 If you enjoy watching Common Ground online, please consider making a tax-deductible donation at lptv.org. Lakeland Public Television presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Welcome to Common Ground. I'm your host, Scott Knudson. In this special one-hour episode, we examine the historic and cultural significance of Bemidji's Shenaushkung Statue Project. On June 6th of 2015, the city of Bemidji installed a bronze statue of an indigenous man named Shenaushkung, more commonly referred to as Chief Bemidji. Shenaushkung's living relatives gathered with other members of the community to dedicate this new bronze likeness. This art serves as a replacement for an older caricature of the man, while almost amateurish in quality, still beloved in the community. This is great. This is the story of the people who came together, indigenous and white, to bring a bronze statue of Shenaushkung to the shore of Lake Bemidji. Ms. Kwagamiwazaga Eganing and Donjibon from Red Lake. Makadewigabawiki Kwe, Indigenikas. Black Standing Lady is my Indian-given name. Catherine Jody Bolio is my English name, and I'm from the Bear Clan. Isn't that statue just beautiful? Makwa Indodane. That's who I am. I'm a grandmother. I'm a person who has always valued education. I have a master's degree in tribal administration and tribal governance. I've come through the ethnocentric institutions, and I never gave up my own identity, which is expected in those institutions. I became involved with the Shenaushkung committee due to the office that I held at the time. The idea was to bridge the gap between our communities, non-Indian and Indian. So the first thing that came to mind without hesitation is, Bemidji should start out with its namesake, that there should be a statue erected that shows the honor and integrity of the person whose name is the city's name, and also to render positive image of our people, and one of integrity and one of honor for not only our people, but for the city of Bemidji and for those people who come to visit. That was the idea, and from there it sprung off into a committee, and there were people from various backgrounds serving on the committee at one point in time. I believe there was a city council person. There was people that were from the shared visions committee. There were other tribal members from like White Earth and Leech Lake and Red Lake. We were all represented, and there were also descendants of Shane and Wishkung's on the committee, and we met for six years. I was the co-chair of the Chief Bemidji Statue Project, and I came to it very interestingly. Prior to the start of the statue project, I was involved in a race relations project in Bemidji Shared Vision, and I happened to be up at Red Lake visiting with Jody Bolio, who was the tribal secretary then, and she happened to mention to me that something good that the city of Bemidji could do would be to replace the current statue of Chief Bemidji with something more dignified, and I thought about that in the conversation with her, and then sometime a little after that, I brought a carload of people back up to her office to talk and listen to her explain what she meant and the feelings behind it, and that was the start of the committee. Sandy Call, who was the co-chair with me, was at that meeting with Jody, and we spent quite a while after that talking about how we might approach this project. My name is Sandy Call, and I got involved with the statue project when Carolyn Jacobs called me and asked me if she could meet with me about public art, and I said sure, so she had been at the Shared Visions meetings, and they had discussed the statue downtown of Chief Bemidji and the issues that some people had with it, not being as respectful as many would like, and so Carolyn and I met, and then we ended up driving up to Red Lake and meeting with Jody Bullio, and Kevin Waldhausen I think was in and John Chattin from the city, and we just had a conversation about the old statue and the fact that many people were not happy with the way it portrayed native people in the area and what we might do about it. Part of the process was to have the public meetings that we held on all of the three reservations and in the city of Bemidji to get the public input, and we did have a lot of feedback about people's desire to see a more respectful statue. However, in the whole process, we did realize the statue at the current time plus the previous statue, the original carving, they were all done with the highest regard for Sheina Wishkang, and though the art of it may have been called folk art or cartoonish in a way, and thus maybe in today's world looked at as a little bit disrespectful of a real native man who we are trying to honor, we did recognize through the process that the original carver carved that statue while he was living, which is a high honor for somebody while they are living to have this happen. And when that statue got decrepit, the second one was done. But the descendants of that second carver came to one of our public meetings and those family members said they would be fine for that statue to be at the historical society as we had hoped it might be. And so the transition to the new statue, I think, happened in a good way. We did meetings on each of the three reservations near Bemidji and in Bemidji, and we got a lot of different opinions, but basically there was a really strong consensus about a new statue would be a wonderful thing. There were roadside America people, they're all across the country, they're old statues, there's dinosaurs made out of stucco