March 1, 2004 - 15 years after state officials signed gaming compacts with Minnesota's Indian tribes, 18 casinos have been built. They generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, far more than anyone imagined they would. The state of Minnesota gets only a small sliver of that money and it's used to regulate the casinos.
April 27, 2001 - As part of Mainstreet Radio series "Broken Trust: Civil Rights in Indian Country,” MPR’s Dan Gunderson reports on free speech within the Indian reservation.
April 21, 1998 - A Mainstreet Radio special broadcast from Mille Lacs Indian Museum, highlighting Indian treaty rights and Native American sovereignty. Rachel Reabe interviews Henry Buffalo, a Minneapolis attorney, sovereignty expert, and member Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe; Chief Tribal Judge Mary Jo Brooks Hunter, of Ho chunk Tribe; and Jim Genia, solicitor general for the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe. Discussion topic is tribal sovereignty and how the rules are different on the reservation.
April 30, 1997 - Ojibwe Band members had hoped to be spearing and netting fish on dozens of central Minnesota lakes by now. For seven years a group of tribes, led by the Mille Lacs Ojibwe, worked through the courts to restore fishing and hunting rights given them by treaty in the 19th century. It appeared the tribes would finally exercise those rights this spring. But a group of local landowners won an injunction earlier this month, halting the Indians' plans, at least for now.
April 5, 1991 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger profiles The Ojibwe News, an independent newspaper serving Bemidji area. The paper focuses on tribal and reservation news, with some controversial stances. While read by many, the paper’s independence from Red Lake Reservation tribal government does not keep some from questioning paper’s objectivity as a Native press.
October 22, 1990 - MPR’s William Wilcoxen visits St. Joseph a year after the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. Wilcoxen interviews local residents about what has changed in the community.