Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life

Treuer is on Indian Point, the western part of Lake Mille Lacs, fishing with Sean Fahrlander and Fahrlander’s brothers, Marc and Mike. Mille Lacs, which is based in east central Minnesota, is a big place, but the reservation is not. The lake is 206 square miles, however; it is the second largest in the state and one of the largest in the United States. Lake Mille Lacs has been inhabited for around 9,000 years by the Dakota, the Ojibwe, and other tribes. The first European to settle at Lake Mille Lacs was the Franciscan priest, Father Louis Hennepin, who was taken captive in 1680 by the Dakota. He remained with the tribe for five months and recorded what he saw—particularly “the wealth of the land and the people” (52-53). According to legend, it was a lover’s quarrel that drove the Dakota from the lake. However, it would be another century after this supposed quarrel before all the Dakota moved westward and out of northern and central Minnesota.

Representatives from Mille Lacs signed the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825, which was intended to be a treaty between the local tribes. Fighting between the Dakota and the Ojibwe along the Minnesota River over trapping and hunting rights had hindered trade and settlement in the region.