On the southern bank of St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, construction crews are working to bring a piece of Dakota history back.
The falls, known as Owámniyomni in Dakota, have a deep significance for the Dakota people. Long before industrialization in the mid-1800s converted the falls into the engine for the milling and timber industries that would define the city, Owámniyomni was a destination for Dakota ceremonies and for women to give birth on Spirit Island, a small island that used to sit beneath the falls.
Today, the dormant seeds of that history are beginning to reemerge.
Since 2016, the Dakota-led organization Owámniyomni Okhódayapi (formerly Friends of the Falls) has been working to restore a 5.2-acre parcel of land adjacent to the upper lock of the falls. Construction at the site began in June, with crews working daily to restore natural habitat.
“It’s so exciting,” said Kahomy Weston, project coordinator at Owámniyomni Okhódayapi. “This whole process started about 10 years ago and it wasn’t until these past couple of years where the ball is actually rolling to break ground.”
The Owámniyomni Okhódayapi team hopes the project will shine light on an overlooked part of Minnesota’s history. Steps away from the Mill City Museum commemorating the city’s industrial past, the project could be a landmark for future initiatives to restore Dakota history along the Mississippi, Weston said.
“A big part of it is welcoming Dakota people back to the river,” she said. “We’re doing that by restoring Dakota lifeways and making Dakota people visible in their homelands.”
Shaking and moving
Before construction crews could get to work, the Owámniyomni Okhódayapi team first had to decide what they would be doing there.
“It all started off with the question of what does the land want?” Weston said. “That sparked the conversations.”
The answer, the team decided, was to do less. Weston said that instead of retrofitting buildings to serve a new function, the organization felt the project should restore the land to its natural state.
The decision was not Owámniyomni Okhódayapi’s alone. Since the beginning of the design process, the organization has collaborated with Minnesota’s four federally recognized Dakota tribes. This includes consulting with traditional Dakota historians, known as knowledge-keepers, throughout the process. These knowledge-keepers have informed design choices and are paid members of the project.
Collaboration among the tribes has also led to the formation of a working group comprising the knowledge-keepers, tribal leaders, and Owámniyomni Okhódayapi project managers. Project President Shelley Buck said that for tribal nations typically leery of outside approaches, the working group was crucial in building trust and ensuring the financial burden remained the organization’s alone.
“You’re never really sure when someone comes to you with a project like this,” Buck said. “Sovereign nations should not have to pay to restore stolen land.”
As part of legislation passed by Congress in 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was required to transfer ownership of the falls to the city of Minneapolis or its designee, which the city assigned as Owámniyomni Okhódayapi in April 2025. The transfer was slated to become official in 2026, but Buck said bureaucratic hurdles will push that event into early next year. The existing visitor center and restroom buildings also need to be removed before Owámniyomni Okhódayapi takes ownership.
Once the transfer is complete, Buck said, the working group will discuss whether land ownership will ultimately be transferred back to the tribes or maintained by Owámniyomni Okhódayapi. For both the tribes and the organization, the idea of ownership is at odds with Dakota values.
“Even though the organization is going to have ownership of it, that concept of ownership is a foreign concept to us as native people, as Dakota people,” Buck said. “That land is our relative. It’s not something to be owned.”
In the meantime, construction at the site is underway. Phase one is focused on preparing the land for planting and restoration, while the second phase will focus on restoring a waterfall that will ultimately cascade down a 25-foot drop. Weston said Owámniyomni Okhódayapi is still working to raise $60 million for the second phase, and has so far raised $47 million.
Owámniyomni Okhódayapi also has an engagement space across the street from the project in the Crown Plaza building, which it is using for education and community outreach. Among the events being held in the spaces are speaker series and classes on ribbon skirt making, corn husk doll making, and cooking. Buck said the organization is looking into expanding activities in the future.
“We really have gotten a lot of people interested in what we’re doing,” she said.
Thinking Dakota
Before the project could break ground, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi made sure that the design team was in complete alignment. For GGN, the Seattle-based architecture firm the organization hired, this meant learning a Dakota mindset.
David Malda, principal at GGN, said the team quickly realized it needed to reframe the project.
“This isn’t about adding something new,” he said. “It’s about trying to restore relationships.”
Those relationships, he added, need to accommodate the realities of the site’s post-colonial state.
“We can’t go backwards in time, but what can we do to support those reconnections for all this life that’s still here?” Malda said.
That thinking turned the project into a restoration initiative. When completed, it will incorporate prairie and oak savanna habitat, a once widespread ecosystem in the Midwest that was maintained by Indigenous fires. The site will also grow plants used for medicine by the Dakota, providing access closer to home for many.
While GGN’s education in Dakota thinking has been important to the project’s progression, its conventional project management skills have also contributed. Communication between Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and the Army Corps of Engineers has at times been difficult, Buck said, with two very different perspectives converging on one project. Malda said GGN’s translation between the intentional groundedness of Dakota thinking and the methodical approach used by the Corps has been one of the most important aspects of its work.
“We’re in the middle of two really different ways of understanding the world,” he said.
A model for the future
For the Dakota people living in post-colonial Minnesota, being caught between two worlds is a reality of life. Buck said she hopes the Owámniyomni project can be a small step toward bridging the gap.
“I think it’s important that projects like this do integrate the two worlds together,” Buck said. “As a Dakota woman, I live in two worlds, so I have to be able to think and act in two different ways.”
Buck said Owámniyomni Okhódayapi hopes to expand its work to other sites. The organization is already working with the city to coordinate the Owámniyomni project with the adjacent Water Works Park and plans to integrate the two sites under a cultural conservation easement. Buck said the organization will also consider sites along the Mississippi River.
“There are a lot of sacred sites along the Mississippi River from where we’re at down to Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi and even down to Prairie Island,” she said. “All these different sacred sites along the way really need to be taken care of.”
Still, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi’s focus remains on the current project, and excitement is building for the day the organization can welcome the Dakota back to their historic lands.
“Throughout history, Dakota people have been erased, forgotten, physically taken out, and exiled to different parts of the country,” Weston said. “So this is a small way of bringing them back.”
