BCWMC Logo

Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ & Indigenous Culture

"Our first home and first medicine is water as we grew in our mother's womb. For Dakota's people mni/water is the lifeblood of Maka Ina/ Mother Earth, the sacred sustenance of life. You often hear Dakota people say "Mni Wiconi/ Water is life." In this place we pay homage to the one who protects the water, Unktehi, the great horned serpent who travels the aquifers to protect the water."

- Roxanne Biidabinokwe Gould, professor emeritus of Indigenous and environmental studies. Roxanne lives in Golden Valley near the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ.

The Dakota people cherished the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ/Bassett Creek waterway long before European settlers arrived. The creek teemed with fish and aquatic life. The Dakota harvested wild rice from nearby waters and sustainably hunted wildlife for food, hides, and tools.

Birthed as one people in Mni Sota Makoċhe (modern-day Minnesota) from their home in the constellation of the bison’s backbone, the Dakota are part of a larger confederacy known as the Oceti Ŝakowiŋ Oyate, or the Seven Council Starfire Nations. This confederacy includes four Dakota, two Nakota, and one Lakota band, covering territories in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

Roxanne Biidabinokwe Gould

For millennia, the Dakota referred to the land now known as Minnesota as Mni Sota Makoċhe, meaning "the land where the water reflects the skies." This area remained Dakota homeland until the 1700s, when both Ojibwe and European settlers began to enter the territory. In 1849, Minnesota became a territory, and within two years, the U.S. government annexed it entirely, except for a seven-mile tract intended for the Dakota people. Cut off from their traditional means of hunting and foraging, the Dakota faced starvation - which was the spark that ignited the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War. Following the war, the Dakota were imprisoned in a concentration camp at Fort Snelling, where hundreds died from deplorable conditions. The aftermath saw the largest mass execution in U.S. history, where 38 Dakota men were hanged. Survivors were forcibly exiled from their homeland. The Dakota still feel the effects of the 1862 war.

Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ/Bassett Creek leads to the falls in Ȟaȟá Wakpá (Mississippi River), hence the name Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ, or “Creek to the River of the Falls.” Bdote is the sacred confluence of the Ȟaȟá Wakpá with the Mni Sota Wakpa (Minnesota River). Bdote is not only a geographical landmark; it is the sacred origin place of the Dakota where they were birthed onto Maka Ina (Mother Earth) as one people at the beginning of time.

You can learn to pronounce the creek name through a short YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwDrekIIiNM.

The Original Vegetation of Minnesota

Based on “The Original Vegetation of Minnesota,” a map compiled in 1930 by F. J. Marschner using U.S. General Land Office survey notes.

In the late 1800s, scientists categorized natural vegetation according to its ecosystem. In the map above, diversity appears limited to certain plants. In reality, before colonization, the watershed was a beautiful and abundant place full of wildlife, food, and medicine. Although the Lakota and Nakota went west to the prairies, the Dakota remained near the lakes, rivers, and wetlands, which gave them access to the greatest biodiversity of plant life for food and medicine. The Dakota were skilled hunters, fishermen, foragers, and farmers, as well as knowledgeable pharmacists and healers.

The Dakota maintained a triangular solstice sunrise path between Medicine Lake and the Mississippi River, which served both as a ceremonial route and a pathway for gathering food and medicine. Villages were intentionally not built along this path as it was regarded as the land’s pharmacy and grocery store. The watershed supported a variety of vegetation, including rice (Psin), wild strawberries (Ważušteċaša), chokecherries (Ċhaŋpa), mulberries (Ċhaŋska), blueberries (Haza), raspberries (Takaŋheċa hu) and wild plums (Kaŋta). Mother Earth also provided protein through bison, deer, duck, fish, and turtles.

Today, the tribes of Mni Sota continue teaching their children Indigenous ways of life and imparting to others the wisdom and importance of protecting land and water. Indigenous people of many different tribes live, work, and play throughout Minnesota, including in the suburbs of the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ/Bassett Creek watershed.

Their stories, memories, and knowledge were captured in the Bassett Creek Oral History Project, started by the Valley Community Presbyterian Church in collaboration with the Hennepin History Museum and the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission. All fifteen interviews are available as podcasts. Search “Bassett Creek Oral History Project” wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to stories and memories from our Indigenous neighbors. Search “Haha Wakpadan/Bassett Creek Oral History Project” wherever you get your podcasts.

