Read an Excerpt
Minong—The Good Place
OJIBWE AND ISLE ROYALE
By Timothy Cochrane
Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2009 Timothy Cochrane
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87013-849-2
Chapter One
KNOWING MINONG
Ojibwe lived in a landscape made distinctive by islands, which marry their geography of lands and waters. Ojibwe frequently made camps on islands, and while there, collected bird eggs and harvested berries. Islands were places of safety when paddling in hard winds and growing seas. Certain islands were particularly important as Ojibwe homelands—and perhaps even Ojibwe capitals such as Manitoulin in Lake Huron and Madeline as part of the Apostle Islands. More locally, the Ojibwe of the North Shore paddled in the sheltered lee of islands strung along the coast from Grand Portage to Thunder Bay. Kinsmen lived on Saganaga Lake, speckled with islands, making navigation a feat of geographic virtuosity. From the highlands and cliff s of Thunder Cape or Wauswaugoning Bay, Isle Royale is visible, and its size hinted at by its silhouetted ridges. Ojibwe have used these vantage points to search the horizon for paddlers and gauge traveling conditions. Viewed from the mainland, Isle Royale is an extended, ribbon-like mass surrounded by water. Most often it appears as a lumpy, dusty gray, but in the sunshine the dark greens of its many evergreen trees are visible. On bright spring days, looking out from the mainland, a thick ring of shore-fast ice on Isle Royale radiates light back. Like other major island archipelagoes, such as Manitoulin and the Apostles, surely Ojibwe made use of it.
Islands such as Minong are potent geographic entities. They are preeminently imaginable as a geographic unit. They have distinctive borders, unlike mainland places. And they are recognized and talked about with wholeness—a place the mind's eye can envision. There are many ways of knowing a distinctive place. We will follow up on three essential ways of knowing Minong—getting there, naming it, and mapping it.
Getting to the Island
A number of historic observers asserted that the Ojibwe were too scared to cross the lake to Minong. But this assertion does not hold up under scrutiny. Crossing the lake to Minong was possible, but was not a feat to take lightly. Both Ojibwe and voyageurs made lake traverses of ten to twelve to fifteen miles. Father Baraga and his Ojibwe paddlers made one astonishing (and nearly deadly) seventy-mile crossing from the Apostle Islands to the Minnesota shoreline. The twelve-mile "la Grande Traverse" across Black Bay to Thunder Cape was traditionally made by voyageurs, but still could be difficult. A fifteen-mile traverse from cape to headland or island was the customary upper limit for Ojibwe and voyageurs. From a Jesuit's biography, a crossing is described:
The distance of Isle Royale from the Canadian main land, on the northwest is from twelve to nineteen miles, according to the point you start from. This distance in those days had to be crossed generally in bark canoes, which offered no small risks....
We were five leagues from the island; and in that stretch there is not the smallest islet, where one could flee for shelter in case of surprise. Consequently, the crossing is always looked upon with dread by the 'voyageurs'; and before undertaking the Christian does not forget to say his prayers, nor the pagan to throw to his manitous the traditional plug of tobacco.
I had yet to visit the people of another mine, which they call Siskawit Mine. I started in company with a young man of our mission at Fort William who arrived there shortly before me. His canoe was very small; however I managed to cramp into it the things absolutely necessary for our camping on the way, and the exercises of the mission. After having paddled for about nine miles, we steered north-east, entering into a bay called by the Indians Pike Bay, and by the Americans McCagos [sic] Bay, or Cove.
To cross to Minong, North Shore Ojibwe had to carefully plan their trip to bring needed supplies and goods such as kettles, rolled birch bark for the wigwam walls, guns, ammunition, gill nets for fishing, and staples. The crossing would take many hours of hard paddling. Even when taking advantage of flat (calm) lake conditions, the many hours taken to pass over the inky-colored water meant that the weather could change during the voyage. Getting across as swiftly as possible was a prudent safety measure. Ojibwe travelers knew the lake was more likely to be calm in early morning hours and roughest during the afternoon.
On a good day—calm and clear—paddling would begin before sunrise. In the early morning hours, the paddlers would watch the sun rise out of the lake to the east between mainland and the Island. The sun's arc in the sky would accompany their crossing and give increasing color and definition to Minong. While not preferable, some traverses to Minong were made at night if there was enough moonlight to guide the paddlers. Or, if leaving during the night, Ojibwe would use birch-bark torches, made of a twisted spiral of bark, to cast firelight so they could pack up their gear. The same torch might be used to melt the pitch or gum used to seal any leaks in the canoe. To find any small leaks, Ojibwe sucked the location where the water seemed to come in. After finding the leaky spot, they would then melt pitch into the hole or leaky seam between birch-bark panels of the hull. When the lake was calm and the weather conditions appeared to be steady, the paddlers would set out. Often the traverse was made in small groups, providing some security in numbers.