in Arizona, and there's a lot of, well the big topless Indian at Morales, he's a muffler man, his body was a muffler man that was converted to a Native American and there's several alike him across the country. So there were some people that raised concerns that we were trying to do away with the old statue and that it was a piece of historic memorabilia, roadside attraction. And so we tried to focus the conversation not on the destruction or removal of the old statue so much as how to care for it now that it's falling apart and it's aging, how to find out its provenance, who actually built it, who actually covered the wood with fiberglass at what time was that done? Did the city own it? Who was in charge of its caretaking? So to keep sort of a positive conversation about the existing statue and also kind of slowly subvert that conversation towards a vision of what a new statue could look like. Would you want another sort of smooth, gumby faced trope or would you like something that was actually representative of the man it was supposed to represent who was not named Chief Bemidji but it was an actual fellow named Shayna Wishkin. The old statue, well there is two. There is one earlier on in the 1900s and about 50 years later or so another folklore kind of statue was erected. And while I respect the men that did those statues it was long overdue to take that folklorish one out and put a realistic one in because we got to get real with bringing our yesterday together with our today. And sometimes as Indian people when we start hearing about that and learning about it ourselves and becoming aware of the atrocities we can come out in a way where we could really downright have bitterness but it's important for us to teach our own children this is what we have survived this is how strong a people we are. Our spirituality has carried us through all these things that we have been faced with. A landing area was designed and built for the comfort and safety of those stopping on a stroll to view the bronze Shayna Wishkin. This comfortable landing was equipped with a safety railing and engineered pillars. The pillars were included to hold bronze plaques of historic writing that detailed the environment that Shayna Wishkin and our nation navigated. I mean, I don't know if we're gonna hold them out a little bit or they're going truly flush. This committee of all my almost 40 years working and volunteering in Bemidji I would say that this committee was the most diverse and therefore probably the best committee or board that I've been associated with. I think in our community people always hear that, oh, we should have more diversity. They don't recognize perhaps what's gonna come of that. And especially on a committee like this where we were probably 50-50 native and non-native people on this committee, the education that all of us got about each other, the working together as people on difficult topics and issues and coming out the other side of it in a healthy, honest, respectful way was a real benefit for me as a person to be able to be part of. And often in the committee we talked about that we hope that we are, well, we said we are like a microcosm of the community that we hope to see. So therefore, we have a great responsibility to do it right ourselves, to not get stumbled on an issue or a problem. That committee is a microcosm of what I believe the mission statement was to be able to bring the communities together because the people that were on the committee who were non-Indian had already come a long way in as far as their own humanity and opened up to the truth. So we didn't have a real kind of like controversy on the committee at all. It was a lot of understanding, a lot of education that took place and a lot of friendships that were made. You know, when I came on, it was the same thing Carolyn called me. Would you be interested in participating in this statue project? She told me a little bit about shared visions and what I knew about shared visions was it was putting dual language signage on door fronts throughout the community and I think the first year really was just building the committee. It took us a year just to find out who was gonna consistently come to the meeting, who was representing what sectors of society we had an architect, we had art people in the community, we had representatives from the three reservations and once we got that committee core sort of developed, then it was, well who are we and who do we think we are to have the authority to say we need this new statue? And that's when, as Sandy brought up, we decided before we go any further, let's have a town hall at the Bemidji Library, let's have a meeting at Leech Lake, at Red Lake and at White Earth. So that took months, that was half a year I think before we had. Well at least half a year, maybe even more. The consensus back from those four different meetings to get a sense of what the hubbub was about, what people were worried about, what people wanted. I think that was maybe the thing that made the project eventually successful. We met with people at White Earth in Red Lake and Leech Lake and here in Bemidji and we started uncovering the opinions and the stories of what people really thought about the old statue, how it made them feel and what they wished for something better to represent the Nishinaabe people here. And so little by little the conversation went for the, we had about 20, 25 people come to the reservation meetings and I think the word went from those people out to others and pretty soon we were getting the feeling that it was