Coldwater Spring is a spiritual and cultural sacred site.” These leaders failed, for whatever reason, to send the same statement the next year, when asked by the National Park Service. Similarly, although the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma stated in 1999 that the spring was sacred, they had not replied in more recent years to letters from Park Service officials in Minnesota. As a result, Park Service officials appear to have questioned these peoples’ beliefs that the spring was sacred. (More recently, though, the Park Service has stated that it was not skepticism but management responsibility that led it to keep trying to get in touch with the Iowa of Oklahoma; the agency simply wanted to know how to manage the property for the Iowa. A recent statement issued by the Park Service states that Coldwater Spring is officially considered sacred to the Iowa of Oklahoma.) The second method for identifying something as sacred under the Executive Order is identification through an “appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion.” While it is generally understood that “a tribe” is a federally recognized tribe, it is less clear how federal officials might identify an authoritative representative of an Indian religion. Since the two methods of sacred-sites identification are distinguished from each other, there appears to be no reason to believe that the religious representative would have to approved by a particular federally recognized tribe. Rather, it seems clear that the representative would have to be defined in relation to a particular set of beliefs characteristic of Indian people that would fit the term “religion,” though it is always perilous to assign a narrow word such as religion to some Indian spiritual beliefs. Given that there are two stated ways of identifying such sacred sites, the continuing emphasis by the Park Service and others on statements and non-statements by tribal leaders ignores a rich record of evidence regarding the sacredness of Coldwater Spring for Dakota and Ojibwe people. Individuals whose religious credentials are widely respected have stated unambiguously that Coldwater Spring is sacred. It is difficult to imagine government officials questioning their credentials or their assertions. Gary Cavender is an Episcopal minister and a spiritual leader of the Shakopee Dakota at Prior Lake, Minnesota. He has often been a source of traditional Dakota knowledge. He was a major consultant and source for the 2002 nomination of Maka Yusota or Boiling Springs, believed to be the first Dakota traditional cultural property in Minnesota nominated to and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In an affidavit for a 1998 court case relating to the construction of Highway 55, Cavender stated: The Camp Coldwater spring is a sacred spring. Its flow should not be stopped or disturbed. If the flow is disturbed, it cannot be restored. Also, if its source is disturbed, that disturbs the whole cycle of the flow. The spring is the dwelling place of the undergods and is near the center of the Earth. The Spring is part of the cycle of life. The underground stream from the Spring to the Mississippi River must remain open to allow the Gods to enter the River through the passageway. The Spring is the site of our creation myth (or “Garden of Eden”) and the beginning of Indian existence on Earth. Our underwater God “Unktehi” lives in the Spring. The sacredness of the Spring is evident by the fact that it never freezes over, and it is always possible to see activity under the surface of the water. In January 1999 Gary Cavender stated further: The whole area around the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers is sacred to the Dakota people. The most sacred site is the natural spring that is known as Camp Coldwater. My [earlier] affidavit . . . addresses the sacredness of the Coldwater Spring. It is spiritually and culturally essential that the spring and the source water be preserved. We are extremely concerned about evidence that the proposed construction of the highway and its service sewer will destroy the natural flow of the spring. Chris Leith is a Dakota spiritual leader and healer from the Prairie Island Dakota. He has been a Sun Dance chief for more than thirty years. In 2003 he was a source of important information for the successful nomination of Oheyawahi, or Pilot Knob, to the National Register of Historic Places. In an affidavit for a 1998 court case in Hennepin County, Leith stated the following: At Camp Coldwater there is a Spring which is sacred to the Indians. Water is a giver of life and makes things grow. The people in the old village used the Spring water for medicine, ceremonies, washing and purification. They prayed to keep the water pure. Water comes directly out of the ground is very pure. The water nurtured the Indians who lived in the village; it was sacred. They used the water in their sweat lodges. Eddie Benton Benai is an educator and the leader of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge, a religious group of widespread importance and influence in the United