When you go there you feel all of the things that have happened there

Fort Snelling – the fort itself has a lot to do with us. There are a lot of things that have happened there. For me at the age that I’m at, and the many times that I’ve been there for different occasions – I don’t like the word "occasion," but to be there for commemorations of some of the things that happened there, I’d like to think that Fort Snelling is a part of us, a part of the Dakota people more than what it is. I know that a lot of things were there, but we can share things in that area. We share things in that area because we know a lot of our people lost their lives or suffered there, and when you go there you feel all of the things that have happened there. You feel that and I know it makes me feel sad to think that how could anything like that happen to another race of people, when they are people; they are put on this earth by the creator, and why were they treated the way they were – like we were nothing. Human life; they didn’t look at those people there like human beings; they let them suffer and just die. And was that supposed to be their way of saying, "This is history, we’re doing this, and if these people are going to be in our way, you know, why do we want to spend any time on them?" I always feel that way. I get mixed feelings when I’m there, but I do know that the spirit of our people is all around there. And that’s what makes it a lot easier to go there and to do some of the ceremonies that we do do, and that the run is made from there in December. They run from Fort Snelling in commemoration of those that have gone before. And that takes that edge off. But you stop and think; I still do – I stop and think sometimes, "Why?"