okay to go forward, that we really did have some quiet but good consensus with the project. Before our committee started doing the research, of course other people have done research on Sheinawishkan. And the community was probably very well informed on that information that had always been shared. The stories about Chief Bemidji greeting the first white settlers. Chief Bemidji giving maple candies to the children and paddling in his canoe and trading moose meat for his flooring in his house. However, if that's the only story that people have they probably don't have the full understanding of the man and the times in which he lived. Because as Elaine Fleming and people worked on the research and really worked hard to find the real verifiable, citable research quotes. The few quotes we could find that he said. And to understand the time period, this very horrible, difficult time period of colonization in this country. So to recognize that Sheinawishkan was a man of peace, was a man of humility, of courage, of honesty. The seven grandfathers teachings that we are now becoming familiar with, at least I'm becoming familiar with, I should say. That it would be difficult for somebody to understand who Sheinawishkan is without knowing the history that was going on, the life that was going on, the hardships, the tragedies that were going on at that time. And yet still, he was this man who had those highly revered qualities. Caroline Jacobs was like the person who kept the record, person who organized the meetings and she more or less spearheaded the going on and the keeping it cohesive and together in plunging us forward. When Jody approached me and had that conversation with me, I felt like this is important work and I want to be responsible to carry it through. And I think people on the committee would say my role was to keep things going, to always have an X meeting, to always send out an email, to send out notes from the minutes, from the meetings. So I think I was the task master in the group. And Sandy Kahl was always there and met a lot and raised a lot of money for the statue and build those kind of bridges with City Hall and the Park Board. So it was a collaborative effort by a lot of the people. The Leech Lake members that were involved were Donnie Headburn as well as Beverly and Jody and other relatives, direct descendants of Sheinawishkan which had a very instrumental part in participating on the committee and was good to have them participating. We had a wonderfully diverse committee. We had probably half-native, half-non-native people in the committee which led for a wonderful mix and people's talents and strengths. From five members at the beginning, we kind of grew to about 20 members. Half of the members were Native people and half were not. With Sandy Kahl and I being the co-chairs, you might think that we were the leaders of the group of the committee, but we only kept things going. And when I look back at how the committee worked and where the direction came from, Sandy and I and other non-native people on the committee looked with deep regard and respect to the Native people on the committee to help guide us to know how we move forward from a difficult spot and with the truth-telling of the history. And with any other issues regarding the statue, we turned to the family numerous times, the descendants of Sheinawishkan, Donnie and Bev and Jody and Jess and Ashley. We looked to them, that family, to say, what do you think about how this should be? That was so important and it helped steer the committee. And I think we had an idea of a timeline when we started out like a good committee should and we were worried about, well, are we gonna make this timeline? And when we got down to what we realized, that's gonna drive wedges, it's gonna force people to make knee-jerk reactions and if we just keep this conversation, I think it was Paul, wasn't it? At one point he just said, if you just keep talking about the vision and have patience, let it slowly become a foregone conclusion. And then we realized we really had a lot of goodwill behind us before we even started to design what the statue was gonna be. Right, and it felt good not to have a deadline necessarily. I mean, we made progress all the time, but it took a lot longer than we thought it would. But in the end, that turned out to be a gift because it happened when it happened. I think in the beginning, we thought it was gonna be fairly speedy. I think we overestimated how we underestimated how quickly we could fundraise. Well, we didn't know it was gonna take that long for one thing, but I think that we were also committed to what we wanted to accomplish that we maintain our consistent meetings and are going over the plaques and then taking that to another level and taking it before the council and doing whatever necessary to get the job done. And we did it. And that was a major accomplishment. I think the surprising thing for me was we all come to this with good intentions and we get a sense of what it is we're doing and we have some assumptions. And I think an assumption that most of us hadn't really evaluated was, well, we just assumed that the old statue should go and there'd be a new statue. And it was really surprising for me when we started getting family members actual descendants of Shayna Wishkong on the committee. They were at one point, they were five. Great, great, great, great grandchildren and nephews and nieces. And they thought that maybe the statue needed work but they also were very proud that it was there. And they were very happy in the