Anishnabeg or Ojibwa people have lived in this area for thousands of years, and the Pictured Rocks cliffs have great spiritual significance as a place where the Manitous reside. Miners Castle was named in 1771 by employees of the Englishman Alexander Henry while they were exploring the area for minerals. It was prominently featured in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem based on the history of the local Anishnabeg people as recounted in Henry Schoolcraft's Algic Researches. Since the 1940s, commercial boat tours have passed the Castle on a 2.5 hour cruise that continues east to Chapel Beach. To geologists, Miners Castle reveals the history of the earth at the distant edge of the Michigan Basin, and the Pictured Rocks escarpment is one of the primary landscape features along the entire south shore of Lake Superior.