On Wednesday evening June 26th the Walking Lake Pepin (walkinglakepepin.com) group walkers travelled from Underwood Park down 10th ST. to visit the site of Indian burial mounds on 10th street near Mounds Court.
Katie Himanga, forester and local historian, was invited to talk to the walkers and tell the story of the indigenous people whose homeland was Lake City 1500 years ago. The burial mounds on this site are sacred ground for the Dakota people, just as cemeteries are for all communities.
The site was used as a pasture and orchard after 1850s and never cultivated. The mounds have not been disturbed in spite of the residential building around the site.
The site presently is overgrown with trees and other ground vegetation and in the summer, it is difficult to walk into to observe the actual mounds. Several of the walkers however followed Katie into the brush to see the actual mounds. After the frost has dropped the leaves from the trees walking in the area to see the mounds is much easier.
The burial mound site was transferred by the City of Lake City to the ownership of the Prairie Island Indian Community in 2023. The City felt that returning the site back to the Dakota community honored the long history of the indigenous people who were here long before Lake City was established.
The WLP group walk will not occur Wednesday July 3 due to the 4th of July holiday.
The next group walk be held July 10th at 6:30 pm. The walkers will meet up at the wayside rest on Hwy 61 and Goodhue County 2 (the usual starting point for the Sand Point trail) to carpool to the state park for the evening’s walk. The Sand Point walk that was planned will not be possible due to flood waters. Watch WLP Facebook page and the Graphic for updates. Questions contact Patty Svien 345-4383.
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