States and Canada. He has often been a source of information on Ojibwe cultural and spiritual beliefs. In March 1999 he gave testimony at a hearing relating to Highway 55 construction before representatives of the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. Benai examined the evidence from his own memory and from oral tradition to arrive at his own determination about the sacredness of Coldwater Spring and the area around it, recorded here in an imperfect transcription: Through our oral traditions, our history, recent and older, we know that the falls which . . . came to be known as Minnehaha Falls, that there was a sacred place, . . . a neutral place for many nations to come, and that further geographically define the confluence of the three rivers, which is actually the two rivers, that that point likewise was a neutral place. And that somewhere between that point and the falls, there were sacred grounds that were mutually held to be a sacred place. And that the spring from which the sacred water should be drawn was not very far, and I’ve never heard any direction from which I could pinpoint, but there’s a spring near the [Midewiwin or medicine] lodge that all nations used to draw the sacred water for the ceremonies. Now that’s in the words of our people of the [Midewiwin] lodge. And the people that are conceerned or the people that are indentified there are the Dakota, the Sac, the Fox, the Potawatomi, the Wahpeton Dakotas, the Mdewakanton Dakotas, the Meskwaki people as all having used and recognizing and mutually agreeing that that is forever a neutral place and forever a sacred place. That is confirmed in our oral history. And it is difficult even to estimate when the last sacred ceremony was held inter-tribally, but my grandfather who lived to be 108 died in 1942, and I will tell you this, that many times he re-told how we traveled, he and his family, he as a small boy traveled by foot, by horse, by canoe to this great place to where there would be these great religious spiritual events, and that they always camped between the falls and the sacred water place. Those are his words. . . . Within my physical memory, visiting the Prairie Island Dakota Nation as early as the 1940s, there were still elders in that community in the 1940s who were still members of the Midewiwin Lodge along with the Winnebago of Wisconsin. And my memory serves me to say that there was a great dialogue among our people and those of the Prairie Island Community regarding the lodge, and that’s how we have always known this way of life and practice as the lodge, but meaning the Midewiwin Lodge as a system of belief. . . . The Honorable Amos Owens . . . is the last person of that community I ever heard talk about that mutually sacred place, meaning the falls and the spring from which sacred water is drawn, Coldwater. The testimony of these religious leaders, which is just one part of a more extensive record about the sacredness of Coldwater held by many American Indian people, clearly demonstrates beliefs found among Dakota and Ojibwe. The National Park Service, however, has a problem: these statements were not made directly to Park Service representatives. According to wording of Clinton’s Executive Order, a site is determined to be sacred “provided the appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion has informed the agency of the existence of such a site” [emphasis added]. To alleviate the apparent confusion among federal officials, these religious leaders and others, including tribal governments, may want to inform agency officials—through letters, personal visits, or other means—about facts of their beliefs. That American Indian political and religious leaders have already stated these facts a number of times in the past is not adequate from the Park Service point of view. But, in the meantime, whether or not the words have been said in the right order at the right time to the right officials, it would seem to be hair splitting or worse to insist that no Native Americans have ever asserted the sacredness of Coldwater Spring. Why Call It Sacred? It might well be asked why American Indian communities or leaders would want to insist on the sacredness of a place to federal officials. In doing so, Indian people must weigh the pros and cons of such declarations. Under federal law an assertion of sacredness has very particular consequences, though very little long term protection. Federal agencies are simply required to consult Indian people for whom a property is sacred, in managing the property. Section 2 of the Executive Order on Indian sacred sites states among other things that: (b) Within 1 year of the effective date of this order, the head of each executive branch agency with statutory or administrative responsibility for the management of Federal lands shall report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, on the implementation of this order. Such reports shall address, among other things, i. any changes necessary to accommodate access to and ceremonial use of Indian sacred sites; ii. any changes necessary to avoid adversely affecting