Lake of the Woods Indians
Recognition of Chief Ay Ash Wash and the Kah-bay-kah-nong
Warroad celebrated its heritage last weekend with Hockey Day Minnesota 2024 and its recognition of Henry Boucha, an Ojibway Olympian, and descendant of Chief Ay Ash Wash (1790-1899).
Both Don Kakaygeesick and Henry Boucha trace their lineage to the chief. Don’s great-grandfather Kakaygeesick (1844-1968) was a son of Ay Ash Wash and Henry Boucha’s great-grandmother, Laughing Mary (d. 1936), was Ay Ash Wash’s granddaughter.
Henry Boucha (1951-2023) of Warroad was a tribal member of Animakee Wa Zhing 37 First Nation in Ontario (formerly known as Northwest Angle 37). Yet Americans, especially Minnesotans, claim him as their own.
Don Kakaygeesick is officially recognized as a ceremonial pipe carrier by Treaty 3 Council in Canada, though he was born in Warroad and still lives there today. But neither Henry nor Don are members of a tribe inside the borders of the United Stated recognized by our federal government.
There are 21 Ojibway tribes recognized by the US government today. The Warroad tribe led by Chief Ay Ash Wash is not among them.
In Minnesota there are six Ojibway tribal reservations for members of the consolidated Minnesota Chippewa Tribe plus Red Lake Nation. The Kah-bay-kah-nong band has no official status in the state of Minnesota.
This lack of recognition is not unusual given the history of US government tribal relations. Of the ten million Native Americans in the US, a little over two million are tribal members1, 99 percent of tribal lands have been lost, and there are only 574 federally recognized tribes with 227 of them in Alaska today.
What is unusual is that the Kah-bay-kah-nong band never moved and they didn’t change who they were or how they lived when the lines on maps were drawn or redrawn during the past two hundred years. And descendants of Ay Wash Wash still live in the Warroad area and participate in cultural practices and spiritual rituals in their tradition.
In the decade I’ve spent reading historical documents related to the Kakaygeesick family in my attempt to understand how they could be forcibly removed from their homeland in 2012, I found federal, state, and tribal government officials for more than a century claiming Chief Ay Ash Wash’s descendants to be Canadian Indians and Canadians claiming they belonged south of their border.
This warm embrace of the Lake of the Woods Indians as American is a narrative invention of the modern hockey era.
Recognition of Chief Ay Ash Wash and the Kah-bay-kah-nong this past weekend as a source of local pride in their history resulted from a decade-long community conversation regarding the use of its Warrior mascot. National media attention enhanced the image of the Warroad community through its association with Ojibway heritage. After the sports broadcasters and 15,000 hockey fans left town, more questions came up in community conversations. Was Henry Boucha a Red Lake tribal member? (No.) What is the name of the tribe led by Chief Ay Ash Wash? (Kah-bay-kah-nong.) Who drew the Warrior logo? (Don Kakaygeesick.) It didn’t take long to get to the official answer to that last question.
The Warroad Public Schools posted a status update on their Facebook page. On Thursday morning, February 1, Warroad Public Schools acknowledged Don Kakaygeesick as the artist who drew the Warroad Warrior logo first adopted in the early 1980s.
The Native American Education Department, the American Indian Parent Advisory committee, Warroad Public Schools, and the community of Warroad would like to recognize and express our gratitude to Mr. Donald Kakaygeesick for his design and creation of the “Warroad Warrior Logo” that we proudly represent… Miigwetch
The recognition piece is key here. Not only because of what it means to Don personally but because of what recognition means to the entire community. Acknowledging the past is more than adding a footnote to the historical record. It’s community building and history in the making.
I want to recognize and express my gratitude and appreciation to Don Kakaygeesick and many others in Warroad for speaking with me and taking your time to help me understand this history. But I also want to recognize all of you here in this community of readers who share this material and who share your stories, your history, your questions, your corrections, and your connections to the research at hand.
As my Swedish relations used to say, Tack så mycket!
Thank you very much.
Edited on 1/27/2025 to reflect Census data updates. Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America (Flatiron Books, 2024).
Fascinating and well done, Jill! Thank you for shedding light on not just the Warriors mascot, but the Kah-bay-kah-nong Ojibway. You are re-storying history and righting (writing) wrongs.
Thank you for your part in making this happen, Jill. It reminds me a bit of the return of stolen sacred artifacts that were kept in big city museums and are now being returned to their rightful creators and owners. This feels like part of that movement to give credit and recognition to those who gave their hearts.