The permeable ecotone you identify around the creek helps me understand why this place would have had so many various peoples and cultures move through it over the centuries. This place had so much to offer all within a day's walk. Fishing, trapping, hunting, farming, harvesting wild rice. The proximity to Spirit Lake caught my attention since I'd written this weekend about a Civil War Veteran buried in Warroad who had been a child in 1856 when a wagon train from Pennsylvania arrived in the area. Your longer view of history in this area shows me a different kind of relationship to the land than our present notions. "Camps" are homes. While many scholars in the mid-nineteenth century described Indian tribes of the woods and plains as "nomadic" this isn't exactly accurate. They moved to various locations within their home area in accordance with the availability of natural resources (fish, game, rice, etc.). Many of us today have summer cabins and that's as close as we'll get to understanding this kind of seasonal residence of the Dakota in southwestern Minnesota. That so many different cultures are represented across time in this one location also shows me how waterways were the "interstate highways" of the past. It might also speak to the power of the place itself as hospitable to humans. And perhaps a place where peoples gathered to talk, trade, pray. I'm fascinated by your findings, George, and look forward to reading more.
Thanks, for your comments, Jill. I especially liked the identification of "camps" as "homes" and the parallel of Native American "seasonal rounds" with the "summer lake cabins" that we all are more familiar with. And, there's power a concrete place. Native Americans are particularly rooted in their homelands and their cultures are as diverse as the landscape they live in....right now as well as in the past.
The permeable ecotone you identify around the creek helps me understand why this place would have had so many various peoples and cultures move through it over the centuries. This place had so much to offer all within a day's walk. Fishing, trapping, hunting, farming, harvesting wild rice. The proximity to Spirit Lake caught my attention since I'd written this weekend about a Civil War Veteran buried in Warroad who had been a child in 1856 when a wagon train from Pennsylvania arrived in the area. Your longer view of history in this area shows me a different kind of relationship to the land than our present notions. "Camps" are homes. While many scholars in the mid-nineteenth century described Indian tribes of the woods and plains as "nomadic" this isn't exactly accurate. They moved to various locations within their home area in accordance with the availability of natural resources (fish, game, rice, etc.). Many of us today have summer cabins and that's as close as we'll get to understanding this kind of seasonal residence of the Dakota in southwestern Minnesota. That so many different cultures are represented across time in this one location also shows me how waterways were the "interstate highways" of the past. It might also speak to the power of the place itself as hospitable to humans. And perhaps a place where peoples gathered to talk, trade, pray. I'm fascinated by your findings, George, and look forward to reading more.
Thanks, for your comments, Jill. I especially liked the identification of "camps" as "homes" and the parallel of Native American "seasonal rounds" with the "summer lake cabins" that we all are more familiar with. And, there's power a concrete place. Native Americans are particularly rooted in their homelands and their cultures are as diverse as the landscape they live in....right now as well as in the past.