stories of bringing grandkids up and saying, well, that's grandpa Midgee. And as they drive through to this day, the grandkids, the small children saying, hey, look, there's grandpa Midgee. And so it's not black and white. It's not as simple as this is a bad statue, we have to get rid of it and put in a better one. And that was an assumption I went in with right from the beginning. And so for me, that changed to what other assumptions do I have about this intercultural conversation that if I listen to these wise older people on this committee from three reservations and from downtown, what their visions are, how do we all play along together and participate to create a shared vision? And there was a lot of listening and then participating when you're called on to participate. I think what we did, we focused on the new statue. Figuring that as time went on, it would be the new statue and the design and so forth would be so wonderful that people would come to their own conclusions that we should retire the other statues. And I think that's basically what happened. So we didn't dwell on it. But one interesting thing that happened at the meeting at believe it was Leech Lake, there were about 20 people there. And two women were there and they turned out to be relatives of the person that made the old statue that was still on the shore over here. And they told us about their relative that made it and what the environment was during that time. And it was really interesting and we weren't sure how they would feel. And then they said, well, what would happen with the old statue after the new one goes up? And we said, we've made arrangements with the Beltrami County Historical Society to have it as part of their collection because the original Chief Bemidji statue, which rotted out from the waist down practically, is down there. And they were very happy with that. They said, that's fine with us and we understand the issues involved with the current statue. And so that made us feel good and we just tried to keep everybody in mind as we were going along with the planning. The history now cast in bronze was being affixed near the new, more accurate, Shanao-ish come. No, but we had sort of on the committee become friends. I mean, we had gotten to know each other and we had become friends. So we had this small committee of five or six people that were digging into the history and Elaine Fleming and Jody Bolio and Mary Ringhand were just brought the history to the table. Immense effort from you. And we all started doing as much homework as we could, trying to find out what the true story of Shanao-ish came was in this community to synthesize it down to something that can go on four plaques was not a noisy task. And to make those selections was even harder. I think every one of us as an individual member of that text writing committee had to face a moment or two where we had to look inside ourselves and say, what do I want this to be? What do I have to let go of? What are my preconceptions? What is comfortable for me? What feels like the story? And then how much of that is me interjecting what makes it comfortable for me? And what really made the committee work special was that when those moments came, everybody was open to accepting, okay, this is my point of view, this is the research I brought. Let's look at it another way, let's talk about it again. Let's not discount Mary's need for this specific description of the lake to get that right. Let's not discount Elaine's timeline. It's this massive timeline with all these very important dates and events. Let's not discount Jodi's Red Lake history and her work in the archives there. Or our historical perspective of Minnesota history, stuff that came from Subran's, stuff that came from the newspapers. All these things had to be put together and shuffled around and then distilled down. And we did argue about them. Oh yeah, I was. We insisted that everything that we were going to put on the plaques had to have citations. They had to be published somewhere. And so that we just couldn't accept, we just didn't feel it was our job to not do that kind of thing. Yeah, we risked revising history to suit our needs and that's not what we wanted. So we did kind of debate a little bit about what should be in, what shouldn't be in and what story were we actually telling. And we were telling the story of Shanaush Kung and the times in which he lived because we thought that would be the most useful thing for the community. So it was very interesting process. And long after the pamphlets blow away or the website goes down, there are actual words cast in bronze. And that might be the only version of the story that somebody gets. So what is important to be there? I just wanted to point out that certain words are now cast in bronze. Bronze lasts a long time. It's amazing to see this go from an in-design document, you know, these plaques, playing with the margins and spacing and the size of the letters and all that stuff. See it come out in bronze like this. It's pretty amazing. And the scroll work. We learned as we went along in talking about the text for the plaques, that it's important to pick facts, be factual and truthful about it. We really told some hard truths on those plaques and we understand that and we discussed that a long time, but we're not unique. This movement to bring truthful plaques to statues and monuments all over this country and all over the world has been happening for the last few years, probably five years, 10 years maybe, where communities will put another plaque in addition to