Small land transfer may be a big deal in tribal lands debate
When Master Gardener Katie Himanga kick-started efforts to preserve native plants on a tract of wooded land in Lake City, she had no idea it would set her on a path of self-discovery.
“We are standing in about the middle of a 3-acre sacred Dakota burial site that includes 11 mounds, and about a dozen large diameter native trees that have been here for 100 or more years," Himanga said. “And lots and lots of vegetation that is non-native and invasive.”
The land where the mounds stand is tucked away in the middle of a residential neighborhood. As Himanga navigates the lush vegetation covering the area, she is careful not to walk directly over the mounds themselves.
“Under pre-settlement, or natural, or under Dakota management conditions, we would be standing up to our neck in yellow grass, big bluestem, little bluestem grasses, lots and lots of flowering plants,” she said.
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But just as European settlers forced the Dakota out of their homeland, today invasive plants including European buckthorn, Tatarian honeysuckle and Amur maple have overwhelmed the native plants on the mounds.
It was something Himanga was determined to change, and it led to a bigger project.
“For as long as I’ve lived in Lake City, which is all or my most of my adult life, I’ve known of this burial mound site in our community,” Himanga said. “I’m interested in place, and I’m interested in history and especially interested in the connections of how did we get to where we were to where we are.”
She said efforts to place the mounds on the National Register of Historic Places before the pandemic led to returning them to Prairie Island. The city confirmed the mounds’ eligibility for registration, but that resulted in a new challenge.
“Someone suggested to our city planner that we be really mindful about what name we put on that application, because that name would stick,” she said. “And our Heritage Preservation Commission thought that that ought to be a Dakota name. This is Dakota homeland.”
But the commission ran into multiple dead ends as it looked for help naming the site, and eventually it decided against submitting the register nomination.
‘Like a shot in the middle of the room’
Meanwhile, Himanga and another master gardener began going to Prairie Island on occasion to help maintain a cultural garden. There she met the tribe’s new language teacher, Barry Hand. While discussing the issue of the land and the mounds with Hand he posed a question to Himanga.
“Why don’t you give it to the tribe?” Hand asked.
She said the question was like a shot into the middle of the room.
“It’s one of those ideas that once it’s out there you can’t turn away from it,” Himanga said. “So, we talked further. He was patient and listened. And he challenged me on some things.”
Himanga took Hand’s suggestion before the Lake City Heritage Preservation Committee, and they agreed. Then the committee took the recommendation before the city council. From there, the planning commission got involved to make sure legal steps were followed.
“On the city side, we were off and running. And I remember Barry and I were staying in touch. And I remember him saying, ‘Well, I’m not going to say anything here on the island yet, because I know how these things go,’” Himanga recalled. “And I thought, ‘Yep, I know how these things go.’”
Meaning both expected something to go wrong.
But for once it did not.
‘Coming together to be better stewards’
Eventually all the city leaders traveled to Prairie Island seeking the tribe’s consent to move forward with the legal process. It took months to hear a response, but Prairie Island eventually consented.
After the planning commission’s review and approval process it went before the city council for introduction and reading of the ordinance before a second reading and adoption in September.
Last summer, after the city’s unanimous vote to return the mounds to Prairie Island, Lake City Mayor Mark Nichols was elated.
“This acreage is basically an Indian cemetery. And it’s a mountain that’s easily visible within our community. It’s been a well-respected area that we’ve been cognizant that really is an Indian-based piece of property. And so, we started working with the community,” Nichols said.
“It was a wonderful experience for all, but particularly for the city leaders at Lake City, we learned a lot about our neighbors. And I think the whole process was very positive and educational and has improved relations which were good before but now they’re even better.”
Prairie Island Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Franky Jackson said there are only a handful of mounds left in southeastern Minnesota. But he said protecting them for future Minnesotans is paramount.
“I think what we can do is look toward this cross-cultural collaboration that we’re seeing between Lake City and the Prairie Island Indian Community as a shining example for other municipalities when it comes to care and treatment of mound locations within their city’s jurisdiction,” Jackson said. “What we’re seeing here is a fine example of constituents from the city, representatives from the city and folks from the tribal end coming together to be better stewards over resources that we all find very important.”
Back at the mounds, Himanga reflected on how the whole process has changed her.
“I learned a lot about how I was taught racism. It wasn’t overt. It happened in little bits and pieces along the way. And the stories that I was told, the language that’s used, and so on. And through this process, I’ve become really sensitive to that,” Himanga said.
“I’m actually kind of angry that I wasn’t taught the whole story, that I got to hold this romantic notion that Minnesota was untrammeled wilderness at the time of white settlement. Not so, I got to think that there wasn’t human intervention throughout Minnesota. Not so.”
Representatives of Prairie Island and Lake City have signed the deed. It now goes to Mayor Nichols for his final signature. Along with plans to a hold a ceremony in the near future to mark the transfer the mounds, there are also plans to renamed them.
Prairie Island’s Jackson said work is also underway to return the remains of three Dakota relatives removed from the mounds in the past.
He would also like to see the language around burial mounds evolve.
“When we say burial mounds it invokes this predated history that doesn’t allow non-Natives to connect. When we use the word cemetery, then it means something to them. I think the more we can use the word cemetery and get away from burial mounds it defines those areas as what they are,” Jackson said.
“They’re not a place you should be putting a park, they’re not a place where you should be bulldozing to put a better view, or to expand your driveway at your lakefront property. These are cemeteries and until we start treating them like that and designating them as cemeteries, you’re going to have this constant encroachment.”