This is a letter written by the newly formed Red Lake Urban Committee 

March 31, 2005

Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr.

Red Lake Tribal Council

Red Lake, Minnesota

In times like this, as the tragic events unfold in our homeland, we as 

Red Lakers everywhere need to stand together as one against government 

agencies and media hype that is once again dividing us as a nation.  

Whether it be intentional or not, that will be the result unless we 

decide we won't play the media and "Information Leak", divide and conquer 

game that only fuels speculation and rumor.

We need to stand strongly behind our tribal chairman at our time of 

need and support him just as strongly as he supports us.

He was overwhelmingly elected last year and hasn't changed dramatically 

since, (Unlike what most people do when elected).  We knew him, his 

morals and standards then and we know him now.  

Not one of us single or two-parent families can say we ever had 

complete control or knowledge of what our teenage children are thinking, and 

we shouldn't have to.  Each of us need to be able to grow, think and act 

for ourselves and not be the mindless robots of our parents. 

We also need to stand behind our children, as Buck is rightly doing.  

No doubt it reflects on Louis's parents and it effects them deeply.  But 

until conspiracy or whatever is being baked is acknowledged by the 

family, we need to affirm our support of Buck and his Family.

We as urban Red Lakers, we are deeply affected and feel the hurt and 

pain of our homeland.  Many of us left for our home (Red Lake) 

immediately to help and support in any way that we could, and will continue to do 

so.  That week we saw Buck everywhere, tirelessly trying to do 

everything for the people, and was being a great leader.  

We need him to continue, and show our elected leaders to step up, front 

and center of meetings and ceremonies and show their leadership skills 

to support and help people of their districts.

We cannot leave Buck out on a limb alone.

We were starting to acknowledge the many issues we face, and this was a 

big wake-up call that we have a long way to go.  We need to deal with 

the issues in the unique way that will work for us as a people.  We 

can't allow ourselves to be second-guessed or arm-chair quarterbacked by a 

wider society with a different world view and those who have no idea 

and may not care how we survived and thrived as a people for thousands of 

years.  

We for sure have internal issues to deal with, but we need to work on 

them within our sovereign nation, not through media or governmental 

agencies. 

Once again, we ask all our nation to stand together and continue to 

pray for and support all of the many victims of this tragic event.

Giga wabamin, mii gwich, mii'ue,

The Red Lake Urban Committee

Mike Loud

Murphy (Joe) Parkhurst

Johnny Smith

Dave Loud

Ona Kingbird

Rosemary Mountain

Jessica Loud

Roger Oakgrove