what's already there to kind of expand the story and really bring in the truth of it and not just have it be in a city's boost tourism kind of place to have the actual, you know, the true history and even though it was a tough history. So that movement is going on. And I think Fomiji is one of the first communities in our state that's addressed that and Mankato has done the same thing with their public art down there. So I feel good that we kind of were brave enough to do what we did with the plaques and I feel good about it and I'm really proud of the statue too. I think it goes back to what we said earlier about the committee having a certain authority that we'd kind of proven what our goal was, what our intentions were. We didn't have ulterior motives. We weren't out to defame white settlers. We weren't out to defame the Mijis city government in any way. We just were really out to uncover the life and times of Shana Ishkong, the man who we universally wanted to honor in this statue. And so when there was some discomfort, some city council meetings prior to the installation of the plaques, there was some discomfort about a couple quotes from white settlers at the time that started the Dakota War. You know, it was a really important discussion I think that got held in Fomiji city council chambers about what we're comfortable with, who we are. We're not just an American community. We're not just a white-skinned and avian community. We're not just a business community. There's a larger social construct here. We're the whole thing as far as the controversy over the plaques and there's always gonna be controversy when the truth starts rising. You know, it's not something that people who have experienced white privilege for all their lives are so easily willing to give up and recognize that there's been some atrocities in history that have yet to surface. And like I said, we have paid the price of this hidden history and we shouldn't have to bear the brunt of it. It's not just our burden. It's been our burden because of the prejudice that that kind of hidden truth has brought about. And the things that we all do agree upon, like we want a statue of Shena Wishkong, can also carry through to some of the truths that we all maybe don't wanna hear right now. But it came obvious to me, back to your point, in a few years, in 10 years, I don't think there will be nearly that amount of resentment or concern about the words on those plaques. I think we will have surpassed it. I do feel like we are kind of, we're moving the conversation forward. Yeah, this is another case where time is our friend and people need to kind of take in the statue and the text on the plaques and the whole idea of the monument that's on the lake now. And we needed only to stand back at the dedication ceremony to witness what it meant to the Native American community, the talk that Elaine Fleming gave about what a rattler is. Shena Wishkong, he who rattles and what a rattler in a community can do to wake up, to make us hear, to make us listen. It's a strange feeling watching it in bronze like that. That layout work from the computer, it might be the most important piece of text layout I've ever done. Well, I had a friend of mine, Anishinaabe artist, tell me not more than a week ago, we were at a meeting together and she said, Sandy, she said, every time I drive through town and see that statue, I feel so proud. You don't hear that very much, but I think that's a lot of people feel that way. I do too, I make sure I'm driving carefully because I always am rubber-necking looking at the statue and just yesterday, just Monday morning, I walked by, the sun was up, the lake was calm, and I parked instead of going into my office, I just gave myself a moment to walk down the trail and go hang out and just look at the statue and there's some cobwebs and it's holding up really nicely and I read the plaque, the first plaque again just to see if it held up in my mind. And I was almost able to read it with fresh eyes and it did hold up and the sense of pride that I get isn't a pride in myself that I did a good job, it's a pride going back to being invited into that magical committee and a pride that I feel as a community member of Bemidji, of a, not a race or an age or a class, but of a person that lives here, I grew up here. I'm not a Native American but this has been my home my whole life, I have ancestry here and so I have that kind of a pride in the location and the statue, not so much in patting myself on the back. I just feel like it's such a positive sign and go back to the story of the old hand-painted black and white postcard that I saw as a kid of the fiberglass statue and two little boys looking up at him and reading the plaque that was and the idea of the image now of children like my daughter and other small kids walking up to a whole new sign, you know, a whole new chief Bemidji statue and a whole new set of plaques and hopefully their sense of what a Native American here at the time of settlement, what their life was like, what it meant, we vastly different than that first impression that that kid on the postcard had so. I think in terms of our own kids, our own children, I would like to address that more specifically that there are seven teachings that Shayna Wishkeng modeled and acted on in his life and those seven teachings we put on those plaques intentionally for the younger generation, love, humility, wisdom, kindness, humbleness and respect. You know, all those things is just a plain good values for all of us to live by and it's my hope that our kids