---

On September 20, 2006 Aitkin Independent Age, Minnesota's Aitkin County newspaper, published the following letter.

Change name of Rum River

I am spearheading the local, national and international movement to change the derogatory name of our state's Rum River.

This river was the super highway for the Isanti or Dakota Indians. To them, this important waterway was known as Watpa Wakan, the Great Spirit River, until a white man's pun turned "spirit" into "rum."

I am also spearheading a movement to change several other derogatory geographic place names that are offensive to Native Americans as well as to many other people. The Snake River, a river that flows through Aitkin, Kanabec and Pine counties, gets its name from the Ojibwe word Kanabec, or snake, naming it after their enemies, the Dakota, who lived upriver, and who they later displaced. This river is also on my list of derogatory names that I am trying to change.