Tribal co-management of National Parks (Part III): Grand Portage National Monument

The Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa call the Grand Portage area Gichi-Onigaming. The Grand Portage Band are Ojibwe or Anishinaabe people. The Band's website refers to their people as Ojibwe, so that is the term I use throughout this article. It is worth noting that not all Anishinaabe people prefer to be called Ojibwe.

Jeff Rosenthal/Wikimedia Commons

Grand Portage National Monument is on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior, seven miles south of the United States-Canada border, and 36 miles north of Grand Marais, Minnesota. The Grant Portage National Monument lies within the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, the sovereign territory of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Of all the parks I am covering in this series, this is the one that is closest to my home, in Chicago. (See Part I here, and Part II here) For these posts, I rely heavily on the Administrative Histories of the parks that the National Park Service (NPS) puts out. So far, Grand Portage is the only one with a very recent (2023) administrative history that prioritizes Indigenous history and viewpoints. Check it out here.

Grand Portage National Monument is a long, skinny piece of land with two larger land bases on either end. The majority of the park is the Grand Portage trail, a valley that connects lake superior to the Pigeon River. If you've never been to Minnesota, you might not know that it is the "Land of 1,000 Lakes." This refers primarily to the literally thousands of lakes that make up the boundary waters between the United States and Canada. The Grand Portage Trail enabled Indigenous peoples and fur travelers to portage their canoes and cargo from the Great Lakes to the Boundary Waters, facilitating travel west. 

Grand Portage National Monument was established in 1958, on land that was largely granted to the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa through treaty in 1845. However, the Grand Portage Trail had been important to both European and Ojibwe people for hundreds of years. The French began using the trail to bring their fur trade farther west at the end of the 17th century. The Ojibwe traded with the French— fur for guns. They used those weapons to expand their territories. When the French territories in North America passed to British control, the Grand Portage Trail became increasingly important. It was the most practical avenue for fur traders coming from Montreal to access the west. Eventually, the fur trade moved farther north, and left the Grand Portage Trail. 

The late 19th century saw several rounds of treaties ratified between Ojibwe peoples and the United States. The Grand Portage Reservation was established in 1854. The reservation protected that portion of Ojibwe lands from mining prospectors and logging companies until allotment. In the 1920s, the Minnesota historical society took an interest in the Grand Portage trail as part of Minnesota's fur trading history. They attempted to buy several sites, but could not do so because the land was on the Grand Portage reservation. 

Conservation efforts picked up speed in the 1930s, after the passage of the Indian Reconstruction Act (IRA), which ended allotment, promoted self-governance, and established a loan program to promote Tribal business. To receive the benefits of the IRA, Tribes had to opt-in by adopting a constitution. Minnesota Ojibwe peoples opted in and adopted a constitution and bylaws, becoming the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The larger Tribe also adopted separate charters for each band, including Grand Portage. 

Also in the 1930s, the United States protected more than a million acres of land in northern Minnesota as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). Nearby Isle Royale was made a national park not long after to act as a jumping-off point for tourists visiting the area. After WWII, the NPS revisited an old idea of establishing a protected site in the Grand Portage area to connect Isle Royale and the BWCAW. The Grand Portage Tribal Council was initially reticent, as they were struggling to undo the creation of two areas of protected wilderness on the Reservation that were impeding development. Eventually they were convinced to embark on the project with the National Park Service. The Tribe's interest was in attracting revenue and jobs to the Reservation, while the Park Service sought to preserve the wilderness and fur trading sites.

The final agreement retained Tribal ownership of the land but granted the NPS a covenant to that land for purposes of a national historic site. The land was designated a national historic site in 1951. However, President Truman ordered spending on the development of the site to be capped at $2,200 (approximately $26,000 today) per year because the federal government did not own the land. In 1953, the Tribal Council reluctantly agreed to cede the land to the Federal Government. The agreement was not finalized until 1958 because it took that long to get the required agreement among tribal members for the land transfer. In 1958, Congress passed Public Law 85-910, establishing the Grand Portage National Monument. The law expressly provided for the co-management of the National Monument, even including a reversion to the Tribe if the NPS ever abandoned the park. 

Throughout the 1960s, however, the NPS failed to develop the monument to the extent that it would attract tourists and improve the Grand Portage economy. In 1969, a fire destroyed a number of buildings in the monument, including a reconstruction of the Great Hall that had once stood in Grand Portage. 

In the 1970s, the Park Service and the Tribe adopted an ambitious development plan. Parts of the plan were completed, but the coordinators ran into funding issues once the Reagan administration took office. Park development stalled, and the Department of Interior even briefly listed Grand Portage as a Park that should be removed from the Park Service's holdings (this idea was quickly scrapped after Congressional protest).

 Meanwhile, the Tribal Council turned to gaming in a continued effort to bring revenue and jobs to the community. They opened a resort complex in 1975, and added a casino in 1990. The success of the casino spurred economic growth and employment opportunities on the Reservation. The NPS applauded the growth, but worried that the casino would clash with the historic and environmental conservation projects. After failing to provide for real economic growth for twenty years, the Park Service looked bad complaining when the Tribe found a different way.

In 1998, the NPS and the Grand Portage Band entered into a co-management agreement, the first co-management agreement to involve primary operations at a national park. The Grand Portage Band was put in charge of all maintenance work at the monument. The Band's workers are allowed to dress in their Band uniform, as opposed to the NPS's green and grey uniforms. The co-management agreement has also led to the development of programming for teen Tribal members to learn how to build birch bark canoes, plant traditional gardens, and repair bridges. 

In 2021, Heather Boyd was appointed Superintendent of Grand Portage National Monument. She is  a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the first Anishinaabe woman to manage the National Monument. Though Grand Portage is not her Tribe, moving there felt like a homecoming. Speaking to Minnesota NPR, Boyd said:

When I first started with the Park Service, I wasn’t promoting my heritage and my culture because it didn't feel right. Here, I feel like I’m empowered to do that. It feels awesome.