would be able to overcome these atrocities that have been, that we have borne throughout history and we were once a thriving, thriving community, you know, Red Lake itself shared the produce from our gardens with the other Indians from Leech Lake and White Earth and we need to get back to that again where we are thriving and industrial people and we need to come to terms with our own values so that we don't duplicate the pollution and the lack of respect for the environment that has been taking place in America. In our water, I say the water is a new gold in America. You know, they're all cutting down on what you can do and what you can't do, you know. So we need to protect our lake. We need to protect what we have left but we can't do it alone. I'm just gonna pose just for a minute. Oh. Oh. Perfect. I'm gonna get this first. Will this work? Yeah. This is gonna be my photo of the day, Al. The Shenouish Kung Committee had come together, worked within the community and dealt with tough history and cultural issues. Now with the historic plaques in place, it was time to install the bronze statue of Shenouish Kung. The intense deliberation of the accuracy of his statue equalled that of the plaques. So we started thinking about if we were to commission a new statue, what would that be like and who should be involved in that process and it sort of went from there. I think there was an atmosphere at the beginning beginnings are delicate times. We'd none of us wanna overstep or injure the relationship we were building. So there was a lot of listening and that slowly grew from an atmosphere of trepidation and caution to confidence. Now we've got a committee that I remember one conversation where we said, well, when we do go to the selection process to pick the eventual sculptor that will do this commission, who gets to be the jury? Who's got the authority to say? And we looked around the table and we said, well, geez, if it's not us, who does? That was difficult because initially we wanted to have an American Indian. Most of the committee members wanted to have an American Indian. And so it narrowed itself down quite naturally and. I don't think in the end it was too hard to pick those final three. There was three people that clearly could do life size or larger and had a really good ability to render a life like human face. And there was quite a variation in their styles and the rose, her style was very smooth, skinned, highly polished. And then it was the third. Fellow from California? Yeah. He put sort of a bust of Shane Owish-Kung on a tall post. So I mean, there were three totally. Yeah, which could be a more monolithic kind of a, he had the idea of having drawings and writing perhaps on it. And then Gareth, his was much more organic. It was loosely modeled. He had flowing hair. Right in his original proposal, he had no money from us. He had already started sculpting busts from photographs from black and white photos. Bust head and then small models of the posture, the stance. I personally, it wasn't the first one I saw, but the one I really looked at, Gareth Packett. I was impressed by the quiet. Seemed like he was in touch with what we were looking for. You get that feeling with art. You can't always put the word to it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it the day that the decision was made at the meeting. But I feel that the rendering of what Gareth did is remarkable. And we're all very, the committee is very satisfied with the work that he did. We met Gareth during the finalist round where we invited the three finalists to interview with us and bring their maquettes, their smaller displays of what they intended to do. I almost would say that to a person in that room and there were quite a large number of us committee members, there, Gareth presented himself as a very warm, humble man. It was so obvious to us, his talent. We were blown away by what he brought us. The bust of Shane O'ish-Kung, along with the three-foot maquette, it brought tears to the family members' eyes, the descendants of Shane O'ish-Kung, because they saw in that face that he carved, their ancestors. We all felt something wonderful about Gareth. Hi, my name is Don Hedberg. I was born here in Cass Lake, Minnesota and I was raised here at the Mission and I've been living here all my life off and on. I was raised by my grandparents, Charlie and Sarah Hedberg and my grandfather, Charles, was the great-grandson of Shane O'ish-Kung and I'm his great-great-grandson. So that's how I'm connected with Chief Bemidji. We had a committee that got ahold of my family and asked if we wanted to be on the committee and I was more than happy to do that. See, I never really realized that Shane O'ish-Kung was my great-great-grandfather until about maybe, gosh, 25, 30 years ago when I was first told he was my grandfather by our old long-time Sheriff Tom Tome and he used to come visit me and talk about him and my family did talk about it but not that much so I didn't really think about it growing up until lately when the committee asked if I wanted to be on there and I was more than happy to do that so Caroline Jacobs is the one that got ahold of me and asked me if I wanted to be there. Well, one of the things that stand out to me is his clothing he's wearing, especially his pipe. Pipes are really sacred to us as Anishinaabe people and that tells me he used his pipe a lot and that's where he got a lot of his strength from to do what he did. The cane, how it's Indian name was he who rattles when he walks. Just about everything about him, you know everything