Red Lake Nation

Portraits of Ojibway Life

1992
Author:

Charles Brill

Movingly documents, in words and pictures, the life of the Red Lake band on a ‘closed reservation’ in northern Minnesota.

Movingly documents, in words and pictures, the life of the Red Lake band on a ‘closed reservation’ in northern Minnesota.

Striking photos and minimal text are used to portray the Red Lake band at work and in community activity. Brill convincingly shows their unique freedom to maintain Indian ways or adopt non-Indian patterns as they choose.

Library Journal

Movingly documents, in words and pictures, the life of the Red Lake band on a ‘closed reservation’ in northern Minnesota.

"As an Ojibwa, this reviewer's emotional responses fluctuated between nostalgia tinged with regret for a childhood that Red Lake's present generation will never experience and pleasure induced by pictures that are part of my past. Brill lays out for all to see that the Red Lake Ojibwa are dynamic, tenacious, infused with life and committed to controlling their world. This is an excellent book for the general reader. Red Lake Nation is an informative, respectful portrait of the sovereign Red Lake Ojibwa." -American Indian Religious

Charles Brill is associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University.

Striking photos and minimal text are used to portray the Red Lake band at work and in community activity. Brill convincingly shows their unique freedom to maintain Indian ways or adopt non-Indian patterns as they choose.

Library Journal

A sympathetic portrait of the life of the Red Lake band of Chippewa Indians on a ‘closed reservation’ in northern Minnesota. This is no ethnographic treatise, but the impressions of a sensitive observer, who reports what he has seen and heard. Well written, striking photographs.

Choice

As an Ojibwa, this reviewer’s emotional responses fluctuated between nostalgia tinged with regret for a childhood that Red Lake’s present generation will never experience and pleasure induced by pictures that are part of my past. Brill lays out for all to see that the Red Lake Ojibwa are dynamic, tenacious, infused with life and committed to controlling their world. This is an excellent book for the general reader. Red Lake Nation is an informative, respectful portrait of the sovereign Red Lake Ojibwa.

American Indian Religious

Collection of beautiful and intimate photographs. Documents reservation life, mainly in the early 1970s.

City Pages