One way to honor Indigenous communities is through language. Using Dakota place names and vocabulary is an important step in acknowledging Dakota history, culture, and ongoing contributions to natural and human communities.

Dakota and English Vocabulary

Bde Lake
Bde Maka Ska White Earth Lake
Bde Siŋkpe Muskrat Lake (traditional name for Medicine Lake)
Bdote River confluence
Ȟaȟá Wakpá River of the Falls (Mississippi River)
Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ Creek to the River of the Falls (Bassett Creek)
Makoċe Land
Mni Water
Mni Sota Makoċe Land where the water reflects the skies (Minnesota)
Nakota, Dakota, Lakota Alliance of 7 Star Council Fires of Dakota(4), Nakota(2), Lakota(1), also called Ocheti Shakowin Oyate
Oyate A nation, group of relatives (human and non-human)
Uŋktehi The horned water serpent, water protector
Uŋktomi Spider, the trickster energy being
Wakiŋyaŋ Thunderbird
Wakpadaŋ Wašhte Beautiful Creek
Wiċhohaŋ Traditions, culture, customs, lifeways

BCWMC Land and Water Acknowledgement Statement (May 2024)

We acknowledge that the waterwaysof the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ, located in Mnisota Makoċe, the homeland of the Dakota peoples, are living waters whichare part of a larger living ecosystem.

Historically, the ȞaȟáWakpádaŋ provided material,nutritional, and spiritual sustenance to the Dakotapeoples. We acknowledge the forced removalof the

Dakota from the lands and waterways that nurtured them as relatives. And, we recognize the environmental degradation that continues in thewatershed today.

The living waters of ȞaȟáWakpádaŋ remain significant to the Dakota and other Native peoples, including many who presentlylive in the watershed. The BassettCreek Watershed Management Commission seeks to identify and integrateNative wisdom by collaborating with Indigenous peoplesand communities to reducethe impacts of climate change and improve the ecosystem health for all livingbeings in the watershed.

Acknowledging the complex past and presenttraumas and triumphsis a step toward healingfor the land, watershed, and peoples who live in the watershed today.

A note on the current creek namesake, Joel Bassett

As Europeans began to settle the area, they found the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ andits watershed to be valuableproperty. Joel Bean Bassett, born in NewHampshire, came to Minneapolis in 1850 and began working in the lumberindustry. He purchased land near the creek and started a farm. He became thefirst probate judge of Hennepin County. Because of his business and community stature,locals began calling the creek “Bassett’s Creek.”

Working as an Indian Agentat Crow Wing from 1865 to 1869, Bassett helped enforce a land treaty designedto concentrate the Ojibwe population in a single place. It encouraged them tofarm elsewhere to open forests to logging. With capital from several investors, Bassett built asteam-powered sawmill along the creek. His lumber and flour-milling operationslasted into the 1890s.

By the late 1880s, Bassettwas convicted of fraudulent timber harvesting, and in 1902 the U.S. SupremeCourt ruled that J. B. Bassett & Co. and others had illegally taken timberfrom the White Earth reservation. Contracts let them take 2.8 million boardfeet of dead and downed timber. But Bassett and the other defendants harvestedfar more, ultimately taking 17 million board feet, including standing timber — morethan six times what was allowed.

Source: MN Humanities Center, MN Indian AffairsCouncil https://treatiesmatter.org/treaties/land/1867-ojib...

Additional Resources:

  • What Does Justice Look Like?: The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland by Dakota scholar and activist Waziyatawiŋ of Peżihutazizi Otuŋwe (2008). This book relates the history of her people before European arrival, and the often violent and traumatic history since that time. She brings to light the most important historical and continuing contemporary injustices against the Dakota people and gives clear suggestions for how Americans can support Indigenous people in their struggle for restorative justice and liberation.
  • Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past by Diane Wilson (2006). Ms. Wilson connects modern suburban life as a Dakota community member with the trauma of the U.S.-Dakota War of the 1860s.
  • Mni Sota Makoċe: The Land of the Dakota by Gwen Westerman, Bruce White, and Glenn Wasicuna. Birchbark Books (2012). A book full of Dakota stories, culture, and history.