he wears is just so traditional. I would have to say his clothing he wears a little old and a little new because of his meeting with the white people and I'm sure he got close from them and then he mixed it with his traditional clothing. When we first took the interviews from the different artists, I mean it was just a connection to the whole committee that he was the one to do it because it was in his heart and we knew instantly that he was the artist to do it for us. And I actually got to model a leather jacket so the artist could see every wrinkle and how it would look on him to make it as real as possible. You know what really, really got to me was how Shanawish Kwong resembles my brother, Gabby. He actually, they look just similar to each other and so many ways my brother had long hair and wore a braid and they really resemble each other and the way he holds his pipe, my brother held his pipe the same way and that's what really struck me. I really say meegwitch to them for what they've done and it's like they brought our family together so we could work on something, you know? And we were all on the same page with that committee. There was no disagreements, you know? We all give our comments on how the statue should be and we all just work together really good. The committee and their team prepared for the arrival of Gareth with the bronze Shanawish Kwong. Al Belevo, friend of the arts in Bemidji. He's a welder and a sculptor and an all around amazing guy. He was on the committee from the time I started and he was a great voice of technical knowledge about statues, about sculptures, about durability, about designing where the statue would go and helping with all those sorts of things. I mean, he knows everybody, when it was time to have a forklift and the city didn't have it, he knew demarchy, he just went and got the keys and grabbed it and drove it down. You need a guy like Al in Bemidji to make things happen. He's not the committee member that's gonna do the up or down vote or write a lot of long letters about things. He's gonna pick up the tool when it's time and he's gonna be the guy and he was there all the way through it. You think right, bitch? Yeah. At one bleacher, we're gonna probably clock that a little bit. This one here, just in case so he doesn't catch it and move it himself. The day the statue arrived, well, we were ready for it a few days earlier. Al had a crane ready to go and Gareth had had some hangups. He was keeping in touch with Sandy. He promised he'd be there. We knew he'd be there, but we were getting a little nervous. So we realized that people are showing up. The event was gonna start at noon, right? And we had bleachers set up, we had the podium, all the wheels were in motion and we were all kind of, well, you know, kind of need the statue here. All right, the dedication was at noon and at 11. Yeah. Somebody says, there's Gareth's truck. When Gareth pulled up with his truck, with that statue, it was so heartwarming. It was, it was really a thrilling moment when that statue pulled up. He drove right up the path. Yeah, we ushered him in. Right. They had gone through a terrible rainstorm in North Dakota. And so they drove the truck up and drove straight through the night. And Gareth brought along an assistant. The four of them just went to work, followed Gareth's directions. And we had all the equipment ready and our volunteers ready. Okay, Gareth, I'm gonna come in with a loader. When this thing comes up, he's gonna be about like that. Have you pulled a pattern off your base yet? I do. You do? Okay, now we need to use the pattern or we could position him, lift him up again with the bolts in and use those to mark two. We're not going to install. He stands initially. We're going to just put him up for the ceremony. And then later today, we're going to arrange these. When the statue arrived, it was so exciting. It was exhilarating. Of course, we were waiting for that statue to arrive. And, you know, there was a question about the timing of it all. The timing was fantastic. The people who came to the dedication early, they got to see a wonderful, exhilarating sight. He's been working right beside me when we pulled that. That's awesome. I saw there was a picture of you smiling with him. That's awesome. We can pick him up right here. We can pick him up right there. We might do another one on the bottom base. We'll check. Sure. Kind of partially disgusted. Look at the moccasins. Till Bernice sees those moccasins. He's going to play with this now. He actually, he's made the template, so we don't have to yet. Almost want to go underneath his arm. I'm pretty much there now under his arms. Yeah. But Gara says he'll hang like this. He's going to be in like a point. Yeah, and then once we have him there, then we can. What we could do at that point, we could take pads out, set it back down, get it around the neck and then go on. Okay, now I'm a little concerned about the neck. Have you lifted him here? Yes, yeah. Okay, if you have lifted him like that. Yeah, yeah. I just don't want to just go slow and everything. Okay. Before you knew it, we had the fork lift arms up and big straps around this real statue that looked humongous in the back of the statue. Right, you can put the straps around its neck. That's the strongest part of the statue and that was when I almost couldn't watch anymore. Something wonderful about the statue is its artistic value. There's so much about the whole project that's important. Bringing this quality of sculpture to our community and alongside of it, having it be the