Superior Tapestry E-Book

Deborah K. Frontiera

• Herausgeber: Modern History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 353

Beschreibung

Like any tapestry, the threads of history cross over and under each other in different points of view and places in time. Award-winning author Deborah K. Frontiera mixes natural science and geology into history where those aspects intersect with the lives of people or are the reason Michigan's Upper Peninsula developed the way it did. Enjoy this work's unique perspective, the point of view of trees, rocks, rivers and artifacts--among them a ship's bell, a lighthouse, a cross-cut saw, beads and rings given in trade, a bent propeller and many more. Students, adults and families will enjoy experiencing history in this unique way.
"Deborah K. Frontiera takes U.P. history and turns it into a fun story, told by its least appreciated players. Here, we have the perspective of the St. Mary's River, the bell on the Edmund Fitzgerald, an early iron forge, a sauna, the Bishop Baraga statue and many, many more. Together, they make Superior Tapestry a diverse and refreshing alternative to more straightforward historical narratives, while educating us in entertaining ways and, once again, displaying the creativity of Yooper culture."
-- Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. in literature and award-winning author of Haunted Marquette and Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man
"Frontiera has a knack for bringing inanimate objects to life and imbuing them with observational skills that let the reader see the world around the objects through their eyes. Human time is dwarfed when compared to the span of time experienced by some of the objects Frontiera describes. This book is such an interesting read; I'll be using it as my guide when exploring the nooks and crannies of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan."
-- Linda Martin-Rust, Ph.D.
"What a fun way to learn about our Upper Peninsula history; a great book for all ages. Superior Tapestry will become one of your favorite UP books."
== Tony Bausano, president of Copper World Gift Shop, Calumet, Michigan
Deborah Kay Olson Frontiera grew up in Lake Linden, Michigan. She taught in Houston public schools from 1985 until 2008 and then taught creative writing part-time for Houston's WITS (Writers In The Schools) program.
From Modern History Press

Leseprobe

Superior Tapestry: Weaving the Threads of Upper Michigan History

Copyright © 2021 by Deborah K. Frontiera. All Rights Reserved.

Learn more at www.SuperiorTapestry.com

Published by

Modern History Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

www.ModernHistoryPress.com

[email protected]

Tollfree 888-761-6268

FAX [phone]

Contents

Table of Figures

Superior Tapestry Sites in the Keweenaw

Superior Tapestry Sites in the Greater U.P.

Introduction-From the Author

Chapter 1 – Birch Bark Canoe

Chapter 2 – Bahweting: The Sound of the Rapids

Chapter 3 – A Bell Tolls

Chapter 4 – Fox River Flowing

Chapter 5 – One Piano’s Plinking

Chapter 6 – Portrait of Pictured Rocks

Chapter 7 – A Plum Assignment: Sand Point Lighthouse

Chapter 8 – Ring ‘Round the Ages

Chapter 9 – A Failure in Forging Iron

Chapter 10 – Saturday Sauna

Chapter 11 – In Bishop Baraga’s Footprints

Chapter 12 – Chip of the Pines Casino

Chapter 13 – Tools of the Home Speak

Chapter 14 – The Quincy Mine Man Car

Chapter 15 – A Bridge Across

Chapter 16 – The Lady Be Good

Chapter 17 – A Stone’s Story

Chapter 18 – At the Corner of 7th and Elm

Chapter 19 – Piles of Poor Rock

Chapter 20 – Chrysler Calamity on the City of Bangor

Chapter 21 – A Tree’s Tale

Chapter 22 – Fireside Stories of Hearth and Home

Chapter 23 – Famous Float Copper

Chapter 24 – Toppling Timber

Chapter 25 – Daily Happenings at the Ironwood Depot

Chapter 26 – Iron Mountain’s Monster Pump

Chapter 27 – Menominee’s Memory: The “Dudly Bug”

Appendix – Resources and for Further Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Special offer for readers who visit at least 12 of the sites mentioned in this book:

My Superior Tapestry Logbook

Index

Note: comprehensive maps of the sites mentioned in this book can be found on pages v – vi immediately following the Table of Figures.

Table of Figures

Fig. 1-1: Birch Bark (B.B.) Canoe

Fig. 2-1: St. Mary’s Rapids

Fig. 3-1: Edmund Fitzgerald ship’s bell

Fig. 3-2: Whitefish Point Museum Signage

Fig. 4-1: The Fox River near where M-28 flows through the town of Seney.

