Minneapolis, MN
Brooks: Dakota nonprofit works to reconnect Minneapolis to its lost history
The lost history of Minneapolis is being restored along the riverbank, step by step, seedling by seedling.
A soaring waterfall once churned the river near here. Owámniyomni, the Dakota called this place. Turbulent waters. Ten thousand years of history in five square acres.
Not that you would know that, standing on the Stone Arch Bridge with your face to the Minneapolis skyline, looking out over what remains of the St. Anthony Falls.
To Shelley Buck, the story of Minneapolis seemed to start when they harnessed the great waterfall to power the mills; sometime after the Dakota were forced off the land; sometime after Father Hennepin renamed the falls for the patron saint of lost things.
There was so much more to the story.
“We are working to restore five acres of land at Owámniyomni, which white settlers called St. Anthony Falls, into a place where Dakota feel at home again and are visible again,” said Buck, president of the nonprofit formerly known as Friends of the Falls.
Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, the Dakota-led nonprofit formerly known as Friends of the Falls.