the physical integrity of Indian sacred sites; and iii. procedures implemented or proposed to facilitate consultation with appropriate Indian tribes and religious leaders and the expeditious resolution of disputes relating to agency action on Federal lands that may adversely affect access to, ceremonial use of, or the physical integrity of sacred sites. But the order goes on to state that it shall “not be construed to require a taking of vested property interests. Nor shall this order be construed to impair enforceable rights to use of Federal lands that have been granted to third parties through final agency action.” Further the order states that it is intended only to improve the internal management of the executive branch and is not intended to, nor does it, create any right, benefit, or trust responsibility, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or equity by any party against the United States, its agencies officers, or any person. Ultimately the order simply directs the agencies to talk to Indian people about trying to manage defined sacred sites on federal land. It does not assure Indian people that they will be satisfied with the result of such discussions and it provides no assurance of preservation. Another problem with the sacredness under the Executive Order is that a very public assertion of sacredness may draw public attention to places Native people would prefer to be left alone. In the case of Coldwater Spring, public statements were made about the sacredness of the spring in 1999. This brought a lot of attention to the site. In the last five years, a non-Indian spiritual group laid out a labyrinth made of grasses, rocks, and wood, which has remained in the hill next to the spring to this day. Though those who built and maintain the labyrinth are sincere in their beliefs and have themselves worked for the preservation of the spring, it is not clear that Indian people in general or Dakota people in particular appreciate the labyrinth, though most have been too polite to object publicly. Were those who placed the labyrinth at Coldwater Spring drawn to the spring by the very public expressions in 1999 about the sacredness of the spring? It is not known, but paradoxically it may be that if Indian people want this religious expression to be removed one way would be to get in touch with the National Park Service or the Fish and Wildlife Service—which actually manages the BOM property at the moment—and make clear that the spring is sacred for them and that they desire that the spring be managed by the federal government in such a way that these kinds of semi-permanent religious expressions are not allowed to be placed there. Exactly what the federal agencies might do at that point is unclear, but they might very well seek the removal of the labyrinth. Park Service officials have stated recently that their lives would be made a lot easier if Indian people would simply say to the right person in the right way at the right time that Coldwater Spring is sacred. If that is truly the case it is hoped that Indian people will soon help them out. They should get in touch with BOM project manager Kim Berns at Kim_Berns@nps.gov or (651) 290-3030 extension 244, for more information on how to inform the Park Service of the Indian sacredness of Coldwater for federal purposes.
SEND Comments, Additions, Corrections, and Submissions on this and other issues to:
Mdote Minisota: Mdote Minisota, A Public EIS, Part 1: A Journey Through the Center of the Earth Mdote Minisota, A Public EIS, Parts 2 and 3: The Clouse Report Mdote Minisota, A Public EIS, Part 5: Read the (Secret) Clouse Report, Finally Mdote Minisota, A Public EIS, Part 6: Park Service to Dakota People: "Drop Dead." Burial Mound Issues: Part 1: The Death of a Mound, Politics and Human Remains in Minnesota Part 2: A New Mound, Just as Good as the Old Mound Part 3: The Power to "Authenticate and Identify" is the Power to Destroy Part 4: The Remains Are NOT in a Circle Part 5: Messages from the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Part 7: The Lincoln Mounds Cover-up Part 8: When is a Mound Sacred? Part 9: Laying to Rest the People of the Lincoln Mounds Three Archaeologists Write About Burial Mounds Comments and Additions to "Death of a Mound" Reflections on Sacred Places: Ancestors are Woven in the Fabric, By Jeanne Pinette-Souldern Reflections on Sacred Places: Quiet Sentinels, By Bill Braddock Reflections on Sacred Places: Burial Mounds and Ethics, By Debbra Myers Reflections on Sacred Places: Minnesota's Disappearing Mounds, By Bruce White |