Fig. 5-1: A Player Piano

Fig. 6-1: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Fig. 7-1: Sand Point Lighthouse

Fig. 7-2: Sand Point Lighthouse – Fresnel Lens

Fig. 8-1: Rings engraved with “HIS”

Fig. 9-1: Signage at Michigan Iron History Museum

Fig. 9-2: Overlook at Michigan Iron History Museum

Fig. 9-3: The Iron History Museum (2020)

Fig. 10-1: Sauna at the Hanka Homestead

Fig. 10-2: Hanka Homestead Grounds

Fig. 11-1: Statue of Bishop Baraga

Fig. 12-1: a $1.00 casino chip from The Pines

Fig. 12-2: Baraga County Historical Museum on a summer day (2020)

Fig. 13-1: Copper Range Historical Museum Objects

Fig. 13-2: More Objects from the museum

Fig. 13-2: Copper Range Historical Museum (2020)

Fig. 14-1: The Man Car today

Fig. 14-2: The Man Car, filled with men going down for their shift

Fig. 15-1: New Bridge (right) and Old Bridge (left)

Fig. 15-2: 1st Bridge Between Houghton and Hancock

Fig. 15-3: Portage Lake Lift Bridge in the “down” position

Fig. 15-4: Portage Lake Lift Bridge in the middle position

Fig. 16-1: Propeller from The Lady Be Good

Fig. 16-2: B-24 in action

Fig. 17-1: the former St. Anne’s Church

Fig. 18-1: Societa Italiana di Mutua Beneficenza

Fig. 18-2: Memorial Park monument

Fig. 19-1: A Pile of Poor Rock

Fig. 19-2: Keeweenaw National Historical Park Headquarters

Fig. 19-3: Poor rock as a foundation element

Fig. 19-4: Migrating sands at Grand Traverse Bay

Fig. 20-1: A 1927 Chrysler from the City of Bangor

Fig. 20-2: City of Bangor

Fig. 21-1: Estivant Pines Sanctuary

Fig. 22-1: Officers’ Quarters at Fort Wilikins State Historical Park

Fig. 23-1: Replica of the Ontonagon Boulder

Fig. 23-2: Another example of float copper

Fig. 24-1: Cross-cut saw at Ontonagon County Historical Museum

Fig. 25-1: Ironwood Railroad Depot

Fig. 25-2: Ironwood Depot (2020)

Fig. 26-1: Chaplin Mine Steam Pump

Fig. 27-1: Dudly Bug

Fig. 27-2: Dudly’s workshop

Fig. 27-3: Dudly Universal Frame Jig

Fig. 27-4: Dudly patent on device for supporting and truing wheels

Fig. 27-5: Dudley bugs are Being Used In Great European Struggle

Superior Tapestry Sites in the Keweenaw

Superior Tapestry Sites in the Greater U.P.

Introduction-From the Author

This book is the result of a conversation with Tony at Copper World in Calumet, Michigan. Tony and I have done business for a number of years, and in the summer of 2019, he asked me when I was going to write a new “Michigan book” for him to stock in his gift shop. I said I’d been writing other things and hadn’t thought much about it. He asked what kind of things, and I told him about my novella (a very short novel), Midnight in the Pawn Shop. “Hey, why don’t you do something like that with things all over the U.P.?” he asked.

My first reaction was to swirl my finger around in little circles and then point to my head—I didn’t need any more ideas added to all those already rattling around in my brain. But the thought continued to nag me, so one day, I sat and brainstormed a list of possible “things” in the U.P. that I could “bring to life.” Within ten minutes, I had listed over twenty!

Once a good idea gets hold of me, it won’t go away, haunting my dreams until I do it. So, Tony, here’s your idea brought to life after many hours of research, drafting, writing and rewriting. May you and my readers enjoy the result, Superior Tapestry. May you imagine the “lives” of other places and things as you visit my native Yooper Land from Ironwood to Sault Ste. Marie and from Copper Harbor to Menominee.

As I did with Midnight in the Pawn Shop, the artifacts, trees, rocks and rivers tell the stories from their points of view. I brought them to life in the hope that the stories they tell will draw my readers more completely into the experience.