beautiful representation of Shayna Wishgun, who many say is our city's namesake and to accompany that statue with the historical informational plaques that are there for the community to understand, talk about and continue to move forward in a meaningful way. With this difficult history, that's what's really important about this whole project. I go by the statue every time I go to Bemidji and it's like the statue is real. That's my great-great-grandfather. If I'm riding with people that haven't seen the statue, I brag about him being my great-great-grandfather and I wave at him when I go by there. It is a great thing. It is a good thing. It's a great thing and I hope our people all come together because of him. I know it's brought my family closer and they talk about it a lot and they got some good experiences out of it and learning experience too. I believe firmly that people need to understand about their past and the one thing that public art can do is it can capture that in a three-dimensional way that is very tangible. It's a presence, if not living. It is a very vital presence in a community and I've seen again and again and again where communities have actually been transformed by the presence of a good piece of public work that captures the spirit of what is intended. But that's new statue being there that people are gonna look at it and take a whole different view on things, the way they used to be and the way things are now and the way things should be. The thing I'm gonna take away from this, I'm gonna take two things away. First of all, because I work in the field of public art, I'm reminded again of how that is both the public and the work of art. If the public isn't fully engaged in the project, then it's just a work of art in a park. But this was truly a public art project where the public was truly involved so that reinforced something that I believe in. But secondly, I think Jody Bolio helped me to be more brave because she told others to be brave and not run away from the truth about the story of Shane Oshkong. And there was an article, you know, there's always naysayers and people trying to understand and you have to respect their kind of asking questions and wondering why the statue is facing out instead of over on the lake because he's not facing his resources or something, but you know what? Then if he was gonna be facing his resources, then we should have put him on a circular thing where he evolved all around because the lake, the land and the nature is all about what we once had with Shane Oshkong once had. So there's gonna be different things, but we have to temper those things that people come out with because of their instilled prejudice. We have to temper that and really try to educate and try to build bridges and try to bring about understanding. I have hopes for what the new statue does and will do in the future for Bemidji and the surrounding reservation communities. I probably won't know completely the extent to which the statue impacts the community. Well, when I create statues, it's with the firm realization that they're going to be there long after I'm gone. You know, our lives are so ephemeral, but you know, the statue's gonna long outlive me in this community. My hope is it will be just a continued source of inspiration for people, both white and Native American, to know about the bridges between the two community because the man Shane Oshkong, as I see him, he was a bridge. And even though his life ended with some tragedy in it, with losing his land, it's a positive story. It's a positive story. But everybody, we got the straps off and no one got hurt and we all stepped back and realized that this had just happened. And I think, was it just in my head or did a cheer go up? I think there was a modest round of applause and some of us were exhaling. Seeing everybody gather for the dedication, starting an hour and a half before and up until and as it was going was thoroughly heartwarming for me. I looked around, what I saw and what I felt was this wonderful bringing together of our community, of our cultures and of the really open hearts that were there to witness something historic and to be part of that, to take it all in together as a community. That's what I felt throughout the event. That's great. I love it. I really, really hope that it brings our relations closer, that we all watch out for one another and come together as one and just share our experiences, our cultures and just learn from each other and live a good life forever. That's what I hope. And hopefully it's a catalyst for more good things to happen such as the truth and reconciliation effort that is in its young stages now. But I think the statue is symbolic of all the good that can be done in the community. I think I've already experienced some of that. People seem to be more friendly and it won't be as stereotypical of our people as it has been. We can go forward together as humans. One of the programs that was working with diversity said, well, the acceptance of diversity, but I take issue with the acceptance. I think more about respect for diversity is more where it's at rather than someone accepting me. I don't need acceptance. I'm not looking after acceptance. I gotta do that my own. That's my own homework. But what I would ask and what I would think is necessary for us as a community to get together is respect for each other, kindness for each other. And I think it's heading that way. Thank you so much for watching. Join us again next week on Common Ground. 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