In a nod to the New Deal, outdoors work program connects Red Lake youth to their land

Joshua Jones jokes that he spent his formative years not forming. The 40-year-old member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians used to be a motocross racer, a touring musician, a vineyard manager, a cattle ranch hand and a construction worker.

These varied pursuits took him far from Red Lake Nation, but he discovered his passion by returning closer to home. His “light-bulb moment” happened in 2014 in a hydrology class at Bemidji State University, where he discovered a passion for environmental work.

As a hydrologist with Red Lake Nation’s Department of Natural Resources, he’s now helping tribal youth find their forms through outdoor programming, which he said is taking a page from the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota Council of Foundations recently recognized Jones’ work, naming him as one of seven recipients of the 2025 Virginia McKnight Binger Heart of Community Honor. 

The honoree spoke with MinnPost about his work on Red Lake Nation this week. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MinnPost: How did you start combining your hydrology work with outdoor programming for Red Lake youth?

Joshua Jones: It started when the Red Lake DNR partnered with a local program to make a swimming area. I started helping with that with about a dozen tribal youth workers. We worked on the swimming area and created walking trails in the woods. 

In the winter, since I had some connections in Bemidji with the cross-country ski club, I thought maybe we should have a ski event to see if the community buys into it and likes it. We did it and it was just a huge success in terms of the community support. That was kind of a realization that there is a real need for that kind of outdoor recreation programming on Red Lake. We then started a new program called Izhaadaa Agwajiing, which means “let’s go outside.” I now have a program back at the DNR that’s primarily a youth outdoor work program. 

MP: Who do you look to hire for these programs? And what do you hope they get out of it? 

Jones: In our culture we actually consider youth to be up to about age 25. I take a lot of issue with the idea that at 18 you’re a full-blown adult and you’ve got to know what you want to do with the rest of your life. That’s why I tell a lot of them to look at my life. 

The primary demographic of youth that I hire to work for me is the kids that are usually not the priorities when it comes to opportunities. It’s the kids in the foster care system, the kids that are in the (juvenile justice) system. Those are kind of the kids that I really identify with, who remind me of myself when I was their age. 

A lot of this work is about mentorship. The youth who work for me, I help them get driver’s licenses, bank accounts, help them when they’re out buying cars and help them figure out if they want to go to college. I was a first-generation college student, so I try to help them avoid all the pitfalls that I made. I’m trying to help them actually form in their formative years unlike what I did.

MP: What value is there in youth hearing messages like that outside of a classroom setting? 

Jones: In this program they’re working for me. It’s a paid job. So a lot of what I’m teaching them is good work ethic, what a real-world job is going to be like in the future. It’s giving them some of that real-world life experience, some of those expectations. 

We pay them well, so that’s a big part of it, too. I really want them to learn the value of work, earning your money, but also to understand that there’s value in their time and to advocate for themselves. This job teaches them that it’s OK to say no if you don’t feel comfortable doing something. 

MP: What upcoming projects will you be working on with youth workers? 

Jones: We have a big project that we’re going to get into this winter. Our migration story is [that] we came to the place where the food grew on the water, talking about wild rice. The Army Corps of Engineers dammed up lower Red Lake in the early 1900s, and when they did that it completely changed the characteristics of it. There are oral histories that there used to be a lot of rice on the lake. There are other people that say there never was a lot of rice. 

We’ve been finding some of our smaller lakes that might be good candidates for rice beds. Up at the Northwest Angle of Lake of the Woods, Red Lake has territory and there’s a ton of wild rice up there that we have access to with our tribal rights. 

There’s an island called Garden Island up there. We’re going to survey it out with my youth workers and then build up a camp. We’ll use it for ceremony and cultural purposes. This upcoming fall we’ll bring tribal members to harvest rice, some of it on the island, and then bring a bunch of it back and start reseeding some of these historic rice beds on some of these small lakes. The plan is to bring rice back to Red Lake that is easily accessible for the whole community. 

Honestly, like 95% of Red Lake tribal members have never harvested rice before. That’s really kind of a lost connection, because it’s a huge part of our culture. For me, this is a way to bring Red Lake youth up there to teach them how to harvest rice. There are still elders around that can teach them the cultural side of it.

MP: The McKnight Foundation described your work as being in close alignment with your cultural values. The upcoming project that you described sounds like an example of that. What other ways does your work tie into your culture?

Jones: We’re one of two closed reservations in the whole U.S. We did not sign the Dawes Act in 1889. That’s why unless you’re a Red Lake tribal member, you can’t live on the reservation, you can’t buy a house on the reservation, you can’t have all the rights that we do as tribal members. Other tribes were getting government subsidies and benefits because they signed on to the Dawes Act. That led to Red Lake really suffering for a long time and making due, but that sovereignty was very, very important to our ancestors. 

That really is something for us to be grateful for today. Coming back to Red Lake, it wasn’t until I had my DNR job where we would be going out in all these very remote areas of the reservation and going to these different lakes and collecting water samples that I saw how beautiful so many parts of Red Lake are. People live their whole lives on Red Lake that have never seen these places and that was another one that really kind of drove me to wanting to do what I’m doing by making these areas accessible and getting people out to them. 

It’s great that we have these resources and this land, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. 

MP: After spending your 20s all over the country pursuing many different paths, did this work make you feel more connected to where you came from? 

Jones: My parents are divorced, so growing up I kind of bounced between the two of them, sometimes being with my mom on Red Lake. For a while I never felt comfortable in any place for too long, but I always had this huge family on Red Lake. When I came back up here in 2014, I reconnected with my family here and really just felt that this is where I belong. The different places I’d live, I’d meet other Natives and go to their ceremonies and it was just different. Our culture is very unique to us. Even from Red Lake to Leech Lake, there’s a difference. So for me I feel very grounded now being back up here.

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