The sacred site of Wakáŋ Tipi has been a centerpiece of Dakota life and culture for time immemorial. A visible landmark that originally extended to within 50 meters of the shores of Wakpá Táŋka (the Mississippi River), Wakáŋ Tipi served as neutral ground for Oceti Šakowiŋ traveling from place to place. Ceremonies were held here, nestled between the river and the sandstone bluffs upon which generations of Dakota relatives lay buried.

There have now been visitors and settlers living on Dakota lands for over 200 years. French fur traders and other explorers traveled to Dakota lands even earlier, sharing what they saw and found. Jonathan Carver, in 1766, is the first European known to have visited Wakáŋ Tipi itself, and his descriptions of what he saw remain the most vivid and complete written documentation of the cave. In fact, Carver’s 1778 book, Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America, made Wakáŋ Tipi a famous landmark of Turtle Island. From Carver’s initial writings to the present, Wakáŋ Tipi has been a frequent destination for settler communities, from tourists and historians, to geologists and businessmen. Its popularity, however, has often meant desecration, destruction, and disrespect for the sanctity of this place.

In a fitting representation of the settler-colonial mindset, one of Jonathan Carver’s first acts upon encountering Wakáŋ Tipi was to inscribe, alongside Indigenous petroglyphs, the British royal coat of arms. And though, after staying near Wakáŋ Tipi with Dakota hosts for over six months, Carver did not follow the settler tradition of the “naming” the site as his discovery, he took great pride in being the first European to document and describe it. Other settlers decided to refer to the cave as Carver’s, and from that point on, this pattern of desecration has been repeated, over and over again.

In a poignant rebuff of these repeated intrusions, Wakáŋ Tipi has periodically closed itself off from the outside world. From a Western scientific standpoint, this is explained in part by erosion: landslides accumulating limestone talus at the bottom of the bluffs cover the cave entrance. But we offer a different perspective — Wakáŋ Tipi, a living presence in this world as much as you or I, protects itself from harm as best it can. Pickaxes, dynamite, and shovels clawed away Wakáŋ Tipi’s domed ceiling and reduced its stores of spring-fed groundwater, but these periodic enclosures protect what remains.

Ever since Jonathan Carver marked Wakáŋ Tipi with colonial symbols, the land and its people have been forced to adapt to the intrusive and destructive forces of capitalism and settler colonialism. After Carver, waves of explorers, historians, scientists, and tourists probed Wakáŋ Tipi for the sake of fame and dominion. Whenever the cave closed itself off, settlers would search for the slightest entry point, claw out rubble and obtrusive walls, and probe the cave for personal gain. Throughout the 19th century, multiple men laid claim to “discovering” Wakáŋ Tipi, and into the 20th century, periodic “reopenings” of the cave entrance were celebrated with tours, photographs, and other recreational activities.

*[Swede Hollow, c. 1910. Phalen Creek is visible in the foreground.]*

Between 1830 and 1930, waves and waves of immigrants settled and reshaped Mni Sota Makoce at the same time that the Dakota people were dispossessed of and exiled from their ancestral homelands. The oft-told tale of Swede Hollow is one of grit and bootstraps, in which different immigrant communities cycle through an upward trajectory of poverty, to assimilation, to success. We expand this narrative when we remember that: (1) not all people living on the land now known as Swede Hollow experienced the same upward economic mobility, and (2) the same systems that forcibly removed Dakota people from Mni Sota relegated immigrants to housing that ultimately contaminated a Dakota sacred space. Even though Swede Hollow was continuously inhabited by immigrants for over 100 years, and at its heyday was home to over 1,000 people, the City of Saint Paul neglected to provide the critical residential infrastructure found in surrounding neighborhoods. As a result, residents of Swede Hollow had no choice but to route the community’s raw sewage and waste directly through Phalen Creek. At one time, a major railroad line ran straight through the area, and Hamm’s Brewery operated directly above the community. These intrusions contributed to the gradual decline of Phalen Creek, and it is only recently that this ecosystem has been rehabilitated.

In recent research into settler history on Dakota lands, we came across a particularly striking note: in 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the St. Paul Daily News reported that a number of unhoused men turned to Wakáŋ Tipi itself for shelter. This has been noted by more recent visitors to the cave, who have found marks on the cave walls and smoke traces on the ceiling. And what are we to make of this? This year, St. Paul has seen high numbers of unhoused community members finding shelter throughout the city. Our unhoused neighbors have relied on the relative privacy provided by public parks and green spaces, including Swede Hollow Park and Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. The root causes of homelessness are failures not of individuals but of the settler colonial state: from the commodification of housing, to unfair evictions and foreclosures, to a soulless approach to addiction and mental health that fails to provide adequate stability and support to those who need it most — American society fails us. It is therefore unsurprising that, almost one hundred years apart, members of this society have turned to places like Wakáŋ Tipi for respite.

As we enter into another Minnesota winter, we ask all of you to think of your unhoused neighbors. It is not lost on us that despite making up roughly 1% of Minnesota’s population, nearly 15% of unhoused Minnesotans are Indigenous. It is shameful that, on stolen Dakota land, in a society that holds so much material wealth and resources, we lack adequate shelter and stability for all. Visit the website for the Wall of Forgotten Natives for more context on how Minnesota has treated unhoused community members. Visit the Twin Cities Mutual Aid Map for a list of organizations and groups currently providing mutual aid and support to our unhoused neighbors. In a society that has taken us far away from traditional ways of relating, we must remember our generosity and our compassion. We must work to address the harm to land and to people, one day at a time.