"People familiar with American Indian nations know how identity is closely tied to the land. Many also understand that tribal sovereignty includes water and valuable minerals or petroleum below the surface. Few know that the air above reservations is not only owned by tribal nations, it too is valuable. Leech Lake is providing a lesson in airway ownership and use that is probably incomprehensible to a postmodern world that takes universal mobile phone coverage for granted.

Frank Reese sits in a tiny office that's crammed with books, studies, and reports. He quietly answers the phone when anyone calls. No one screens the calls of Leech Lake's Management of Information Systems Director. He has an engineer's demeanor and ability to answer questions with more information than can be comprehended in one bite. He works in a pleasant but nondescript building but in terms of geography, his responsibility is enormous.

The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is situated in north central Minnesota, about 230 miles from the Twin Cities. The reservation touches four counties and its land area is 972.5 miles. If water were considered, it would be the largest reservation in the state. Over 25% of the Leech Lake reservation is water.

All that is a considerable challenge for an engineer who has a vision for computer connectivity, data handling, tower technology, wireless technology and, oh yes, an operating radio station. Distance is horizontal, not vertical on a land surface that has been flattened by glaciers present in what is now Minnesota from as long ago as two million years and as recently as ten to twelve thousand years ago. The only way to get up in the air for lower cost access to more bandwidth is with towers, and they have to be high ones. But none of these challenges phase Frank Reese."

Get the Story:
Laura Waterman Wittstock: The Quiet Hero of Leech Lake (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 7/22)