While doing research for this book, I found that there are several ways to spell some of the Ojibwa place names, including the spelling of “Ojibwa” itself. If, as a reader, you find that some of the spellings are different from those you know, please don’t be upset. I’ve at least tried to be consistent across my own work. A list of references has been provided in the Appendix.

I also met (by phone and online) many fascinating, knowledgeable and helpful people all across the U.P., who assisted with research, provided helpful links to web sites and contributed their own expertise as historians and writers. This book would not be what it is without them. Many thanks to all of you listed in the Appendix.

Note on photos: Most of the photographs in this work were taken by the author. Other archival and personal photos are credited in the Acknowledgments section at the end of this book.

Chapter 1 – Birch Bark Canoe

Fig. 1-1: Birch Bark (B.B.) Canoe

You will need to look up to see the Birch Bark (B.B.) Canoe in the Museum of Ojibwa Culture in Saint Ignace, Michigan. You’ll see many other fascinating artifacts there, too.

The great sturgeon slides swiftly and gracefully through the water. Ojibwa legends say that it inspired the shape of their canoes. Using a canoe is much faster than walking, so that’s how the Ojibwa liked to travel. Lakes and rivers were their highways because forest paths were hard to walk on and went up and down mountains.

To ensure they would last many years, canoes were carefully built and looked after.

One winter, the wind howled and blew the trees, day after day. The old birch tree had swayed and stood tall through many such blizzards, but she was old and weak now. A mighty gust struck her, and she fell flat between two trees in the forest behind her. She hoped she would turn into soil to feed new birch seedlings, even though she knew that would take many years. She had seen Ojibwa women carry baskets made of birch bark when they came to pick berries in summer, so she knew they might come to strip her bark. Birch Bark, or B. B. as she liked to call herself, knew that birch bark, was good for many things, including stopping fungus from spoiling food stored in such a basket.

When the snow melted, she was exposed and awoken by the cut of a stone axe. It hurt as it split B.B. down the length of her trunk, but the wedges prying B.B. away from the rest of the log seemed to free her to a new life.

The men walked heel to toe, counting. When they reached eighteen, they nodded. One said, “Good. We can make this new canoe from a single log.” One of them picked up the long curl of bark and carried her away.

B.B. managed to whisper, “Goodbye” to the rest of the tree as the man carried her across the meadow and into the forest on the other side. She wondered what a canoe was. Not long after, she found herself on the ground in the middle of an Ojibwa village. Since it was getting dark, the man who carried her entered his wigwam, which was what they called their houses.

A crow landed on B.B. She knew him because he had often landed on her branches in the forest. “What’s a canoe?” she asked him.

“People sit in it and travel over water,” Crow said. “This village is close to where the waters of two Great Lakes come together. You will see it in the morning.”

Then, he went on to explain that many Native Peoples often got together where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron joined up with narrow strips of water called “straits.” Mackinac Island, St. Ignace, and Mackinaw City were all there.

The Ojibwa from the Lake Superior area, the Ottawa from the Lake Michigan region and the Huron People shared many customs. Their languages were also similar, since all three were part of a greater group known as the Anishnaabe, or “first man.”

They lived from the land, hunting many types of animals. They used tree roots, bark and leaves for medicine, baskets and many other things. In the meadows and marshes, they gathered berries, wild rice and other plants for food, and caught fish in the lakes and rivers. Nothing was wasted, since nearly every part of the animals and plants provided something of use.

“I’ve watched these people for many years,” Crow said. “They are almost as smart as I am. They do some clever things, such as making the birch bark canoes like you will be.”

The next morning, two men lay B.B. in a long, narrow trench in the ground. They poured hot water over her to soften her so she could be formed into the shape they wanted. It felt lovely. She was no longer afraid and let herself relax and enjoy this bath. As she soaked, Crow told her that if the water had been cold, she would have had to soak from one full moon until the next.

Here is how they heated water: They made bags from the stomachs of animals they had hunted and filled these with water. They heated stones in a fire, then put the hot rocks and the water sacks in a pit until the water was hot enough.

B.B. watched as the people used other pieces of bark taken from the smaller branches of the birch tree to make many other things: baskets, cups, roof coverings (called “shingles”) for wigwams, fans, scrolls for ritual art, and pictorial maps.

