Still, the communities surrounding the reservation were moved. Joe Vene, a county commissioner for Beltrami County, which borders parts of the reservation, said the surrounding community will do everything it can to support the tribe. "There's a lot of geography and a small population," he said. "We get to know each other."
It is not that outsiders are forbidden. The tribe operates three casinos, one of them hard by the Canadian border. But this forested lakeland does not see much traffic. Unlike the thriving casinos operated by Minnesota tribes closer to the cities (such as the Shakopee Mdewakanton, the Prairie Island Dakota and the Lower Sioux), the Red Lake band's casinos have barely put a dent in the struggling reservation's economy.
Val Clark said she hid in the principal's office with her daughter during the shooting rampage at Red Lake Senior High School, where 10 people died. Clark works at the school.
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Red Lake suffers from problems endemic to the poorest Indian reservations in the country -- high unemployment, alcoholism and drug use, as well as rampant diabetes and obesity. The 2000 census pegged the unemployment rate at 39 percent, but tribal members say the real number, if you count those who have stopped looking for work, is much higher.
Tribal members have moved back to the reservation in recent years -- a boon for the band's unity but not for its economy. More than 400 families are on a waiting list for housing, and generations of relatives squeeze themselves into old dwellings built for single families.
And this reservation has seen hard violence. Over the past several years, warring gangs such as the Native Mob and the Red Nation Clique have been blamed for a surge in drug use, assaults and killings previously unseen in Red Lake. The U.S. Justice Department declared war on the gangs and violence in 2002, when Red Lake suffered five homicides in seven months, a figure the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis, Tom Heffelfinger, called "staggering."
Sister Sharon Sheridan moved to Red Lake to become principal of St. Mary's Mission School a year and a half ago. She thought the assignment -- overseeing 60 to 70 elementary school students -- would be an easy one. Instead, she said, she is dealing with students grappling with all kinds of issues. The school has a drug rehabilitation counselor who comes every week.
Still, the sense of community helps the Red Lake band handle its problems. Sheridan said that on Monday night, she went to the Red Lake hospital where those who died in Weise's shooting spree were taken, including his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.
About 200 people, adults and children, gathered there, she said, to comfort the victims' families. Even though so many people were present, the crowd was like one entity. All together, she said, "there was a very quiet sense of shock."
Staff writer Christopher Lee in Washington and special correspondent Kari Petrie in Red Lake contributed to this report.
