• The Leech Lake Reservation measures about 680,000 acres and encompasses three of Minnesota's largest and best fishing lakes: Leech, Cass and Winnibigoshish.
The lakes' surface area covers about a third of the reservation. Of the remaining 465,000 acres, other governments own 332,000 acres.
• About 5,000 of 9,400 band members live on the reservation, about a third of whom live below the nation's poverty level, according to the band.
• Government is by a five-member Reservation Business Committee. Its two officers, chairman Arthur LaRose and secretary-treasurer Mike Bongo, are elected at-large. The other three represent specific districts.
• The reservation has a tribal K-12 school, Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig; a hospital and satellite health clinics, and a two-year tribal college.
• A 1972 agreement with the state allows nonband anglers to fish on the reservation in exchange for up to $7 million annually to the band.
• Leech Lake band members can net lakes within the reservation to feed themselves and their families. Few nets are set. Sometimes nets are illegally destroyed by nonband inhabitants.
• The band owns three casinos, with gross annual revenue of about $100 million and a profit of about $15 million, according to the band. The casinos have 1,269 employees, 768 of whom are Leech Lake Chippewa or other natives.
