Letter to the editor:
Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger
August 2002

Wakan River?

On Aug. 17, I attended the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) community's 2002 pow wow. At the time, I picked up a copy of' a booklet about the pow wow. In addition to information about the pow wow, the booklet presents a full page about their history. For a thousand years the Shakopee and Prairie Island Dakota Mdewakantons ancestors lived in the Mille Lacs Lake area. And then a band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, the ancestors of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, received gun powder from white settlers and then attacked the Mdewakantons and drove them from their homeland. Since that atrocity was committed against the Dakota Mdewakantons, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe have been living in the Dakota Mdewakanton's ancient homeland.

On Sept. 2022, 2002 the 30th annual powwow honoring the 38 Dakota who were hung following the 1862 uprising will take place in Mankato. The Dakota welcome "all tribes." Even the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.

And recently, when an opportunity came for The Tribal Council of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe to give their support to a proposal to rectify a local injustice against the Dakota Mdewakantons I am referring to the proposal to revert the derogatory name of the Rum River back to its Mdewakanton name, Wakan they chose to have no official position on the issue.

I am spearheading the movement to revert the Rum River's name back to its Mdewakanton name, Wakan. And on March 19, 2002, I received a letter from Sister Kateri Mitchell, executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference, a Native American organization where over 300 tribes are represented during the annual powwows. wherein she wrote: "The members of the board commend you for your many efforts to have this derogatory name for the river changed. The board members will give you prayerful support in the time, energy, commitment and publicity you have given to give this river a new name so that it be less offense especially for the Native Americans of Minnesota."

I am hoping that the tribal council of the Mille Lacs Band of 0jibwe will have a change of heart toward the Mdewakantons and come out in public support for the name change of the Rum River.

Thomas I. Dahlheimer, Wahkon