Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Indigenous Action Plan MPRB is working to integrate truth, recognition, and acknowledgement of Indigenous land, people, and nations into our work, policies, procedures and spaces

Milestones (anticipated project schedule by month/season)

Spring 2020: Panel discussion advising MPRB on Indigenous acknowledgement and truth and recognition practices
Fall 2021: Parks for All, MPRB Comprehensive Plan 2021-2036 adopted by MPRB Board of Commissioners with strategies focused on Indigenous Acknowledgement and beyond
Spring 2022: Commissioners direct staff to develop a budget and begin work related to Indigenous acknowledgment and actions related to truth, recognition, and action.
Fall 2022: Budget request for Indigenous Action Plan, acknowledgement statement development, and trainings approved by Board of Commissioners
Winter 2023: Inter-departmental MPRB Staff Indigenous Projects Workgroup forms
Spring 2023: Job posting for Indigenous Parks Liaison
Summer-Fall 2023: Indigenous Action Plan research
2024: Launch of Native American Parks Council (TAC), relationship building, MPRB leadership trainings, public communication, and initial evaluation of impact.
2025: Guidance for unnaming of “Sibley Park”, continuation of Native American Parks Council meetings, adoption of MPRB tobacco policy with guidance from Indigenous leadership, review of Parks Council structure for 2026-27 term, initial development of Indigenous Action Plan.

Policy Guidance

MPRB policy guidance points to this including the following goals and strategies in Parks for All, MPRB Comprehensive Plan 2021-2036:

Goal 1: Foster belonging and equity
Strategy 3: Amplify Indigenous stories, histories, cultural practices and connections to land through employment, partnerships, planning, programming, ceremony, foraging, land management, interpretation and proactive community engagement across projects and programs.

Goal 7: Connect through communications and technology
Strategy 4: Educate staff and the community on critical issues facing the city and region, specifically: ……indigenous acknowledgment, history, rights, culture and perspectives;

Goal 8: Cultivate a thriving workforce
Strategy 11: Develop, evolve, and train staff and commissioners on:
native acknowledgement practices that incorporate the complexities of treaties, tribal differences, personal experience and layered place-based histories…

Based on this policy guidance and a recent budget allocation for 2023, we are proposing the following work to be accomplished in 2023 and 2024.

Funding

2023-2024 Budget Allocation from the General Fund: $80,000 for consultant and staff time

2025: $50,000 budget allocated from general fund

MPRB is sharing information on past and current efforts related to its ongoing Indigenous Acknowledgement and Recognition Plan. The items below include previous projects, programs and initiatives that had noticeable impacts on the park system, as well as MPRB’s work and relationships with Indigenous community members, leaders, and tribal councils.

The items below are adapted from posts shared on MPRB’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Interpretive panels at Bde Maka Ska Park

Did you know that the southeast shore of Bde Maka Ska was once home to Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe (“the village at the side” in Dakota)? Two panels recently installed at the site share information about the area’s first year-round agricultural village and Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡta (Cloud Man), a Dakota leader who led its development.

One panel features reproductions of watercolors thought to capture village life in the early 1800s, painted by Seth Eastman, who married the daughter of Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡta; these and dozens of related works by Eastman are part of the Minneapolis Institute of Art‘s collections. The other panel provides details about a newer artwork: the collaborative Zaníyaŋ Yutȟókča: Brave Change by Angela Two Stars, Mona Smith, and Sandy Spieler. Installed at the site in 2019, Brave Change includes an oral history available at bdemakaska.net.

MPRB developed the panels in partnership with Syd Beane, Kate Beane, and Carly Bad Heart Bull, Dakota descendants of both Cloud Man and Seth Eastman. We’re grateful for their leadership throughout the processes of restoring the Bde Maka Ska name and recognizing Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe. Formerly, the only physical reference to the area’s Dakota inhabitants was a bronze plaque placed at the site by the Daughters of the American Colonists in the 1930s.

(posted March 2024)

IMAGE CREDITS

“Guarding the Corn Fields” and “Dacotah Village,” 1849-1855, Seth Eastman, collection of Minneapolis Institute of Art

Mural and Signage at Bde Maka Ska Pavilion

Since the 2018 restoration of the name Bde Maka Ska, several MPRB projects have affirmed the past, current and future of Indigenous people in the area – including on the southeast shore, where a Dakota village stood in the 1800s.

The Bde Maka Ska Pavilion, which opened in 2023, features a Dakota version of the “You Are On Native Land” logo: A design that Adrienne Zimiga January originally created for the Guthrie Theater and later appeared on banners in downtown Minneapolis.

The version of the logo at the Bde Maka Ska Pavilion retains colors and symbols that Zimiga-January described in the West St. Paul Reader: a medicine cross symbol denotes “truth is medicine”; lightning bolts on a lodge point down, not up, to signify Native (in this case, Dakota) land. Additional Pavilion signs feature Dakota place names with English translations.

At the Pavilion’s entrance from the Ground Rounds trail, a mural called “Mitákuye Owásiŋ/ Indinawemaaganidog (We Are All Related).” Artists Jearica Fountain (Instagram: @jearicafountain on Instagram), Racquel Banaszak (@racquel_kwe) and Summer Cohen (Facebook: Beads Bling & Buckskin) portray Indigenous worldviews through water, earth, plant medicines, and the cosmos, while running, biking and canoeing point to health and well-being. A depiction of the Minneapolis skyline refers to today’s large urban Native community, and the tipis, to Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe, the Dakota village that stood on the lake’s southeast shore in the 1800s.

In creating their mural, the trio of artists were mentored by Thomasina Top Bear (Instagram: @tomierae) – creator of a nearby mural along West Bde Maka Ska Parkway, part of the Parks for All series of murals throughout the park system.

More at

• Adrienne Zimiga – January: West St. Paul’s ‘You Are on Native Land Logo Designer 
• “We are Still Here” cohort unveils new mural at Bde Maka Ska
• “We are Still Here” Artist Cohort

“Mitákuye Owásiŋ/Indinawemaaganidog (We Are All Related)” was created through a multiyear collaborative partnership between the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) and Hennepin Arts.

 

(posted August 2024)

Why Treaties Matter exhibit

In summer 2024, MPRB displayed the collaborative exhibit “Why Treaties Matter” at its headquarters building for public viewing.

The exhibit focuses on how Dakota and Ojibwe treaties with the U.S. government affected the lands and lifeways of the Indigenous peoples of the place now called Minnesota – and why these binding agreements between nations still matter today.

Organized by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Minnesota Humanities Center and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, “Why Treaties Matter” is among the learning opportunities offered as part of MPRB’s work to integrate truth, acknowledgement, and conciliation of Indigenous land, people, and nations into its work, policies, procedures and spaces.

 

(Posted July 2024)