B.B. and these objects sometimes smiled at each other from a distance. They never had a chance to speak, since they were all carried inside the lodges once they were complete and B.B. was always outside. Once B.B. was soft from soaking, men drove stakes into the ground in parallel lines to make the canoe the correct width and tied her top edges to these stakes with strips of basswood bark so she would dry in a gently curved shape. Stones anchored the bottom of the curve to the ground.

As B. B. waited to gain a new shape, she watched the men go into the woods again. Crow told her they went to gather other needed supplies, like white cedar, which they would soak and cut into strips for her ribs and rails. Other strips of bark from basswood trees would be used for tying and binding, and thin roots from white or black spruce made perfect twine for sewing.

“I know these trees from their odor, color and texture,” B.B. said to Crow.

“All the wood strips and bark have to be soaked like you to make them flexible enough for what they want to do,” Crow noted.

B.B. watched women go into the forest, too. The moon had changed from a thin crescent to well past full by the time the People gathered everything they needed. Crow told B.B. he had to leave to help his mate raise their hatchlings.

B.B. was fascinated to listen to a man explain to his son that a tree’s roots are the same under the ground as the branches above. So, he looked up, followed a branch and then dug for the root right under it. The father said that they wanted only the thinnest roots near the surface. When they returned from the forest with many roots, he showed his son how to strip the bark of the root away until only a twine-like string, called watap, remained. The moon waned, became new, and began to wax once more as the men soaked the roots and worked various timber parts of the canoe into place. The longest was the keel, which went from front to back and would be the backbone of the canoe. There was a handrail, cedar ribs stiffening it side to side, and cedar strips to put their feet and goods carried in the canoe on. They didn’t want anything to make a hole in the birch bark hull!

Now it was the women’s turn to work on B.B. canoe. They cut the ends to form a curve and began to sew the pieces together. B.B. felt the poke of the pointed bone awl as it made holes in the two parts to be joined, but it didn’t hurt. Then, the women wove the watap in and out through the holes. That tickled. They also sewed or tied the cedar keel, hand rail, and ribs into place with strips of thicker cedar or basswood bark. This took several days.

B. B. watched as the women brought lumps of raw balsam fir sap back to the camp. She had heard an older woman speak yesterday of scraping it from those trees and placing the sticky stuff into deerskin bags. They hung these bags high enough above the crackling fire to heat them but not so close that the bags were burned. The gum rose to the surface, leaving bits of dirt and bark in the bottom of the bag. They squeezed and stretched the gum until there was no water left and the gum looked like honey. Then, the women added tallow (fat) from the animals hunted by the men and heated the mixture in a bag again to blend it all. This they put into cold water and finally wrung all the water out of it again.

An old woman told her daughter, “This makes sure the resin doesn’t shrink or crack in cold water or melt in the hot sun, causing leaks.” Finally, the woman demonstrated how to splay the end of an ashwood stick into a brush to paint the resin onto all the seams and holes of B.B. so she would be completely watertight.

When will I be ready to go into the water? B.B. wondered.

It was early fall by the time B.B. was ready for use. Two men carried her into shallow water. Oh, how cold it was! Waves sloshed along B.B.’s sides as she slid around the sheltered bay on the northern shore of Lake Huron. Soon, the water no longer seemed so frigid. One man pointed to an island, now called Mackinac Island, asking if they should go there, but the other shook his head, and they paddled back to shore.

Her first voyages that fall were short, with women paddling her into marshes, where they gathered wild rice. B.B. enjoyed listening to the women chat with each other as they cut stalks of wild rice right at the water’s surface and piled bundles of it into B.B.’s curved bottom. Their talk, like that of women everywhere through the ages, involved which young man liked which young woman, whether or not they had gathered and dried enough berries, and now wild rice, to feed their clan through a long, cold winter, and whether the men had caught enough fish (which the women had worked hard to dry or smoke) and hunted enough meat to last the same amount of time.

It seemed to B.B. that all of the warm months had been spent preparing for the cold ones. She understood this. Did not the tree she had come from do the same thing? All the trees soaked up summer sun, warm air and rain to produce extra sweet sap, sent down for storage in their roots. In the spring, that sap would rise to feed the tree until new leaves grew from buds to make more food for the tree.

Once the rice harvest was over, snowflakes began to fall, and the first sheen of ice formed on the lake. B.B. was taken on to shore and turned over to protect her from the many blizzards of winter that would soon come. She slept all winter, just as she had when she was a tree.

