Alger County Historical Timeline

Ten thousand years ago, as the last ice age glaciers receded north, small groups of Paleo-Indians wandered over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They were probably following animal prey, just as waves of their predecessors; beginning twenty thousand years before, had followed dinner over the Siberian Ice Bridge and down the North American continent’s west coast.

The retreating glaciers formed the Great Lakes, redirected rivers, created moraines, and expanded the inhabitable landscape. The Paleo-Indians receded into oblivion. As the land rebounded from the weighty oppression of the glaciers, the Upper Peninsula began to take on its more modern manifestations. The world was changing, large lakes became chains of many smaller lakes, rivers changed courses and drainage was blocked, forming swamps. Like the ever expanding universe, the land continued to expand. Alger County had begun.

Four thousand years later the semi-nomadic Archaic people began to inhabit Alger County. They traded with other small bands; items such as flint, beads, furs, women, copper blades and copper arrow heads. Some groups had found native copper in the Keweenaw, and recognized its practicality. They beat it into useful forms and even annealed it; and what they didn’t use they traded. The Archaic people recognized the immediate utility of the metal but failed to make the leap that would take them into the Bronze Age. Like so many of us, when we are satisfied with the status quo, we fail to recognize the potential for what might be. Only few are blessed with this ability. The Archaic people drifted off into extinction.

From the south, the Adena and Hopewell cultures of Woodland hunters and gathers moved across the Upper Peninsula. Their trading was extensive, their artifacts and influence went from coast to coast. These Woodlands peoples were the ancestors of the major Indian groups who would inhabit the area: the Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Potawatomi, Ottawa, Ojibwa, Chippewa and Menominee.

When the Europeans met these tribes, both were changed forever. The first European explorers, the Vikings, came ashore in Newfoundland about 1000 A.D. Five hundred years later, many from the Old World were seeking new wealth by heading west at different latitudes.. The French in the north. the Spaniards in the south and the British in the middle. The Spanish had little effect on the Upper Peninsula. Spain had no settlements this far north except for a short occupation, by a small raiding party, of Fort St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan, during the American Revolution. The world was continuing its expansion.

From 1534-1541 Jacques Cartier made three voyages west, sailing past Newfoundland and up the St. Lawrence River. Cartier visited the native villages at Stodocona, now Quebec City and later Hochelaga, now Montreal.

In 1608, about the same time that the English were trying to establish Jamestown, Virginia, Samuel de Champlain was establishing present day Quebec City. Champlain proceeded to follow the Ottawa River to the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. By 1622, Champlain had sent Etienne Brule into the wilderness. Moving with various native people, Brule explored as far west as Duluth. Brule went native and by 1632 was clubbed to death and some say eaten by his traveling companions. Jean Nicolet traversed Lakes Huron and Michigan to Green Bay, where he went ashore expecting to meet the Chinese emperors. Joliet discovered Lake Erie in 1669 then joined with a small, frail Jesuit priest, Pere Marquette. Father Marquette had already been to the western end of Lake Superior following Father Claude Jean Allouez. Together, Joliet and Father Marquette explored west to the Mississippi River and down to the mouth of the Arkansas River. The trip was too much for the frail Pere Marquette and while trying to return, he died, somewhere along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. LaSalle followed with his grand dreams of wealth from the fur trade. Cadillac introduced a new message for the French; “establish a permanent settlement”. So in 1701 a town was founded at the narrows of the major river draining Lake St. Clair. Detroit was founded.

These men, save Pere Marquette, were all motivated by the search for access to the east and its wealth or the wealth from the fur trade. The real champions of this era of exploration were the Jesuit fathers, the Black Robes as they were known. These zealous men, motivated by nothing more than their deep faith and belief in bringing education and Jesus to the native people, walked into the wilderness. Armed only with their faith, they followed the native people. They suffered the same privations; hunger, cold and sickness. Many died or where killed by the inhabitants. All this for the hope of one or two conversions to the faith.

The fur trade would last for nearly a century, but the faith the Black Ropes brought to Alger County, endures.

Following the early explorers and the Jesuit priests, more and more Europeans found their way to Alger County. First were the couriers du Bois, the adventurous, independent contractors, trading for furs and trapping the area for themselves. These men were replaced by the company men, first the French, then the English. It was of little interest to the local Ojibwa with whom they traded.

Wars were being fought in the south and east between the French and the English, then the English and the Americans over who would possess the Ojibwa lands; the Ojibwa were not consulted. They were first recruited by the French to fight the British, and then the British had induced some of the Ojibwa bands to fight the Americans. The Ojibwa had a penchant for joining the losing side.

Some European settlers came, cleared small parcels of land, and built cabins, planted seed and roots in Alger County. Once again the semi-nomadic Ojibwa were not consulted.

The white man’s culture supplanted the Ojibwa culture. Adapt or move on was their choice, but by the mid 1800’s the white wave had swept westward south of the Upper Peninsula, leaving no place to move. The choice had been made for the Ojibwa; their culture had ended with a “whimper not a bang”. The once semi-nomadic bands of Ojibwa/Chippewa, hunters and fishermen, still exist as the proprietors of the local casinos.