Life Changing Experiences: Mndote Taku Wakan Tipi (area around highways 55 and 62)
Contributed by Rory Scoles

The area is called Mndote; it is the area by Minnehaha Park around there. Another name for it is Taku Wakan Tipi; it's the area by the VA hospital down 55 and 62. It was a life changing experience for all of us there, so it was a very special area. I showed up there one day, I was homeless at the time, and I used to do a lot of drugs like hallucinogens and I was tripping a lot and all sorts of crap like that. I went there because they were trying to save these four sacred trees and save the area as a green space. I went there just for the heck of it.

The first time I showed up there it just hit me really hard, the significance of the place. Since that time about two and half years ago, I've been completely sober because of that area. I've got really good priorities because of the people that were there and the area and the significance. There's a spring there called Cold Water Springs and I drink that water all the time still. I go down there, I don't drink tap, I drink that water from that spring of that area. I have a large community of friends and elders that I have met from that area.
There is a very special man named Bear there who is like my uncle, he's an elder Cheyenne man. I met him there, that's the biggest reason it's so special is because I met him there and he has taught me a lot while I was there and beyond that. Because of going there, he has taught me so much about what it means to be a man and responsibilities I have. I met my girlfriend and I am still with her two and a half years, it's just been a really rooted place.

It's happened to a lot of people. Of about 70 or so people that my girlfriend has interviewed and each of them have said that that's the most significant thing that's ever happened to them. It was just one of those life changing experiences a lot of people had. It brings back memories of seeing native people, seeing environmental people, seeing neighborhood groups, an African community group from north side came down...everyone coming together, it was a really great thing.

The area is just a very beautiful area it's in a transition zone between the prairie and the woodlands. It's technically a Savannah even though we have snow. Like 98% of the Savannah that used to be in Minnesota has been destroyed and this is one of the few spots left where it was. And then half of it got cut, it was really sad to see it happen.

The whole area around there was a gathering place for the Dakota people and for the Anishinaabe; a lot of them would come there for ceremonies and go there for yearly gatherings and such. There was a puberty ceremony that the Dakota people would plant four oaks in the four directions and so there were these four oaks that got cut down for highway 55. During the winter of 1862-63 when there was a concentration camp at Fort Snelling a lot of people died and they buried a lot of them all over there in that area. There are burial grounds all along the river. This area was very special because it was considered the Dakota center of the universe. They had all sorts of ceremonies here.

Photograph: Tepees of the Sioux Indians on Fort Snelling Flats 1863, Whitney Gallery, Minnesota Historical Society