There was not one absolute jumping-off spot for paddling across to Minong. Instead, paddlers making the traverse might depart from Pie Island at the end of Thunder Bay, or from the island chain stringing southwest from Pie Island. Leaving from this location made for the shortest and safest crossing to Todd Harbor and McCargoe Cove, a traditional portal to Isle Royale for Native Americans. Crossing from the off-shore islands off Thunder Bay would be advantageous for other reasons: Isle Royale itself becomes a block to wind and waves from the south and southeast. Crossing on this water route also means you are paddling towards the whole length of Minong versus its narrower ends. A Thunder Bay to McCargoe Cove crossing would minimize the potentially disastrous effect of prevailing lake currents pushing paddlers away from the Island. Those foolish enough to contemplate a South Shore crossing would have to struggle with the Keeweenaw Current—the strongest current in Lake Superior—which would push paddlers away from Isle Royale.
Ojibwe leaving from Grand Portage Bay would more often paddle by Hat and Pigeon Points and canoe northeast until behind the string of Victoria, Spar, and Thompson Islands. From there, closer to Minong and behind the breadth of it, they would paddle when the seas seemed safe. We have found only one account of a traverse leaving from Pigeon Point, made by a Jesuit father with Ojibwe guides. Explorer David Thompson knew North Shore Ojibwe paddled to Isle Royale. Thinking this over, he concluded that the best traverse to Isle Royale was from Little Pipe Island, one of the chain of islands southwest of Pie Island. The main worry about this long traverse is that weather conditions can change from the time the party starts to the time it arrives. Still, paddlers crossing to or from Minong might encounter surprising events besides changing weather conditions. In one instance, a Grand Portage woman gave birth to a boy in a canoe as the family made landfall near the Little Spirit Cedar Tree en route back from Minong.
Contradicting the opinion that North Shore Ojibwe were scared to cross the lake to Minong is a more sophisticated view that they were maritime peoples who lived from and on the lake. They traveled frequently on the water and knew it well. The village of Grand Portage faced the lake to provide easy access for residents. Known as Ke-che-gum-me-win-in-e-wug, or Great Lake Men, they were at home on the water. Their dietary mainstay was fish, including whitefish and siscowets caught in great numbers during the fall spawning season, as well as sturgeon and suckers. Fish were a comparatively reliable resource, which prompted one Isle Royale mine financier to exaggerate that "They [Indians] lived almost entirely on fish, & so do their large dogs." Evidence also points to their employment on some of the early vessels to ply Lake Superior and to travel to Isle Royale. Further, one Indian commissioner reports: "They rely chiefly upon fishing for subsistence, and the supply of fish in the great lake is apparently inexhaustible. They are expert sailors and display a high degree of skill both in the construction and management of their sailing craft." As with lake crossings today, there was a special feeling of exhilaration and mystery that overcame Ojibwe making the traverse. Grand Portage elder Dick Anderson explained the feeling:
It's a very awesome thing.... You get a peculiar feeling when you leave the land mass, and of course, Lake Superior is very clear. And you can see into it a pretty good depth. And you leave Hat Point and you see.... The [Grand Portage] bay is shallow and you are seeing bottom and all of a sudden everything just goes into blackness. You are talking five, six, and seven hundred feet of water out there. You kind of remember that [chuckling].
Belief in the lake as a living entity heightened the Ojibwe paddlers' sense of being and vulnerability. Further, the spirits that might affect their crossing must be addressed and placated for a safe crossing. Those Ojibwe departing Grand Portage for Minong passed the Manido Gee-zhi-gance, or Spirit Little Cedar Tree, on Hat Point. The ancient and gnarled cedar standing alone on a basalt ledge overlooking the lake is a place of reverence for the life and powers of Lake Superior. The Spirit Little Cedar Tree is the traditional place to bring prayers and offerings for a safe crossing and fishing success. Offerings of reverence, of tobacco and ribbon—and earlier, vermilion—were left at the foot of the tree. Paddlers must be careful and behave appropriately, as the Mishipizheu, the Underwater Lynx, was thought to have an aquatic lair in the depths nearby. Offerings and ritual attention were prudent for lake-traveling people. Offerings made at the Manido Gee-zhi-gance that reached and appeased Mishipizheu were of utmost importance.
