Prairie Island Indian Community Dakota Language Project

Our Language Instructor, Mr. Barry Hand, will oversee our Dakota Language Project. This project will build off our previous language preservation efforts that helped us develop youth-oriented instruction stressing conversation rather than memorizing vocabulary lists and grammar. One such project was the Elm Bark Lodge. In June 2022, Prairie Island Indian Community members built the first permanent traditional Dakota bark lodge in Minnesota in nearly 150 years. The last record of a traditional bark lodge built here dates back to the Lower Sioux Agency in the spring of 1862, right before the U.S.-Dakota War. At one time, in the area that is now downtown St. Paul there was a large Mdewakanton Dakota community named Kaposia. It comprised some 400 bark lodges according to some accounts. In his writings, explorer Jonathan Carver described the many Dakota bark lodges as cities, instead of villages. Each lodge typically housed between 12-25 people. Upon completion, Barry said, "When we started to cover the lodge a healing happened for a lot of the folks there because something was reconnecting, part of that sacred hoop was being mended here at Prairie Island." The Bark Lodge is a place of gathering and conversing in Dakota.