Teacher and Community Resources

Learn about Dakota culture through these Dakota Plant Medicines, Waterways, and Winters digital stories below. These stories, developed with support from the City of St. Paul and Capitol Region Watershed District, share the deep wisdom in the lifeways of Dakota people that can inform better relationships with our lands and waters.

Plant Medicine Stories

Dakota Waterway Stories

Dakota Winter Stories

Learn More

To learn more about Dakota Peoples and the land of Mní Sota, check out these resources:

Places + Experiences

• Hoċokata Ṫi - Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s public exhibit, Mdewakanton: Dwellers of the Spirit Lake, provides visitors with a cultural experience that enhances their knowledge and understanding of the Mdewakanton (pronounced 'med-ah-wah-kah-ton' ) Dakota people and their history.

• Our Home: Native Minnesota - Native Americans — Dakota, Ojibwe, as well as people from other tribal nations — have dwelled in this area for thousands of years and still live here today. This exhibit at the Minnesota Historical Society in Saint Paul shares their stories, enduring presence, and deep connection to the land.

• Learning from Place: Bdote - an immersive experience that brings participants to sites of great significance to Dakota people in the Twin Cities.

• Owamniyomni Interpretive Tours - 60-minute guided site visit of Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. Learn about Dakota lifeways, the significance of the River, and the Mní Sóta Dakota Tribes’ vision for cultural and environmental restoration.

• Owamni Restaurant - Owamni is a full-service Indigenous restaurant created by The Sioux Chef in 2021 showcasing true North American Indigenous foods and culture.

• Pipestone National Monument - For over 3,000 years, Indigenous people have quarried the red stone at this site to make pipes used in prayer and ceremony - a tradition that continues to this day and makes this site sacred to many people.

K-12 Lesson Plans

• SciGirls Dakota Stars is a 30 minute video with a downloadable lesson plan for grades 3 - 8

Digital Resources

• Dakota Spirit Walk at Waḳaƞ Ṭípi is an augmented reality (AR) exhibit developed by Dakota artist Marlena Myles

• Big River Journey Online is an online field trip program that takes place on the Mississippi River within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. Check out the Confluence of Cultures module!

• Bdote Memory Map - Enjoy this beginning resource for understanding more about the Dakota people's relationship to Minnesota developed by Mona Smith.

• The US Dakota War of 1862 website - This site is a resource for learning about the war, its causes, and its far-reaching consequences.

Books

• Mní Sota Makóče by Bruce M. White and Gwen Westerman - An intricate narrative of the Dakota people over the centuries in their traditional homelands

• What Does Justice Look Like: The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland by Waziyatawin - This book explores how we can embark on a path of transformation on the way to respectful coexistence with those whose ancestral homeland this is.

• In the Beginning, the Sun: The Dakota Legend of Creation by Charles Eastman - A never-before-published book by famed Native American author Charles Eastman recounts the stories of the Dakota creation cycle as they were told a century and a half ago.

• The Dakota Way of Life by Ella Cara Deloria - The Dakota Way of Life is the result of the long history of Deloria’s ethnographic descriptions of traditional Dakota culture and social life.

• Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden by Teresa Peterson - In this collection of prose, poetry, and recipes, Peterson shares how she found refuge from the struggle to reconcile her Christianity and Dakota spirituality, discovering solace and ceremony in communing with the earth.

Maps

• Makxoche Washte, The Beautiful Country: A Lakota Landscape Map

• Dakota Land Maps - free downloadable maps developed by Marlena Myles