SHAKOPEE, Minn. — For the first time in more than 100 years, bison are once again roaming on tribal land in Shakopee.
It's a process two years in the making for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) and cultural outreach coordinator Cyndy Milda.
"Our history is not an easy one, it's a really hard one," said Milda. "That's where I try to teach and educate and try to help as many people as I can just learn who we are as Dakota people."
Their history dates back hundreds of years and part of it includes animals who they consider relatives.
"Any form of animal is a relative, but pte were specifically more important than anything else and that's why we wanted to bring them back to SMSC lands," said Milda.
The pte, or bison, arrived on the reservation in November. It was a process a workgroup of some two dozen members spent more than two years figuring out how to bring them back in a "sustainable, safe and ecologically beneficial way".
"Our main goal was to get them here and to just learn from them at first for the members," said Milda.
Indigenous people relied on pte for food, medicine and materials. Colonization would nearly wipe out the shaggy creature that is the largest mammal in North America.
Ten of them now roam free near the junction of County Road 83 and Eagle Creek Boulevard in Shakopee. They're behind an enclosure, left to graze native plants and help restore the prairie.
"And so that whole ecosystem becomes much better in the long run," said Milda, who says their culture is a story also rooted in resiliency — for both man and beast.
"I get emotional," said Milda. "How amazing they are, to make it this long, and for us to make it this long."
The pte were gifted from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe in South Dakota. Eventually Milda says some will be traditionally harvested, others will be bred.
The tribe is considering building a viewing tower for the public, but there are other places you can see bison across Minnesota, including Spring Lake Park Reserve in Dakota County and Blue Mounds and Minneopa State Parks.
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