One day, B.B. felt rain pouring over her, melting all the snow around. Her friend Crow returned. “No more fishing through holes in the ice for the men. It has broken up.”

New leaves formed a green veil on the trees when the men began to take her out onto Lake Huron to fish. When the leaves were nearly fully green, and white flowers with yellow centers bloomed around the camp, two men strange to the clan and to B.B. arrived with some of their southern Huron cousins. The strange men had grizzled hair on their faces and wore clothes not made from the skins of animals. Two Huron paddled the canoe with these strange men in it. They also brought things the People had never seen before.

B.B. could not hear the discussions between the Huron cousins and the leaders of her clan, but the canoe they came in was beached right next to her. “I’ve come from a place to the south and east of here,” this canoe told her. “There are many people there dressed like these two. The Huron people have been trading with them for quite a while, to the benefit of both. Now, these men want to trade with your group and others even farther away.”

“What does ‘trade’ mean?”

“Your group would give these men the furs of animals they hunt in the woods and streams, especially beaver. It seems these people really like the fur of beavers and it is sent even farther away than I have ever been. I see their huge ships on a great river far from here. These ships are many times our size and have long poles sticking up with huge white cloths. The wind blows them where they want to go. Then, these men give your group things like those I carried here for your people to see.”

The other canoe called that far-away place the St. Lawrence River. She told B.B. that she had heard that the first contact between Europeans, specifically the French-Canadians and Jesuit missionaries, and Native Peoples in the upper Great Lakes was somewhere around a year they called 1640, perhaps a generation ago.

“What are all these things you brought?” B. B. asked.

The other canoe was glad to show off her knowledge. “The metal kettles with the handles can be hung over a fire to cook food and to heat water. There are axes and knives made of iron. Your people will find them far better than their stone tools—at least the People where I come from think so. There are also beads and trinkets that the women will like.”

“But I don’t see enough goods for very many people here.”

“No, not on this trip. I heard the men say that they hope to show them to all the clans of people along these lakes. They hope to invite them to come to the opposite shore next spring, with many furs for your people to trade for all the things they want. They are hoping a couple of men from your village will go with them and introduce them to other clans.”

“What a wonderful adventure! I hope I am chosen to go with you.”

When the elders of the clan, the Huron Cousins, and the two strange men came out of the meeting lodge, everyone was smiling. The women admired the kettles, commenting on how much easier heating water and cooking would be with these. The women also admired the beads and trinkets. The men picked up the knives and axes and exclaimed about how sharp they were. The strange men invited them to try them out and talked about how many furs they should give to receive a kettle, knife or axe.

The clan chief pointed out two good men to paddle with the others and then pointed to B.B. “This is our newest and best canoe. Take it.”

B.B.’s heart nearly burst in excitement.

Early the following morning, they left the village and paddled eastward to a narrow channel between the mainland and a large island, arriving in late afternoon. They could have gone farther before dark, but there were Ojibwa villages both on the mainland and the island, inhabited by people the traders wanted to talk to.

These clans also smiled and approved of the trade goods—even speaking to each other of the greater effort they would put forth in hunting beaver between then and the following spring. The clans said they knew of the place where the big meeting would happen and would come to share in the exchange of gifts.

The next morning, they didn’t leave early, since they only planned to travel as far as Bahweting of Gitchi Gumi Sipe, where they would have to portage, or carry, the canoes along the shore around the rapids of what the fur traders would later name the St. Mary’s River. Many clans would meet there soon for a summer festival, so they would stay several days and be able to feast and talk. Other canoes full of people from their own clan would be joining them for the celebration and then return to their village, while B.B. and the same two paddlers would travel on with the traders.

Family groups arrived at the festival on different days, but nobody minded. B.B. knew that it was just after the new moon when they had arrived at the rapids. She had such a wonderful time listening to the festivities that she hoped she would be paddled to this place every summer for many years to come. The singing, dancing, and eating went on for many days. Every night, while the stars twinkled brightly above, the People sat around great fires and listened to the stories of the past.

B.B. and the other canoes also heard pleasant talk among the clans about the coming gift exchange. Men described the number of days of travel ahead for the traders and some of the dangers along the way. The traders were pleased to hear that since the clans of the Keweenaw had come to the festival that year, they could save two days travel around the point of that peninsula with the short distance they had to portage their canoes around marshes at the two ends of an inner lake.