Before returning to Grand Portage from Minong in 1794, John Tanner described a ceremony he had witnessed.
We were ten canoes in all, and we started, as we had done in coming, at the earliest dawn of the morning. The night had been calm, and the water, when we left the island, was perfectly smooth. We had proceeded about two hundred yards into the lake, when the canoes all stopped together, and the chief, in a very loud voice, addressed a prayer to the Great Spirit, entreating him to give us a good look to cross the lake. "You," said he, "have made this lake, and you have made us, your children; you can now cause that the water shall remain smooth, while we pass over in safety." In this manner, he continued praying for five or ten minutes; he then threw into the lake a small quantity of tobacco, in which each of the canoes followed his example. They then all started together, and the old chief commenced his song, which was a religious one.
A hundred years later, John Linklater's grandfather and his Ojibwe wife Tchikiwis's grandmother made a similar crossing. Retelling what his grandfather had said, Linklater recounted that a ceremonial dance was held and offerings were given to appeal to the underwater spirits. It is also likely that those who had dreamed of smooth water and thus had a spiritual link to water spirits were also asked to make prayers for a safe passage.
Crossing the ice to or from Minong was a precarious business. It was, however, done repeatedly, with or without dog teams and "cariole," or sled. While not made as often as summer crossings, they were made in order to bring mail, or for other compelling reasons. To do it safely required much knowledge about ice and weather conditions. Heavy winds and lake swells in open stretches of water can break up thick ice in minutes. Lake currents can rip away ice or eat away at its thickness. Ice cover is not uniform throughout Lake Superior, and in many years much open water remains. The ice crossing from Thunder Bay was comparatively the most reliable, given its relatively long life span, or duration, and thickness.
Optimism about the prospects of copper mines in the 1870s and 1890s led to a number of wintertime crossings. Indeed, crossings were so common that a mail contract was open for bid from Pigeon River to Island Mine that scheduled a nine-hour crossing time, summer or winter. Two Ojibwe miners crossed from Isle Royale to Fort William in February, 1854, and reported that the ice was one and a half feet thick the whole crossing. During the cold winter of 1875, the ice was thick enough that teams of horses were driven from Silver Islet off the tip of Th under Cape to McCargoe Cove. During a northern gale, a desperate miner attempting the crossing was badly frostbit in his hands, feet, and face. A year later, two non-Ojibwe mail carriers crossed ten miles on ice and were within three miles of Jarvis Island when a gale blew up, broke up the ice, and they drowned. An Ojibwe saw the men struggling, but could not help them. In December of the same year, two other non-Ojibwe mail carriers drowned. Some of these records are of desperate people trying to get off the Island. But in March 1849, six Ojibwe crossed over to Minong to hunt caribou. They returned eight days later. Ojibwe led Jesuit priests across the winter ice to Minong and down the shore from Fort William to Grand Portage on a regular basis. Ojibwe knowledge of ice conditions was such that one week after twelve-year-old Josephte Aiakodjiwang died in February 1857, family members pulled a sledge over the ice from Todd Harbor bearing her body back to the Mission of Immaculate Conception.
Once across the lake and on the Island, Ojibwe guides' geographic knowledge remained essential to moving throughout Minong. While entering McCargoe Cove during a summer proselytizing trip, Jesuit father Du Ranquet wrote:
There we were obliged to leave our canoe and reach the opposite side of the island by a portage of eight miles. We entered a small stream which discharges into the bay at this point, hauled our canoe out of the water and taking with us our tea-kettle and our blankets, went to look for a shelter for the night on the skirts of the bush. There was lots of grass on the spot, and the weather was clear.
After tea and night prayers we lay down to rest in the open air. On awaking at daybreak next morning, we found our blankets covered with dew, so we waited for the first rays of the sun to dry them. After having folded and put them beneath our canoe, my companion shouldered my sack and started off through the bush, I following behind.
The first travellers that had gone over the portage since winter, could with the greatest difficulty distinguish the trail, a terrible storm having thrown down many trees which now encumbered it in its entire length. Even before the storm the path was already almost imperceptible. We had to make frequent use of our hatchet; and had it not been for my guide I would in many places, never have so much as suspected even the existence of a trail. After walked thus for several miles we reached a little lake which I took to be about a mile wide, but which could not be seen in its entire length. We had to follow its shores, which proved to be the most difficult part of the road, because it was the most obstructed.
At last we saw the lake (Superior) on the other side of the island, and by coming down a long declivity we reached the bay on the shore which is Rock Harbor mine.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Minong—The Good Place by Timothy Cochrane Copyright © 2009 by Timothy Cochrane. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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