Star Tribune
Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, nonprofit leading Indigenous reclamation of land near St. Anthony Falls, selects design team led by Dakota Knowledge Keepers
A unique development process is underway at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, where the federal government is transferring five acres of land to local control.
Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, a nonprofit formerly known as Friends of the Falls, has selected a design team guided by Dakota “Knowledge Keepers” to conduct a consensus-based ecological restoration. The land was both the birthplace of Minneapolis and sacred to the Indigenous people who lived there prior.
“We’re working towards 100% land restoration, bringing flowing water back, bringing back species of life where they once were,” said Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and a former Prairie Island tribal leader. “People are really excited about this and willing to change how they do business normally to make sure that this site truly does give back to all of us.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has long owned the St. Anthony Falls lock and dam and surrounding land, including a surface parking lot, has been trying to unburden itself of the properties for several years. Congress ended river barge traffic on the stretch of the Mississippi River in an effort to stem the spread of invasive carp. No public or private organization has taken them up on the offer of the lock and dam because it would require upkeep in perpetuity. But the 5 acres of surrounding real estate has intrigued the city, Park Board and Indigenous community because of its historical significance and prime riverfront location.
From 2016 to 2022, a community engagement process by the Native American Community Development Institute identified development principles endorsed by Dakota tribal leadership, and a rudimentary design was drafted showing winding paths, flowing water and gathering spaces encouraging Dakota people to return and use the site in traditional ways.
This summer, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi announced Seattle-based GGN was selected to be the project’s lead design team. GGN would in turn consult with a group of Dakota Knowledge Keepers including Jewell Arcoren, Travis Bush, Vanessa Goodthunder, Erin Griffin, Samantha Odegard, Mona Smith, Ramona Kitto Stately, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Glenn Wasicuna and Gwen Westerman to complete the design in 2025, with construction slated for 2027.
The Knowledge Keepers were nominated by their families as people with a good grasp of Indigenous history and values through lived experience and oral history, said Barry Hand, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi program director. Hand has been leading site tours and will eventually oversee activities open to everyone, such as canoeing, snowshoe crafting and cattail weaving, upon the project’s completion.
“What we wanted from this cross-section of age groups, gender identities and educational backgrounds, whether formalized or traditional, to be the eyes and ears and voices [of the community],” he said. For example, if someone wanted to install art on the site, the group would provide the gut check on whether the piece was appropriate.
Last month the Knowledge Keepers convened for a brainstorming workshop where they visited places of sacred significance. An elder member suggested they ask the land if tearing it up was what it wanted before moving forward with anything else. The member was making a point that authentic Dakota development would center restoration over building new monuments, said Hand.
“He had a very good point, and so we paused and we talked about that, and that talk lasted for hours and hours and hours,” he said. “It threw the day off-kilter. But if we’re going to look at things through this cultural perspective, sometimes you have to back up.”
Knowledge Keeper Taylor, an artist, said that as one of the group’s younger members, he’s more impatient to bring the project to fruition than others.
“But also, I understand that it was such a long battle just to even get to this point where we’re able to reclaim this space,” he said. “There were many hoops that everyone had to jump through to even have a say. I wish it could be done faster. I wish it could have been done a long time ago. But in the end, it’s going to be taken care of.”
The land ownership transfer is still pending. The federal government is slated to convey the land to Minneapolis by the end of this year, following City Council and mayoral approval. It will then pass to Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, as the city’s designee per the 2020 Water Resources Development Act, in 2025.
That legal process, requiring codeswitching between secular concepts of ownership versus traditional principles of reciprocity with the land has been awkward, said Sam Olbekson, CEO of the Indigenous architecture firm Full Circle Planning and Design, which is working with GGN.
“A developer given a site can charge straight ahead, do their highest and best use analysis, do a cost estimate, try to cut corners and this and that, but this is such an entirely different process that’s going to end up something that’s has a much bigger meaning to it,” he said. “One of the ways I like to talk about it is, Indigenous values don’t think of land as something that can be owned. It’s a relative, and you would never sell a relative, you would never buy a relative.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