The moon was past full on the last night of the festival. B.B. was anxious to see the huge lake, Gitchi Gumi, which lay above the river. A strong west wind blew that morning, so the group decided to stay near the shore. They camped that night at what would later be called Whitefish Point, where they would be protected from the waves building up in the wind. B.B. heard the French traders give their own name to this largest of the Great Lakes—Lac Superior—the lake above. As it turned out, they would remain in the lee, the side protected from the wind, of Whitefish Point for two days, waiting for the wind and waves to return to a safe traveling level. B.B. thought the waves were still too large, but the wind was calm now. The men said these waves were only “rollers” (large rolling waves left after a storm) and paddled on. B.B. saw how her bow cut through the top of each wave and bobbed up and down. The men were right.

It was a full day of hard paddling from there to a safe bay later named Grand Marais. There, they spoke with another clan and rested a day. The clan here said the stretch of shore ahead was sometimes dangerous, going along great sand hills and cliffs with no safe place to land if the wind and waves rose quickly. B.B. gasped when she saw those great hills of sand coming straight down; there was no place to beach a canoe. The cliffs following were even larger. They stopped briefly at the only beach. There, the People offered tobacco to the spirits of the cliffs, asking for continued safe travel. B.B. watched all around for any signs of increasing wind as they passed by colorful cliffs, one of which a Frenchman said looked like a castle. B.B. didn’t understand the word.

Once they were safely past the cliffs, another clan met them in a bay protected by a large island. This clan smiled and nodded at the talk of exchanging gifts with the French. Then, it was an easy day’s paddle to a safe place (that would later be named Presque Isle), where yet another clan welcomed them. It was such a lovely place, and B.B. wished they had stayed longer.

Their next segment would be their longest paddle yet in one day, all the way to what the French would name “L’Anse,” the end of the bay. Good weather favored them as they left during the pre-sunrise light, and they did not arrive until the post-sunset twilight, never stopping even to eat, but paddling with long, hard strokes the whole day. They could have stopped along the way in places where rivers entered Lake Superior providing safe harbors, but chose not to. A cliff at L’Anse, similar to the ones B.B. had seen a few days before—but not nearly so long—dropped off into a flat area with a sandy beach in front of a marsh. They rested a few days and had good meetings with the clans in that area. It had now been nearly one moon since they had left B. B.’s village, and the fur traders spoke well of the journey so far.

The next morning, they woke to cold, drizzling rain. The local clan’s elders warned that worse weather might be on the way. So, they decided to stay close to the eastern shore of Keweenaw Bay and got into the safety of the inner lake beyond the marshes as soon as they could. The group turned B.B. and the other canoe over so they would not fill with rainwater. She was glad to stay put for a while—heavy waves made her feel unsteady. It was a good decision, as two days of heavy rain and wind did, indeed, follow. On the third morning, the weather cleared, and they had good paddling through the inner lake. It was a quick haul around a shallow marsh and then back onto Gitchi Gumi. It was good paddling all the way to the mouth of the Ontonagon River. The Ojibwa clan there welcomed them and agreed to trade in the coming years, but at that time, they did not take the strange new men up the river to see their great secret. They did, however, send a canoe of their own to show them which islands in a group, later named the Apostle Islands, housed other clans who might like to meet them.

B.B., the men of her clan and the Frenchmen spent two days amid those lovely islands off the shore of what would later be named Bayfield, Wisconsin. One more jaunt took them to the “nose” of Lake Superior and a clan of Ojibwa in the area, now called Duluth, Minnesota. They had been traveling over a month now and decided to rest a few days. B.B. and the other canoes were glad and enjoyed listening to the discussions among the fur traders and the Ojibwa clan elders as they sat around camp fires.

“There are many more clans along the rivers up this shore,” B.B. heard, “many days more travel—first north, then east and then south again, much farther than you have already come, before you will circle back to where you began on Gitchi Gumi.”

Another added, “If you trust us, leave these trade things with us, and we will make the journey at least to the north shore at the head of the lake and as far as Lake Nipigon, telling them of the place of trade you describe.”

The Frenchmen nodded.

The following day, they began the journey back along the way they had come. Now, they paddled harder and farther each day, cutting through the middle of the Keweenaw again, but this time heading straight across the bay and beyond. They spent the nights in protected river entrances they found along the way. The weather remained good, so the journey back required only half the time of the trip west.