Mdote Minisota A Public EIS Part 1 -February 21, 2006- A Journey Through the Center of the Earth Mdote Minisota (or more accurately, Bdote Minisota) is a large area surrounding the mouth of the Minnesota River, including parts of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and several Twin Cities suburbs. Mdote Minisota is for Dakota people a cultural, historic, and sacred center, the place where the world began. It is also the center of Minnesota’s European-American history, the place where European-Americans first began to leave their mark on the Minnesota landscape. And now it is the center of development pressure that can only get more intense in the years ahead. To visit Mdote, drive south along the new Highway 55 from downtown Minneapolis. As you pass over Lake Street you travel through a corridor lined with ornate street lamps, an imitation of a boulevard in a European town, though one with little use for pedestrians. At Minnehaha Creek, just above the mythic Minnehaha Falls, you pass through a tunnel just before the bridge crossing the creek. Then you see a tree-filled parkland to the left just beyond the freeway wall, at least what is left of the trees after the highway was built. Just beyond 54th Street the VA hospital complex is up a hill on the right, a hill known as Taku Wakan Tipi, the dwelling place of the gods. On the left is the old Bureau of Mines site with its sacred Coldwater Spring. The road now joins Highway 62 and, in one of the most complex intersections in the state, passes over highways linking St. Paul and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Just beyond the airport is the former site of the Lincoln Mounds, destroyed in 2004 to build two new high-rise buildings called Reflections at Bloomington Central Station. Beyond that looming in the distance is the Mall of America. When your car shoots out onto the Mendota Bridge, Historic Fort Snelling is just to the left. Directly below the bridge is the location of the tragic place where 1,600 Dakota men, women, and children were interned during the winter of 1862-63. Nearby the Minnesota River flows into the Mississippi around Pike Island, in Fort Snelling State Park, where the Treaty of 1805 was signed. At the end of the bridge is the 150-year-old St. Peter’s Catholic Church, and on the right is Pilot Knob or Oheyawahi, a sacred hill. Down the road on the left is the Sibley House Historic Site, the home of Minnesota's first elected governor. The highway now rises as you head into the suburbs. The place you have just passed through is the center of the earth. This is the way the Eastern Dakota viewed the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Many still view it this way. It is also a good way to view the importance of this place in Minnesota history and culture, its importance for all Minnesotans not just Dakota people. It was here that the modern state of Minnesota began. This is a battered landscape, but in the trees, along the highways, and in between the modern buildings, are the remnants of that beginning, the sacred places of the people’s history. This landscape is the way it is in part because Mdote Minisota is under the control of a dozen different state, federal, and local agencies, each with different priorities and different understandings of the wholeness and significance of this sacred and historic place. Over the years the various cultural resources located within Mdote Minisota have been the subject of some very specific and localized environmental reviews and impact statements. As it happens, one such EIS has been undertaken by the National Park Service for the site of the former Bureau of Mines, Twin Cities Campus, a 27.32-acre site that includes the historic and sacred Coldwater Spring. A draft EIS is now being written. It is too early to evaluate fully how well the NPS-Bureau of Mines process is working. However public experience of the various environmental reviews in the past have provided some important warnings about the need for early and continuing public involvement in commenting on these projects and in contributing to and reviewing these environmental reviews. In the 1950s, the Minnesota Highway Department put together a plan to build a new bridge and highway across the Mississippi River between St. Paul and Fort Snelling. If carried out as originally planned this would have destroyed the remains of Historic Fort Snelling dating back to 1820. Only as a result of public pressure led by the Minnesota Historical Society was this destruction prevented. Shortly after that, however, much of the site of the Indian Agency and other nearby historic properties were taken out by highway construction. In the early 1980s an environmental impact statement was done relating to the reroute of Highway 55, a highway connecting Minneapolis to the southern suburbs. Although a few military sites were mentioned in the analysis of affected areas, the impact of the highway on the area of the early Coldwater settlement and on places of importance to Dakota people such as the spring, was not discussed. It was only when the highway began to be built in the late 1990s that public interest in these areas was expressed. Despite public objections the highway was built, but in the process public groups were able to obtain new protection for Coldwater Spring under state law. This protection would never have happened without the actions of those conscientious citizens sometimes called “protestors.” Aside from a lesson about public knowledge and participation in reviewing the environmental reviews, these experiences also demonstrated some important lessons about the scope of such