Dream of Wild Health

Dream of Wild Health is a regenerative farm in Hugo, Minnesota, that offers programs to restore the health and well-being of the Native American community in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Founded in 1998, it is one of the oldest Native-led non-profit organizations in the Twin Cities and has one of the largest Indigenous seed collections in the country.

Since its start in 1998 as part of a transitional housing program for Native Americans in recovery, Dream of Wild Health has become a major hub of Indigenous agriculture and education in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It leads a growing national movement to preserve and restore Indigenous seeds to their communities.

Dream of Wild Health began as a farm program at Peta Wakan Tipi (Sacred Fire Lodge), founded in 1986 by Sally Auger (Abenaki descendant). It was based in the Phillips neighborhood— the heart of Minneapolis’s Native community and the birthplace of the American Indian Movement.

It was in Phillips that the idea of a farm was born after residents told Auger that they wanted to learn about traditional foods and medicines, and to reconnect with the land. From the start, she aimed for the program to improve the health of Native people who suffer disproportionately from chronic diseases. In Minnesota, the rate of type 2 diabetes among Native Americans is 600 percent higher than for whites, according to a 2021 study by the National Institutes of Health.

In 2000, Auger leased a half-acre plot of land in Farmington. The small farm underwent a transformation after Cora Baker, a ninety-four-year-old Potawatomi woman, donated her lifetime collection of seeds to the organization. Baker had been farming in the Wisconsin Dells for more than thirty-five years, and she was known in the Native community as a “seed saver.” People sent her their seeds for safekeeping. Some of the seeds, which included varieties of corn, beans, squash and plant medicines, were about 300–400 years old and had been passed down for generations. After hearing about the work Auger was doing with Dream of Wild Health, Baker wrote her a letter offering help:

I had prayed and prayed that someone would take this gardening up again. I am very pleased to learn about your project. I feel that the Great Creator has answered my humble prayers. With the help of my great granddaughter and grandson, we set out to help you. I wish that someday the children will come to realize the importance of the garden.

Five months after donating the seeds, Baker passed away. But donations kept arriving, including Cherokee corn seeds that were carried on the Trail of Tears in 1838, when the tribe was forcibly removed from its homelands by the US government and relocated to Oklahoma.

Dream of Wild Health quickly outgrew its Farmington location, and in 2004 it bought a ten-acre farm in Hugo, Minnesota. A year later, farming began. Youth programs followed, including Cora’s Kids, which teaches children ages eight to twelve about growing and eating healthy foods, and Garden Warriors, for teens ages thirteen to eighteen.

In 2011, Auger retired, and Diane Wilson (Dakota) became executive director. A year later Peta Wakan Tipi officially changed its name to Dream of Wild Health.

Wilson led the organization through a period of steady growth. She helped launch the Indigenous Food Network, a collaborative of Native-led organization working to create an Indigenous food system in Minneapolis. She also started the Indigenous Food Shares program, which offered produce for sale at the Four Sisters Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis.

After Wilson’s retirement in 2019, Neely Snyder (St. Croix/Red Lake/Mille Lacs) took the reins and ushered in significant changes, such as the creation of the Seed Regeneration Team to restore seeds to their tribal communities. She also purchased an additional twenty acres in Hugo, tripling the size of the farm.

By 2023, the farm had more than 200 seed varieties, including Oneida white heirloom corn, Hopi black beans, and squash from Lakota bands. Staff planned for a new farm building with a teaching kitchen, an outdoor pavilion, and incubator farms, among other improvements. They continued to provide Indigenous foods to Native students in the city’s public schools that is grown, harvested, and prepared by Native people, and to prepare future generations to carry on the traditional foodways of their ancestors.