News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Wednesday December 24th 2025
Running Wolf Facility now Phillips Fitness Center by Park Board
By Al Bangoura
Unfortunately, Running Wolf was no longer able to operate the fitness center at the Phillips Community Center. We would like to thank staff and volunteers who worked tirelessly to make the fitness center a success and for all their efforts and care that was provided for the community who used the fitness center every day. We also want to thank Connie Norman for her leadership and dedication to Running Wolf and the community. Thank you Connie!
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, recognizing the value of the fitness center to the community and its role in providing services to its residents, entered into an agreement with Indian Health Board and the Native American Community Clinic to take over operation of the fitness center starting in January 2014..
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Native Sons
By Peter Molenaar
What happens to people who drive west on Franklin Avenue to the point where it ceases to exist? It is likely they will turn south on Penn Avenue and discover Birchbark Books one block away. That”'s what happened to me.
Birchbark is locally our best store of Native American Indian literature. I did purchase one of Louise Erdrich”'s fourteen novels while there.Â
But it was by chance that I perused a geography book which revealed a park named after our state”'s second governor. There exists within this park, on a tributary of the Minnesota River, a lovely waterfall now called Ramsey Falls”¦ another Dakota sacred site named in honor of a shameless conqueror.
Is the true name lost?
What happens to people who drive southeast for eight hours? They will find the land where wild garlic once grew in great abundance. “Shikaakwa” was the Illiniwek word for this medicine plant. From the tongues of early French explorers, the word became “Checagou.” Today we call the place “Chicago.”
Owing to the mean spirit of the Indian Relocation Act, the Chicago area is now home to some 40,000 Native Americans from more than 50 tribes. The unintended result of relocation has been the creation of a multi-tribal community with a common identity.… Read the rest “Native Sons”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
May 2014 Spirit of Phillips
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