WannaskaWriter

    Perhaps shadows from tallow candles darted against lodge walls and smokehole peaks like does the  candle flame on this table flickers in time to the accentuated breaths of  the flute player ... Perhaps these Hidatsa-Mandan strains  have been heard upon this very land two hundred years ago, perhaps a thousand, and the land needs to hear it again.

  "A Day That Will Live in Infamy ..."    But it's not my story to tell. I'm to only not forget that this day, the day after Christmas in 1862, thirty-eight Santee Dakota men were simultaneously hung in Mankato, Minnesota, the largest mass execution ever in the United States; two more were kidnapped from Canada and hung in 1865.  This is my humble acknowledgment of it; the best that I can do. I include website URLs for further information. Mikwendaagoziwag (They are remembered.)   https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/traumatic-true-history-full-list-dakota-38 Tipi-hdo-niche, Forbids His Dwelling Wyata-tonwan, His People Taju-xa, Red Otter Hinhan-shoon-koyag-mani, Walks Clothed in an Owl’s Tail Maza-bomidu, Iron Blower Wapa-duta, Scarlet Leaf Wahena, translation unknown Sna-mani, Tinkling Walker Radapinyanke, Rattling Runner Dowan niye, The Singer Xunka ska, White Dog Hepan, family name for a second son Tunkan icha ta mani, Walks With His Grandfather Ite duta, Sc...

Part 1: Sven & Ula: Not To Be Believed “Looks like you got yourself some skunks diggin’ ‘ere, Ula,” Sven said, spying the many divot-like holes off the corner of Ula’s porch near the basswood tree. “No Sven, you’re mistaken. Dose holes are made by Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, da red squirrel as da locals call dem,” Ula replied authoritatively seeing as he’s Wannaska Township’s official squirrel trapper. “Not skunks.” “Uh, I beg to differ Ula. I vas over to da 2nd Palmville Pub da udder day an’ Festus dere showed me vat skunk ‘oles look like--an’ make no mistake, dey look yust like dis,“ Sven said, peering up at Ula on the porch.“Look at all dese! You’ve got a ton of dem! Must be a whole family of skunks ‘ereabouts, an’ probably livin’ right ‘ere under your porch.” “You look more intelligent den you actually are Sven,” Ula snorted. “Even Festus Marvinson vud agree vit me dat dese are made by red squirrels burying dere nuts an’ seeds against da ruthless onslaught of vinter,...

 

  One hundred copies of this were printed, published and distributed on June 12, 2002. This was the 20-page Special Edition RAVEN published in 2003. It had 72 color digital images, and a centerfold color illustration of the flood plain.

  Delmer and Curtis: Friends to the End      From where he was buried on Saturday April 11th, 1992, the tin roofs of his buildings could be seen through the trees. Across the fence, at the foot of his grave, were the fields he farmed. Between them, Mikinaak Creek--so much a part of Delmer Roseen’s life and sadly, his death--still winds through willow slough, over beaver dams below the Palmville Cemetery, and past his door to the South Fork of the Roseau River, only a few yards to the southeast.         Delmer lived northeast of us in Palmville Township. If I looked just right, I could see his yard light through the woods between his place and mine. Either of us could hear the soft ‘clung’ of the rope and pulley against the flag pole in the cemetery at the corner of our two farms. Red willows, popple islands, and slough grass; green mossy fence posts; the often submerged patchwork of woven wire, and the depth of water i...

                                                         A Comment on Wild Fire   This proved to be a rather lengthy comment I left on a fellow blogger's post in Wannaskan Almanac: https://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2021/08/forest-fire.html#comments  I decided it was more appropriate to put it here and maybe add some images.        When Chairman Joe and I interviewed Elmer Benson of Palmville, in 1994, he told us of the fire of 1910 (I think) around here, how many lost haystacks they had put up, and how the cedar forest burned; and the peat bogs. He said that some of the landscape changed as much as four feet in places where the fire burned its way through the peat. Elm...