The home clan welcomed the travelers back after their journey. B.B. had enjoyed her long adventure, but she was glad to be home, too. The women were relieved to have their best canoe back; it was time for the rice harvest. Their Huron cousins left with the two Frenchmen two days later.

B.B. had proven that her people were experts in the art of canoe building. Her hope to be at many summer festivals came to pass. Her adventures would continue over many years for trade, fishing and wild rice harvests.

You can see a replica of Birch Bark Canoe at the Museum of Ojibwa Culture, 500 N. State St., Saint Ignace, Michigan, 49781. It is open Memorial Day to June 30, seven days a week from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; July 1 through Labor Day from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and from Labor Day to Oct. 31, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Check for any changes in hours or for tours by calling 906-643-9161 or email [email protected]. Visit www.SuperiorTapestry.com/sites for more info.

Chapter 2 – Bahweting: The Sound of the Rapids

Fig. 2-1: St. Mary’s Rapids

Photo from the Canadian side of the river during the summer of 2020. Hopefully, you can feel the force of the moving water and hear the sound.

The rivers and lake shores everywhere change over time. This is especially true for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Over millions and even billions of years, rocks were formed, broken down and turned into rocks again. Earth’s Ice Age ended 10, 000 to 12,000 years ago. Thousands of tons of ice pressed down on the surface of the whole of the peninsula. As the ice moved, it scraped away the rock underneath. Also, this was only the last Ice Age of many others that came before. After the glaciers melted, even the shores of Gitchi Gumi (Lake Superior) were not the same.

Gitchi Gumi Sipe, the rapids of the St. Mary’s River, knew this as she flowed easily, at first, from Whitefish Bay around a curve or two. But then she became shallower and dropped quickly over rocks, tumbling in a way that created great danger for any sort of boat or ship, until she deepened, smoothed out again and wound her way pleasantly down to Lake Huron. Birds flew over her, fish swam up and down her from one lake to the other, with a bit more difficulty going up. The eagles were clever fishing birds, soaring above her and then diving down to grip a fish in their talons when it swam a little too close to the surface. Smaller animals stayed on one side of her or the other; larger ones chose safer places to swim across, away from her swift rapids.

Gitchi Gumi Sipe with her Bahweting, the name of the sound of water rushing in the rapids, enjoyed thousands of years with only the wild creatures along her shores and the fish within her to keep her company, but people at last came to her shores. There were only a few at first, and then more and more as the Ojibwa People enjoyed the many fish they caught. They also made use of the plants and animals in the forests and meadows near her shores. Sometimes in the warmer seasons, many Ojibwa gathered along her shores to sing, dance and celebrate things she did not understand. She was good to them because they were good to her, respecting the rapids, where they pulled their canoes to shore. Then they walked, carrying their things to the next safe place where they could paddle again.

Often at these summer festivals, Bawhweting heard the elders tell the youngsters stories of their history. She especially liked the story of Waynaboozhoo and the Great Flood. It seemed that the Creator had grown weary of the evil of men and had decided to send a flood to destroy them all – except for one man, Waynaboozhoo, who survived by making a large raft of sticks and other things floating by. On this, he gathered a number of animals to help them survive. If he could just get some mud from the Old World, he was sure he could build a new place for them all to live. When Loon and Beaver were unable to swim down to the Old World to get a bit of mud, Waynaboozhoo asked who else would try. Bahweting heard the Ojibwa tell this tale for generations before she heard a similar story about Noah and his Ark from Jesuit missionaries who came much later.

The Aajigade, a coot (a small diving water bird), offered, but the other animals ridiculed him because he was so small. The other animals argued many hours about how to accomplish the task until it was nearly dark. Then, one of them spotted something floating and they found it was tiny Aajigde. In his beak was a tiny bit of mud. Waynaboozhoo was able to revive him and built a new land from that mud, until it was large enough for Moose to walk about on it!

Bahweting was as entertained as the youngsters sitting around the elder’s feet.

She felt these native people were quite clever in the way they caught large numbers of fish. They made nets by curving small branches into a hoop and then weaving thin roots together into a net hanging from the hoop. With these nets, they could scoop up many fish at once, feeding their clan and then hanging more to dry in the summer sun so that they might have food later.

