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On September 1, 2005 the following letter was published in the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe's Lake Traverse Reservation newspaper, a newspaper named Sota. Lake Traverse Reservation is located in South Dakota and is home to 10,840 Sisseton-Wahpeton people. The Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux (Dakota) Tribes on-line newspaper can be found at: http://www.earthskyweb.com/news.htm.

Open letter to the Oyate

Greetings from Wahkon, Minnesota.

I founded and am spearheading the international movement to change the profane and derogatory name of Minnesota s Rum River back to its sacred Mdewakanton Dakota name. My river name-change website is located at: www.towahkon.org.

And I just recently wrote a petition to the Government of Minnesota to bring about a bill to change the badly named Mille Lacs Kathio State Park to Mille Lacs Isanti State Park. As you probably know, the Rum River runs through Mille Lacs Kathio State Park, a park located within the ancestral homeland of the Mdewakanton Dakota Oyate. And because I am already well on the way to reaching my goal of changing one badly named geographical place, I came to believe that I am in a good position to help change another badly name geographic place (Mille Lacs Kathio State Park).

And because the geographical name for the Sisseton and Wahpeton divisions of the Great Sioux Nation is Isanti and not Kathio, I am thinking that you would probably like to write and publish an article about these geographic place name-change issues in your newspaper. And I also believe that the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate (People) of the Lake Traverse Reservation would probably like to support both the movement to rename Mille Lacs Kathio State Park to Mille Lacs Isanti State Park as well as give its support for the effort to change the Rum River s derogatory name.

The petition to change the name of Mille Lacs Kathio State Park to Mille Lacs Isanti State Park can be found by going to the home page of www.towahkon.org and then clicking the related initiatives link. Or go directly to it, by clicking the following website link http://www.towahkon.org/KathioToIsanti.html.

I have been corresponding with Leonard E. Wabasha, a member of the Lower Sioux Mdewakanton Community and an employee of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community's Cultural Resource Dept.. Mr. Wabasha supports the effort to rename the Rum River. And he has an interpretive sign at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park. You might want to talk to him about these geographic place name-change issues. He can be reached at: (952) 496-6173. Or e-mail him at crs@shakopeedakota.org.

Thank you for your time.

Thomas Dahlheimer,
Director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc.;

website www.towahkon.org;

E-mail address Wahkon@scicable.com.

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