The Fond du Lac Band's relationship with the United States began with treaties -- and the steady erosion of their territory. In 1837, the band joined other Ojibwe groups in ceding lands across east-central Minnesota and north-central Wisconsin. The first Treaty of La Pointe in 1842 surrendered more territory around the Lake Superior watershed. Then came the second Treaty of La Pointe in 1854, which ceded roughly 25 percent of the combined land area of present-day Minnesota and Wisconsin. In exchange, the treaty established the Fond du Lac Reservation at its current location along the Saint Louis River, in Carlton and Saint Louis counties. The Ojibwe retained hunting, fishing, and gathering rights across the ceded territory -- rights that remain legally binding and actively exercised today. The 1854 treaty drew a line on the map, but the band's connection to the broader landscape never severed.

The reservation's greatest crisis came not from war but from legislation. The Dawes Act of 1887 and the Nelson Act of 1889 targeted communal land ownership, subdividing tribal territory into individual allotments. Parcels deemed 'surplus' were opened to white settlers and timber companies eager to exploit the dense northern forests. By 1934, nearly three-quarters of the Fond du Lac Reservation had passed into non-Native ownership. The landscape itself bore the scars: clear-cut timber tracts, fragmented holdings, and a checkerboard of jurisdictions that made governance nearly impossible. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 finally halted allotment and allowed the band to begin the slow work of reacquisition. By 1981, the Fond du Lac Band had regained control of just over half the land within the reservation boundary -- a recovery measured in decades and perseverance.

The Fond du Lac Band adopted a written constitution and established an elected tribal council of five members serving staggered four-year terms. From this base in the north woods, the band built a modern governance infrastructure that serves a population scattered across multiple communities -- Brookston, Big Lake, Mahnomen, and parts of Cloquet. The tribe operates its own police force, social services, and tribal housing. The Min No Aya Win Health Center provides medical care and pharmacy services on the reservation, while satellite clinics in Duluth (the Center for American Indian Resources) and Minneapolis (Mashkiki Waakaaigan Pharmacy, meaning 'Medicine House') serve the many band members living in urban areas. The Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College offers higher education rooted in Ojibwe culture. Self-governance here is not abstract -- it is health clinics, police cars, classrooms, and propane deliveries in January.

Economic development on the reservation has centered on enterprises that generate revenue for tribal services. The Black Bear Casino and golf course in Carlton and the Fond-du-Luth Casino in downtown Duluth are the most visible operations, but the band's economic portfolio extends further: Northwoods Radio broadcasts across the region, FDL Gas & Grocery serves local needs, and FDL Propane and FDL Sand & Gravel address the practical realities of life in northern Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, 4,184 people lived on the combined reservation and off-reservation trust land. The population reflects the allotment era's legacy: 49.45 percent identified as White, 40.56 percent as Native American, and 6.91 percent as two or more races. The checkerboard of ownership created a checkerboard of people, and the band navigates this demographic complexity while maintaining its identity as an Ojibwe nation.

Flying over Carlton and Saint Louis counties, the landscape below is a rumpled green blanket of boreal forest, lakes, and wetlands -- the kind of terrain the Ojibwe have navigated by canoe and snowshoe for centuries. The Saint Louis River winds through it all, still blocked in places, still earning the name the people gave it. The reservation's scattered communities appear as small clearings in the trees, connected by two-lane roads that follow old trails through the pines. Cloquet, the nearest city, sits at the reservation's southern edge, its paper mill smokestacks a reminder of the timber economy that once consumed so much tribal land. The Fond du Lac Band has outlasted allotment, assimilation policy, and economic marginalization. Nagaajiwanaang -- where the current is blocked -- remains a place where the Ojibwe hold ground.