Gradually, the number of people visiting Gitchi Gumee Sipe increased and another kind of people appeared. These people dressed differently, had lighter skin and lots of hair on their faces and their heads. They met with the people she had always known to trade or exchange gifts. They, too, had to drag their canoes onto shore and around her rapids. More and more of them came.

These new people were not content to carry only canoes around her rapids. The river heard them call her by a new name: Sault Ste. Marie—“sault” meaning “rapids” and she, as a river, called St. Mary’s River. She watched as these light-skinned people presented the Ojibwa with goods—blankets, metal cooking pots, iron tools and other things—they brought from somewhere she did not know. The native people had not been able to make such things from the forest products or animals living there. They had used stones, and sometimes bits of hammered red metal, as they had for hundreds of years, but these things were of much better quality. In exchange, the Ojibwa gave them the furs of animals they hunted in the forests, streams and marshes.

After several years of this trade, a few of the new people—who were dressed even more strangely—arrived. The first, whose name the river did not catch, did not stay long the first year. The river listened as these men in black robes described their religion and tried to persuade the Ojibwa to worship with them. From what Bahweting noticed, the Ojibwa seemed more curious than convinced.

It was some years later, in 1668 (but the river didn’t keep track of such things), when three more of these black-robed men arrived. She heard the People call them Claude-Jean Allouez, Claude Dablon, and Jacque Marquette. These men lived with the people, learned their language and tried to help them in many ways. Sometimes, the river watched canoes carry one or two of them over the water to other places she knew not.

Bahweting watched and listened when, in the summer of the human year 1674, a huge number of Ojibwa and French fur traders met to talk and celebrate with great feasts. The river noted that they seemed well pleased with their trading—the Ojibwa liked the improved tools and goods the French brought. The French wanted more and more of the furs of animals that the Ojibwa got for them. More of the men in black robes came, too, and stayed with the Ojibwa people longer and longer. She heard the men in black robes tell the Ojibwa that they should not drink so much of the alcohol the traders gave them in exchange for furs.

More new people came in canoes that were more than twice the size of the native ones, so strong they could be paddled faster, farther and with more in them than ever before. But it took six people to carry the heavier new canoes around Bahweting. They built carts and wagons with wheels to transport more and more bundles of fur, boxes, crates and barrels. They built houses, where they lived all year, not just gathering for summer festivals and then returning to their home villages as the Ojibwa people did. These houses were much bigger than the domed huts built of straight branches covered with bark the river was used to seeing.

Bahweting remained curious but was not sure if she liked these new people. They always wanted more than what they had and seemed to have less patience with her. Over the following years, they began to build ships on the upper side of her rapids, carrying their freight from one ship on the lower end around the rapids to a ship on the upper end. This satisfied them, but only for a time.

They portaged whole ships uphill. She watched and laughed a little, as they greased roads and used capstans—something like a large, upright pulley with a rod inserted to turn it—to pull that huge water craft with ropes, rolling it over logs, pushing, pushing, pulling, pulling, sweating and grunting to move it around her impassable rapids. It took them three months to move one ship that way. It was the beginning of a fleet of ships on the Lake Superior side of Bahweting to make shipping possible once goods were carried around her.

But these people wanted more. On her eastern side, which she heard them call Canada, they dug a canal around Bahweting. Within the canal, they built a thing strange to her. It was a long, rectangular hole with a gate at each end. They filled it with water and called it a lock. She heard them speak of the year 1797.

Their main idea was to close the gates at each end, pump the water out of the hole to the level of the lower part of the river, have a ship enter, close the gate and pump water in to float the ship up, then open the upper gate so the ship could power its way through the upper part of the river into Lake Superior. For a ship coming down the river, they closed the gates, filled the giant hole with water, opened the upper gate so the ship could enter, drained the water and finally opened the lower gate so the ship could go downstream. The river was in some ways proud of the way they kept working at solving their problem with her rapids. This very first lock around Bahweting allowed for a ship just under thirty-eight feet long to pass more easily and in much less time than ever before.

But in less than fifteen years, the groups of light-skinned people were fighting against each other—Bahweting didn’t know the reason—but a small group of men from the American side destroyed that lock so that it could not be used by people called British on the Canadian side. Following that time, the Northwest Fur Company moved a few more ships, using the roller method to increase the number of ships sailing Lake Superior, whose gales and rocks sank many ships over the years. There were so many trading companies that the river stopped trying to remember all the names she heard.