studies. Environmental studies done under the mandate of federal and state law tend to look at narrow historic resources and narrow effects, without any understanding of the wider significance of distinctive places. For example, the fact that Highway 55 would interrupt the flow of water to a sacred spring was not initially considered significant because the highway was not going to be built on top of the place where the spring came out of the ground. The effect of the highway on the integrity of Mdote and the Fort Snelling landscape were given short shrift. Government agencies often prefer to deal with the question of whether there are human remains, historic structures, or identifiable objects on a particular square inch of ground, rather than the wider question of the effect that a particular action has on a sacred area, a historic landscape, or the viewshed of a historic place. This prevalent attitude has created a Mdote Minisota crisscrossed with highways, managed by a dozen different government agencies, each with different management plans and different understandings of the wholeness and significance of this sacred and historic space. Is it possible to change the way the valuable sacred, cultural and historic resources are treated in the Mdote area? It is unclear what can be done to change the culture and practices of some of the agencies involved, but change in the outcomes of environmental review processes can only happen if public pressure is exerted early enough to make a difference in the process. What is required is a truthful, open, and ongoing public environmental review process to examine, document, and review all actions planned or undertaken by public agencies and private entities within Mdote Minisota. Without such a process in place, this sacred and historic space may continue to be destroyed bit by bit, historic property by historic property. Left to their own devices, few of the public agencies involved would ever undertake such an ambitious process. Instead the public must take the lead in carrying out such a review. In effect a process like this is underway involving the various groups which have worked separately to preserve Fort Snelling, Coldwater Spring, and Pilot Knob. What is lacking however is joint action by these groups and others, working together to protect the whole space of Mdote Minisota. In the long run, this is the only way that this sacred and historic area can be preserved and enhanced effectively in the years ahead. It is the purpose of this online series to aid the efforts of existing preservation groups by recording the history and culture of Mdote Minisota in such a way that it is available to all. The series will also document and examine the decisions and actions of the government agencies that control the various properties in the area. In the long run it is hoped that by this means the public can do a better job of protecting all of Mdote Minisota, not just fragments salvaged from the whole. A note on the spelling of the word Mdote Recent scholars have pointed out that the word Mdote should be transcribed as Bdote, to convey more accurately the way the word is actually pronounced. The word Mdote is used here not as an assertion that this is the correct spelling of the word, but rather to avoid confusion among those not familiar with the Dakota language. The words of one language are always difficult to transcribe with the alphabet of another. Even in English the spellings of words do not consistently convey correct prononciations. The missionary Stephen R. Riggs, in his Dakota-English Dictionary transcribed Dakota words using the English alphabet with the addition of a number of special characters and marks. Riggs wrote that the word Mdote means "the mouth or junction of one river with another (a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters)," the Minnesota River. He spelled the word beginning with the letter m, but he also noted that “some Dakotas in some instances, introduce a slight b sound before the m.” Work is now under way to produce a new Dakota/English dictionary, as described by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, in her book Remember This! Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Narratives, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2005. Wilson and the linguist and anthropologist Timothy Dunnigan of the University of Minnesota describe the new system of orthography, based on Riggs's system but making use of some new characters and marks. A special computer font was developed to record and display the new system. It should be noted that Wilson also prefers the word Bdewakantunwan, referring to "Spirit Lake Village," a major Dakota community group once located at Lake Mille Lacs in north central Minnesota, instead of Mdewakantonwan, the spelling given by Riggs and many other earlier writers. Both Wilson and Riggs use English letters to indicate all the sounds in the word except for the n, which is actually an n with a hook on its right leg, a special character known as an "angma," indicating the nasalized sound of the preceding vowel.
|
|
| ||