New signs connect Como Lake visitors with Dakota history and language
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Visitors to Como Regional Park in St. Paul can now learn more about the lake's history, ecosystem and wildlife through eight new interpretive signs and an informational kiosk.
The signs are available in six languages: English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Karen and Dakota. Installation was done in partnership with the Capitol Region Watershed District.
Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate citizen Šišókadúta provided translations into the Dakota language.
“I think having more signs like this with the Dakota language, talking about Dakota presence, is important, so we can acknowledge that Dakota people have been here for a long time and that we have a unique relationship with this area,” Šišókadúta said.
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Two of the eight signs share Dakota stories and illustrations, highlighting Como Lake's cultural significance to Indigenous people.
Tara Perron, Tanaǧidaŋ To Wiŋ (Blue Hummingbird Woman), helped gather historical stories and input from local Indigenous community members for the two signs that include Dakota stories and illustrations. Perron, who has both Dakota and Ojibwe heritage, says the people she spoke with ranged from young adults to elders.
“Many Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe and Dakota people would come and bring their families, whether that was for different feasts or fishing, swimming, playing,” Perron said. “The common thread was that this was a place to come and be together with each other and enjoy each other.”
One sign explains this historical relationship between Indigenous communities and Como Lake. The second sign, Perron says, highlights a story that is not well known. With vibrant colors and imagery of a canoe on blue waters, the sign tells the history of a Dakota woman named Háza Íŋyaŋka Wiŋ.
Háza Íŋyaŋka Wiŋ, also known as Betsey St. Clair, was born in the early 1800s. She was the first Dakota woman to operate a ferry using a birchbark canoe along the Mississippi River. She often hid her canoe from settlers and men from other tribes at nearby lakes, including Como Lake, where she gathered and harvested natural resources.
“She also had taught Dakota women how to build canoes and how to maneuver in canoes on the Mississippi and the Minnesota River and different lakes around Minnesota,” Perron said.
She says Háza Íŋyaŋka Wiŋ was a known advocate for the water and plants. For Perron, highlighting Dakota stories in both English and the Dakota language “means everything” to her.
“I think that sends a message to our elders and our younger generation that our language is a living language, and it is all of our responsibility to continue that language and know how powerful that language is,” she said.
Šišókadúta says the Dakota language is a part of Minnesota’s history. The state’s name is derived from the language.
“I think writing these things down and making them visible is part of the broader effort to make sure the language stays alive, and hopefully in the future is a thriving language again,” he said.
All eight interpretive signs are located along the path around Como Lake at Como Regional Park.
Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.
