The interview with Alvah G. Swindlehurst was conducted by an unknown interviewer on an unrecorded date in an unrecorded location. Swindlehurst discusses growing up near Hubbard Prairie and Wadena, Minnesota in the late 1800s. He describes working in the newspaper business for 20 years in Wadena, then moving to Cass Lake, Minnesota in 1914 to be the registrar of the U.S. Land Office, then becoming postmaster in Cass Lake in 1934. He provides a history of the Scanlon Gipson Mill near Cass Lake, the Morris Act for forest conservation, and fur trading. He also describes interactions between white people and Ojibwe people, including trading posts, treaties, Bishop Whipple's missionary activities, and settler interactions. The interviewer mentions that he's seeking testimony to support Native American attorneys in court.
Claud Deluse Fish discusses homesteading at Island Lake, Minnesota in 1902. He also discusses logging and laying railroad. He discusses the store in Bena, Minnesota and explains a stone and timber claim. He also describes interactions between white settlers and Ojibwe people, including a smallpox episode, intermarriage, and white people gaining access to Ojibwe allotments on reservations. The interview begins in BCHS 070a and continues in BCHS 069a and BCHS 071a.
