Living with Floods--Ron Johnson

"So we have been challenged as a tribe. We were forced into the flood plains we lived during high water. Most of our land does flood. We are at the 500-year flood, if we get 1,000 500 would really hurt us it would really put us, 100 year would hurt us. We did have that 500 year in ’65 and all of this was under water but that shows you how important the water is to us. We could have pulled up and left, we could have went to DC and asked Congress to relocate this tribe but we chose to stay here."

This story was collected as part of a collaborative effort to record the state of American lakes, rivers, and waterways as well an attempt to uncover what water means to Americans. Listen to other stories recorded by the Minnesota Humanities Center for their We Are Water MN initiative, an outgrowth of our national traveling exhibition "Water/Ways."  

Asset ID #6667