North Country: The Making of Minnesota
The untold history of how the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe became the State of Minnesota
North Country: The Making of Minnesota unlocks the complex origins of the state—origins that have often been ignored in favor of legend and a far more benign narrative of immigration, settlement, and cultural exchange. It is the unflinching account of how the land the Dakota named Mini Sota Makoce became the State of Minnesota and of the people who have called it home.
In addition to a thorough narrative treatment of this important subject, the volume includes over 170 maps and illustrations depicting fascinating, often haunting representations of the region over a 250-year period.
“It is a nuanced history of a transition from a place of intersecting imperial and national ambitions to one under the firm command of one political and economic order,” the Hognander Award judge praised.
Mary Lethert Wingerd is currently associate professor of history at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She is also the author of Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul.