Dakota Preservation

Dakota heritage preservation event at Thompson Park
By Tim Spitzack | Editor | April 2026

A quick glance at Gwen Westerman’s bio reveals her ardent love for language. The 2021 Minnesota Poet Laureate – the third ever in the state – holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a doctorate in English. However, it’s the Dakota language that is most deeply seated in her heart and she is devoted to using her artform to preserve the language and culture of its people. On Monday, April 6, she will share her personal story and poetry at Thompson Park Activity Center, 1200 Stassen Ln., West St. Paul. The event begins at 1:15 p.m. Cost is $5.

Westerman’s poems capture the rugged beauty of Minnesota’s landscape and the struggles of its earliest people. She knows those challenges firsthand from oral history passed down by her relatives, and her own experiences living in a nation that decimated her ancestral way of life. Westerman is a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate on her father’s side and the Cherokee Nation on her mother’s side. She is also co-author of “Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota,” which won a Minnesota Book Award in 2013. The book tells the comprehensive history of the Dakota people in their traditional homelands prior to exile from Minnesota.

Westerman’s presentation is just one example of ways people continue to help preserve Dakota heritage. Our state’s name is derived from the Dakota phrase Mni Sota Makoce (Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds), and Bdote (Pike Island) at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers is referred to by many Dakota people as the cradle of creation. In recent years state and city leaders have been honoring Dakota sacred sites in this region.

Last May, at the recommendation of state tribal historic preservation officers, the City of St. Paul renamed the area encompassing Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary and Indian Mounds Regional Park as Imniżaska (e-me-NE-zha-ska, white cliffs). Within it are two individual sites: Waḳaƞ Ṭípi (wah-KAHN TEE-pee, Dwelling Place of the Sacred) and Wic̣aḣapi (we-CHA-ha-pee, Dakota cemetery). A new cultural and interpretive center will open there this spring following years of planning and construction. The Wakan Tipi Center will feature an exhibit hall, classrooms, ceremony space, a community gathering area, teaching kitchen and teaching gardens. Programs will provide instruction on Dakota customs, language, culture and traditions.

In February, the Minnesota Humanities Center announced it will distribute books in the Native American Lives Series at no cost to Minnesota schools and libraries. The latest three books in the series – geared toward children in grades 4-8 – tell the stories of artist George Morrison, Native American rights activist and suffragist Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, and artist and writer Sharon Day. Each was created by Dakota and Ojibwe authors and illustrators. The series is supported by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community through its Understand Native Minnesota campaign.

Dakota literature itself is possible thanks, in part, to the work of Christian missionaries Samuel and Gideon Pond, who are credited with developing an alphabet in the 1830s to translate and preserve the Dakota language. They also created the Dakota-English dictionary that is still used today. The Pond brothers relocated from Connecticut in 1834 to work at a Dakota mission near Fort Snelling. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, each was opposed to the reservation system and was frustrated with the 1851 treaties. They left the mission and individually founded Presbyterian churches in the area, both of which had white and Dakota members. You can learn more about their work at The Pond House historic site at 401 E. 104th St. in Bloomington. It’s open Saturdays, 1-4 p.m. Admission is free.

Additionally, the Minnesota History Center, 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul is featuring two exhibits highlighting native communities. “Our Home: Native Minnesota” features historic and contemporary photographs, maps and artifacts that show how Minnesota’s native communities have retained cultural practices, teachings and values; and “Reframing our Stories” features photographs of Native community members, organizations, activities and events. Admission is $15; free on Thursdays, 4-8 p.m.

Poet and artist
Westerman’s poems, essays and short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including the “Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry” (2020); the Minnesota issue of “Quiltfolk” (January 2020); and “New Poets of Native Nations” (Graywolf Press, 2018). Her poetry collection “Follow the Blackbirds” (2013) was published by Michigan State University Press, and “Songs, Blood Deep” (2023) by Holy Cow! Press.

Westerman is also a fiber artist and uses the artform to teach the traditions of the Dakota people. Her quilts have won awards at juried shows across the country and are featured in the permanent collections of the Red Cloud Heritage Center Museum in Pine Ridge, S.D., the University Art Galleries at the University of South Dakota, the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, Neb., and the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul.

Westerman is also a professor of English and Humanities at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where she teaches American and Native Nations literatures, Technical Communication, and Humanities. She received the Douglas R. Moore Faculty Research Award for her work on Dakota history and language and is a Distinguished Faculty Scholar in recognition of her work as a scholar, poet and artist. She lives in Good Thunder.