REGIONAL— A new display, called Moments in Time, at the Bois Forte Heritage Center brings back fond memories for Roberta Lund, of Hibbing, of her early childhood at Nett Lake.

It was back in the 1932, when Roberta’s parents Orleon and Alice Anshus moved to Nett Lake to run the Indian Coop Store and the community post office. It was a time when wild horses still roamed the area and life on the reservation still flowed very much with the seasons.

As a white child, living with her parents and her older brother Phil, life in the remote reservation community seemed idyllic, but hardly unusual. It is only with the passage of time that she came to realize its significance, and the foresight of her brother who maintained the family’s collection of items and photos from that era.

“As I look back, I think what a wonderful experience it was,” said Roberta. “It really was a blessing for all of us.”

The family spent 12 years running the store and post office before a debilitating illness struck Orleon in the early 1940s and eventually forced the family to move to Virginia, where Alice bought a restaurant and later became a schoolteacher in Mt. Iron.

For the older Phil, who was born shortly after his parents had moved to Nett Lake, it was a formative period, as he adopted many of the ways of his friends and neighbors. In the early fall he went ricing with his Bois Forte pals and when the sky filled with bluebills weeks later, he was there waiting for them as well. His mother operated a duck camp for out-of-town hunters and some of their friends would turn out to clean the ducks for hunters for a little extra cash. “They would dip them in wax to get all the feathers,” remembers Roberta. “Can you imagine how much work that must have been?”

In the spring, the family joined neighbors working the sugar bush. “That was the one time of year we got maple candy,” recalls Roberta.

Over the years, the family took photographs of their life on the reservation and friends gave them presents, like moccasins, dolls for Roberta, and a traditional drum given to them by Bois Forte spiritual leader John Nett Lake.

Roberta remembers playing with the dolls and drum over the years, and like so many things from childhood, the items could easily have been lost to time.

“It really is because of Phil that these things survived,” said Roberta. “He recognized the value in them.” Phil, who later bought and ran the Orr General Store with his wife Eleanor, added to the collection over the years as he maintained close friendships at Nett Lake.

Heritage Center curator Bill Latady notes that the collection spans decades and is particularly valuable because it’s possible to track the origins of so many of the items. “It’s always significant when we know who made the items and how they were gathered,” said Latady.

After Phil’s death, the collection remained with Eleanor, who sought advice from Roberta about what to do with it. According to Roberta, they had considered the Smithsonian, but eventually decided on a donation to the Heritage Center. “I think Phil would have wanted it that way,” said Eleanor. “It belongs close to home.”

According to Eleanor, Phil cherished his memories from those early years at Nett Lake. “He’s the one who took care of all these things, and he worked hard to maintain the collection.”

The collection went on display in December and will remain in place for a few more weeks, before being housed in the center’s archives.

While most of the collection is currently on display, the drum given to the family by John Nett Lake will never be displayed, according to Latady, due to its sacred status.

A moment in time

For Roberta, the title of the display is perfect, since it’s a reflection of a single generation. “It really is just a moment in time,” she said.

For the Anshus family, the storyline begins in the 1920s, when Orleon and his brother started the Anshus Store in Silverdale, a remote community in Koochiching County, west of Orr. When the two brothers married local school teachers, they quickly realized that the small store couldn’t support two families. So when the Department of the Interior began searching for operators of the reservation store, Orleon and Alice jumped at the opportunity, and moved to Nett Lake.

Besides running the store and post office, Orleon worked as a janitor at the Nett Lake School and started a small sawmill on the reservation as well.

Roberta recalls attending the Nett Lake School for a couple years, but Phil spent all of his elementary years at the reservation school. “There’s a picture of Phil in class, and he’s the only white kid among all his Indian friends,” said Eleanor. “Phil knew the names of everyone in the picture.”

“He always said his best memories were from his time at Nett Lake,” recalls Roberta.

While Phil’s memories of those times went deeper, Roberta has memories of her own, particularly seeing the small bands of wild horses that roamed the reservation.

“We would see them here and there and I remember being fascinated by them,” she said. The horses were likely Lac La Croix ponies, an extremely hardy breed of horse that lived a largely feral existence in parts of the border country right up into the latter part of the 20th Century. That moment in time, like so many others, has since passed.